Sitting of 18 May 1960

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

    Advertisements
    Mr. F. Noel-Bakerasked the Postmaster-General when he will consider the Report of the Advertising Advisory Committee of the Independent Television Authority regarding misleading advertisements, which include substitute products; and what action he proposes to take, in consultation with the Authority, under Section 4 (5) of the Television Act, 1954.
    The Postmaster-General (Mr. Reginald Bevins): The Independent Television Authority tells me that its Advertising Advisory Committee has advised it that, because of the technical limitations of the medium, it is sometimes necessary to take special measures to achieve verisimilitude in the reproduction of products; and that the use of special methods of reproduction and demonstration to overcome these technical limitations is not in itself unjustifiable. It emphasises, however, that the resultant picture should be fair and reasonable and not such as to mislead viewers about the quality of the product or its effects.
    The Independent Television Authority has accepted that advice. In view of the Authority's insistence that the picture should not mislead, I do not propose to issue any directions.
    Mr. Noel-Baker: Am I right in understanding from the right hon. Gentleman's answer that in many cases the picture on the screen is something entirely different from the product alleged to be advertised to the public? Is he aware that the I.T.A.'s code of principles lays it down that
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    "No advertisement shall contain any visual presentation of the product or service advertised which, directly or by implication, misleads."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th March, 1960; Vol. 619, c. 407.]
    Is the right hon. Gentleman really satisfied with this extraordinary situation? Will he answer my Question, which asked when he will study this Report? He told us on 16th March that he personally would consider it. Has he done so, and what conclusion has he reached? Will he allow Members to see the Report?
    Mr. Bevins: It is the duty of I.T.A. to comply with the recommendations of its Advertising Advisory Committee, and it is saying to me that although certain special methods of reproduction and demonstration are in themselves desirable for technical reasons, it is proposing to insist that the picture should always be fair and not such as to mislead. If I felt at any time that advertisements on I.T.V. contravened that understanding, I should naturally reconsider taking action under the Act.
    Mr. Ness Edwards: Is it not the case that when one fabricates the result it is not the real result? In that sense, is it not misleading? Will the right hon. Gentleman place this Report in the Library of the House so that Members may examine it?
    Mr. Bevins: I do not think that this is a question of fabricating a result. It may be justifiable, on occasion, to fabricate the means, provided that the result is an honest one. I do not think it would be right to place a copy of the Report in the Library. It was made by the Advisory Committee to the I.T.A. and not to me.
    Mr. Noel-Baker: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I shall seek an early opportunity of raising this matter on the Adjournment.

    Reception, Weardale and Teesdale
    Mr. Ainsleyasked the Postmaster-General what further consultations have taken place on the television reception in the Weardale and Teesdale area, County Durham, with the object of improving reception.
    Mr. Bevins: The B.B.C. tell me it will be considering what can be done to improve television reception in Weardale

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    and Teesdale when it plans later stages of its satellite proposals. The I.T.A. also knows that reception is difficult in some parts of this area, but it is not yet in a position to make firm plans for filling in gaps in its coverage.
    Mr. Ainsley: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that that is a most unsatisfactory Answer, because I received the same reply last year? Will not he give some semblance of social justice to these people? Will he approach his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer and ask him to remove the annual fee, because these people are paying private enterprise in order to get some semblance of a picture? Will not the right hon. Gentleman remove this social injustice as quickly as possible?
    Mr. Bevins: I cannot give the hon. Member an affirmative answer to the last part of his question. I do, however, realise the difficulties in that part of the country, and so, indeed, do the B.B.C. and the I.T.A. What is needed, both in Weardale and in Teesdale—this is the view of the B.B.C—is low-powered translators, which I am assured by the B.B.C. it has in mind for the third stage of its satellite programme.

    Future
    Mr. Ness Edwardsasked the Postmaster-General if he will now state the terms of reference of, and the persons appointed to, the committee to examine the future of broadcasting.
    Mr. Pitmanasked the Postmaster-General when he expects to announce the formation and terms of reference of the committee on the future of broadcasting.
    Mr. Bevins: I am sorry I cannot add to the Answers I gave to the right hon. Gentleman the member for Caerphilly (Mr. Ness Edwards) last week.
    Mr. Ness Edwards: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that, whilst we appreciate his difficulty in finding persons for the committee, that does not prevent him telling the House the terms of reference or constitution of the committee? Will he try to be a little more forthcoming with the House in this important matter?
    Mr. Bevins: If I were to add to what I have said, it would not promote the object that the right hon. Gentleman has in mind. Therefore, I prefer to say no more.

    Television Advisory Committee (Report)
    Mr. Ness Edwardsasked the Postmaster-General when he now expects to receive and publish the report of the Television Advisory Committee on lineage, colour, and the future use of available channels in Bands III, IV and V.
    Mr. Bevins: I am glad to say that I have today received the Report of the Television Advisory Committee and I should like to take this opportunity of publicly thanking the Chairman, Admiral Sir Charles Daniel, and his colleagues for all the work they have put into it. In view of the general interest of hon. and right hon. Members in this Report, I have already asked for it to be printed as rapidly as possible and I will send each hon. Member a copy so that they may study at leisure the highly technical matters with which it deals.

    Western Isles
    Mr. Malcolm MacMillanasked the Postmaster-General whether he has now decided when he will authorise the expenditure by the British Broadcasting Corporation of the money for provision of television and very high-frequency broadcasting services in the Western Isles; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Bevins: I have been considering the B.B.C.'s plans for the second stage of their satellite station scheme and I expect to be able to say something about them very shortly.
    Mr. MacMillan: May I thank the right hon. Gentleman for introducing a new note of hope into the reply which we have been getting for the last few years that we could not be given any sort of starting date? Can the right hon. Gentleman give any estimate—for example, whether it will be 1961 or 1962 —so that the B.B.C. can do what it wants to do, that is, plan ahead and order equipment?
    Mr. Bevins: I hope to make a full statement on the matter later this week, when I think the hon. Member and his Scottish friends will be pleased by what I say.

  POST OFFICE

    Charitable Journals (Postage)
    Mr. Collardasked the Postmaster-General if he will consider a reduction in the postage rates for the official journals of charitable organisations.
    The Assistant Postmaster-General (Miss Mervyn Pike): Much as I sympathise with the object of these organisations, I am sorry I cannot reduce the postage rates exceptionally for their official journals.
    Mr. Collard: Is my hon. Friend aware that one of these charitable organisations, the Royal Air Forces Association, has to spend about £4,000 a year on postage in order to keep in touch with its members by means of its journal? Does not she agree that this is a very heavy burden?
    Miss Pike: I appreciate the burdens upon such organisations, but we have to consider that the printed paper post is already running at a loss of about £1·8 million a year and the newspaper post at about £1·3 million. Even if I thought these postal concessions desirable, we just could not afford them.

    Sub-Office, Old Catton
    Mr. Collardasked the Postmaster General if he will authorise the establishment of a sub-post office in the parish of Old Catton, near Norwich.
    Miss Pike: I have considered this matter carefully, but I am sorry that I should not be justified at present in doing as my hon. Friend asks.
    Mr. Collard: Is my hon. Friend aware that the ancient parish of Old Catton has about 2,000 inhabitants and that this number is increasing? Is she further aware that the nearest post office is a mile away and not on a bus route, that the fare to the nearest post office on a bus route is 10d. return. Will she, therefore, look at this again?
    Miss Pike: The part of the parish of Old Catton concerned in this Question contains only 339 houses, with a population of 850 and only one shop. In the other part of Old Catton, to the south, there is a sub-post office. There is also a sub-post office at Catton Grove, which is three-quarters of a mile away, and there is a good bus service into Norwich, where most people have to do their shopping. I have gone into this question very carefully, but I cannot accede to my hon. Friend's request.

    Facilities, Congleton
    Sir A. V. Harveyasked the Postmaster-General what steps he is taking to improve the postal service to Congleton, Cheshire, details of which have been sent to him.
    Miss Pike: I am taking all possible steps to eliminate the causes of delay. In particular, parcel mails from Mount Pleasant, London, to Congleton have recently been re-routed in an effort to avoid delays in transmission by rail. I am writing to my hon. Friend about the individual cases to which he has drawn my attention.
    Sir A. V. Harvey: While thanking my hon. Friend for that reply, may I ask her whether she is aware that letters travelling four miles from Congleton to Biddulph take about 36 hours via Macclesfield and cover a distance of 30 to 40 miles? While there has been an improvement, it has taken place only since this matter was ventilated in the Congleton Chronicle when the Question was tabled. Will my hon. Friend try to improve on this service to facilitate local business?
    Miss Pike: We have gone into the question thoroughly. The transfer from the sorting office to Macclesfield head office will improve the service, in addition to the improvement I have mentioned in re-routeing the mails from Mount Pleasant.

    Telegrams (Prosecutions)
    Mr. Liptonasked the Postmaster-General how many prosecutions have been instituted during the past year

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    under Section 66 (b) of the Post Office Act, 1953, which prohibits the sending of false telegrams for the purpose of causing annoyance.
    Mr. Bevins: None, Sir.
    Mr. Lipton: Does that Answer mean that the Postmaster-General has decided not to institute proceedings concerning the false telegram about which evidence was given by a G.P.O. investigator and others in the recent case of MacPherson v. the Duchess of Argyll? Is not he aware that this matter has been before the Post Office since 1957, when the complaint was originally made?
    Mr. Bevins: I did not prosecute the sender of this telegram for two reasons. First, under the Act, a prosecution has to be launched within 12 months of the date of the offence, and I was not Postmaster-General in 1958. Secondly, even if I had been in my present office, I should not have known who to prosecute because the Post Office did not know who the sender of the telegram was.

    Sub-Office, Penge
    Mr. Goodhartasked the Postmaster-General whether he will reconsider the proposal to close the sub-post office at 45 High Street, Penge, S.E.20, following the opening of a new Crown Office in the centre of Penge, in view of the widespread desire of the public that this sub-post office should not close.
    Miss Pike: This sub-post office is rather less than 400 yards from the site of the new Crown Office, and I am sorry I should not be justified in keeping it open.
    Mr. Goodhart: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the consideration she has given to this problem, but in view of the large public interest in the matter lately, will she consider postponing the closure of this sub-post office for six months to see whether there is sufficient business to justify keeping both of the offices open?
    Miss Pike: My hon. Friend has discussed this matter with me fully and I appreciate his determination to leave no stone unturned. For the reasons I have already given him, however, I am afraid that I cannot accede to his request.

    Offices (Sunday Opening)
    Mr. Sorensenasked the Postmaster-General what is his policy in respect of the opening of post offices on Sunday mornings; and if he has considered the desirability of opening a post office in the borough of Leyton during such time, particularly in view of the recent Sunday morning closure of the post office in the adjacent borough of Walthamstow.
    Miss Pike: Post offices are to be kept open on Sunday only where the expense involved is justified by the use people make of them for transactions which cannot be carried out elsewhere. Very few people used the Walthamstow office except to buy stamps; and, as these can be obtained from machines, it was decided to close the office last October. Telegrams can, of course, be dictated from any telephone kiosk. I feel sure that circumstances in Leyton are much the same as in Walthamstow, and that I should not be justified in opening an office there on Sunday.
    Mr. Sorensen: Why did the Walthamstow post office remain open for so long before it was at last closed down? Was it because it was paying its way until that date? If not, what was the sudden reason for the decision to close the office in view of the fact that it had served the district for so long?
    Miss Pike: The policy is to keep offices open where justified. This one was kept open so that we could test whether there was justification for keeping it open. The Sunday business at Walthamstow was falling away rapidly, however, and the average business was one telegram, 35 stamps, three or four registered letters, three or four savings withdrawals, and so on. In view of these figures, we decided that we must close the office.

    Buildings and Property (Renovation)
    Mr. Sorensenasked the Postmaster-General to what extent the Post Office engages in renovating its buildings and property by its own employees, by arrangement with the Ministry of Works and by private contract, respectively.
    Miss Pike: Electrical and heating work apart, the amount of renovation done by Post Office employees is negligible. Renovation of Post Office buildings and property is undertaken in the

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    main by the Ministry of Works, but some of the smaller jobs, such as work on unattended telephone exchange buildings, and repainting of letter boxes, are let directly to private contractors.
    Mr. Sorensen: Is there any kind of liaison between the Ministry of Works and the Post Office in view of the fact that sometimes, apparently, the Ministry of Works does not perform its task to the satisfaction either of the Post Office or the general public?
    Miss Pike: I assure the hon. Member that in general there is very close liaison between the Ministry of Works and the Post Office.
    Mr. Mason: Can the hon. Lady inform the House how much private work was introduced into the Post Office during the tenure of her right hon. Friend's predecessor?
    Miss Pike: I cannot give figures. It would be difficult to ascertain the proportion of private and Ministry of Works building work. The share of the Ministry of Works is, of course, very much the larger.

    Purchases (Scotland)
    Mr. Hannanasked the Postmaster-General what proportion of Post Office uniforms in terms of price is purchased in Scotland; and what was the relevant proportion in 1950.
    Miss Pike: 8 per cent. in 1959–60 and 5 per cent. in 1950–51.
    Mr. Hannan: Will the hon. Lady bear in mind that, since private enterprise and the Government generally seem unwilling to induce private enterprise to come to Scotland to provide employment, she and her Department could influence expenditure in this way to take up the slack in that part of the United Kingdom?
    Miss Pike: I should like to remind the hon. Gentleman that an increased share to Scottish firms for the supply of uniforms is largely due to the efforts of the Post Office to stimulate tenders.
    Mr. Lawsonasked the Postmaster-General what proportion of Post Office telephone and electrical equipment, including cables, is purchased in Scotland; and how this proportion compares with similar purchases in 1950.
    Mr. Bevins: About ½ per cent. in 1959–60 and 1 per cent. in 1950–51.
    Mr. Lawson: Does this not show that the trend indicated by the earlier Answer has certainly not been borne out in the much more important matter of developing modern industries? Would he not use his Department's buying power to see that Scotland gets a share of this very important electrical and cable business?
    Mr. Bevins: I should be delighted to if there were suppliers of this equipment in Scotland, but the fact is that Scotland has got very few indeed. I should like to make it perfectly clear that where the Post Office can help in giving contracts to Scottish firms we do so—for instance, the cable ship which is being built on the Clyde.

    Research (Scotland)
    Mr. J. Hillasked the Postmaster-General which of the Post Office Research Establishments are established in Scotland; and what proportion of the cost of Post Office research is spent in Scotland.
    Mr. Bevins: Post Office research is centred at Dollis Hill. There are a few small outstations but none is in Scotland.

    Youths (Training)
    Mr. Gourlayasked the Postmaster-General what was the number of youths in training for Post Office work in the United Kingdom; what percentage of these was being trained in Scotland; and how this percentage compares with the similar percentage for 1950.
    Miss Pike: The figures were, respectively: 1,657: 5 per cent. and 10 per cent.
    Mr. Gourlay: While thanking the hon. Lady for that reply, may I ask whether she does not feel that her Department could do much more to alleviate the gross unemployment of youth in Scotland?
    Miss Pike: Over the last five years the figures of adult and juvenile labour in Scotland have remained fairly steady. Recruitment is, however, expected to increase in the next year or so.
    Mr. G. Campbell: Can my hon. Friend say whether the decision to bring the Transatlantic cable into Britain via Oban

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    is providing or will provide any more employment in that area or in Scotland generally?
    Miss Pike: Yes, I am glad to say that in this instance we shall be employing more Scottish craftsmen, but hon. Members will realise that the amount of labour which is actually employed at the terminal centre is. of course, very small.

  TELEPHONE SERVICE

    Party Lines (St. Marylebone)
    Sir W. Wakefieldasked the Postmaster-General by what date he estimates that there will no longer be a need for telephone subscribers in the St. Marylebone area to share a party line with another subscriber.
    Mr. Bevins: The cable system is being steadily expanded in Marylebone and elsewhere, but I cannot say when there will be sufficient cables to make sharing unnecessary. I should like everyone to have the kind of telephone service he wants, and I am only sorry that this is not possible at present. My ability to do this depends on the capital resources available for the development of the system and the rate at which new applications are received.
    Sir W. Wakefield: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that it is unsatisfactory that he cannot give a definite date when shared lines will no longer be possible? Surely he knows what his programme of expansion is and the likely increase of subscribers. Will not he try to make an effort to give the information so Chat subscribers in St. Marylebone may know when they no longer need to share a party line?
    Mr. Bevins: The proportion of people in my hon. Friend's constituency who have party lines is very much smaller than in the rest of the country, but I assure my hon. Friend that I am by no means complacent about this matter. I want to see the telephone system expanded, as it ought to be.

    Boxmoor Exchange
    Mr. Allasonasked the Postmaster-General when he expects to convert the Boxmoor telephone exchange to automatic operation; and by what means the conversion can be speeded up.
    Mr. Bevins: I expect the conversion to take place in 1964. A new building is required, and discussions are proceeding with the local planning authority. I do not think that I can undertake to convert the exchange before 1964, but, as I have already told my hon. Friend, I will do so if I can.
    Mr. Allason: Could not my right hon. Friend take a commercial view of this matter? I thought that he had been freed from Treasury control. A very large number of firms in the new town of Hemel Hempstead are in desperate need of an efficient telephone service, which they had when they were in London. What is needed is an expansion of the facilities and equipment. Surely no private enterprise firm would go to its customers and say, "We cannot give you the service you want for a further four years".
    Mr. Bevins: The shortage of junctions has been largely overcome by the provision of additional junctions. As my hon. Friend said, it is perfectly true that we are to make a more commercial approach to the Posit Office, but when he has been in this place a little longer he will realise that there are many components to government.

    Subscribers (Overcharging)
    Mr. W. Edwardsasked the Postmaster-General if he is aware of the large number of cases where charges for trunk calls which have not been made are demanded from telephone subscribers; if he is satisfied that the telephone subscriber is adequately protected from over-payment under the present system; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Bevins: My experience does not support the first part of the hon. Member's Question. Though errors sometimes occur, sample checks of callers' numbers show that the proportion of calls wrongly booked is very small, and when they come to notice they are carefully investigated. If the hon. Member has any particular case in mind, I will be very glad to make enquiry.
    Mr. Edwards: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the case I have in mind is my own case in connection with two telephones for which I am financially responsible? In both accounts charges were made for trunk calls which I had

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    never made. Does not the right hon. Gentleman consider that the telephone subscriber who is liable to be charged for calls made by other people should be protected by his Department? Judging from his reply, it would appear that he is doing nothing about the matter. If it can happen to me twice, surely it can happen to all telephone subscribers. Will the right hon. Gentleman do something about it?
    Mr. Bevins: I hope that the incorrect charges to the hon. Gentleman have been waived by the Post Office. I ought to tell him, however, that we make regular checks on these calls in about 10 per cent. of the cases, and our investigations show that incorrect charges are made in about one case in 8,000. Having said that, I admit that the present system is by no means foolproof, and the more rapidly we can move over to subscriber trunk dialling, which will minimise the liability to error, the better.
    Mr. Ness Edwards: Has the right hon. Gentleman considered the very interesting experiment being conducted by his predecessor, and about which he told the House, of installing in subscribers' homes a machine automatically to register the calls so that there is an adequate check against the charges? What has happened to that?
    Mr. Bevins: I am deeply grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that suggestion. I will certainly have a look at it.

    Services
    Mr. Lindsayasked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware of the widespread dissatisfaction with the British telephone service, in particular with the time it takes to obtain a directory inquiry, a trunk call and a subsequent disconnection; and if he will make a statement on his long-term plans to improve these services, with estimates of the time it will take to effect the various improvements.
    Mr. Bevins: In most parts of the country the service is, I believe, very good. There are some places where, because of shortage of staff, buildings or equipment, the quality of service is not as good as I would wish. In these places we are doing what we can to bring about an improvement.
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    As regards the latter part of the Question, I would refer my hon. Friend to the plans described in the White Papers of November, 1957, on Telephone Policy, and March, 1960, on Post Office Capital Expenditure in 1960–61.
    Mr. Lindsay: Will my right hon. Friend accept that the British telephone service is a disgrace to a modern country, and will he do something about it?
    Mr. Bevins: I certainly do not accept that very sweeping generalisation, but, on the other hand, I am perfectly willing to concede that in the Birmingham area, where there has been an immense new demand for a telephone service during the last year or two, the situation is not as good as it ought to be. As I indicated, I am doing what I can to improve it.
    Mr. Lindsay: It is just as bad in London.

    Subscriber Trunk Dialling
    Mr. Masonasked the Postmaster-General what progress is being made in the inauguration of subscriber trunk dialling; and whether he is satisfied that his target for 1960 will be achieved.
    Mr. Bevins: Three centres now have S.T.D. and two more will have it in the next few weeks. I hope that we shall generally achieve our target of 40 places by the end of 1960. Since the 1957 White Paper the long-term programme has been speeded up so that 60 per cent. of users will have S.T.D. within five years and 90 per cent. within ten years.
    Mr. Mason: In view of this rapid development of S.T.D., will the right hon. Gentleman agree that as we are to have a cheaper service with greater efficiency because of subscriber trunk dialling, it is absolutely necessary at this stage to have more advertisements to try to attract more people to use the telephone?
    Mr. Bevins: Yes, Sir. That is one of many matters that I am examining.

    Information Service
    Mr. Masonasked the Postmaster-General to what extent the telephone information service, specially provided

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    in London to give details of daily events to tourists, has proved a success.
    Mr. Bevins: This service, which gives a diary of events in English, French and German, has been well received. About 1,000 calls are made to it each day.
    Mr. Mason: Will the right hon. Gentleman take steps to make this service more widely known and, in particular, consider the suggestion that a display card should be prepared to be put in London hotels so that tourists can take immediate advantage of it?
    Mr. Bevins: I entirely agree with the hon. Member that this service does not have the publicity which it should. I am considering that suggestion. I will see that an advertisement is put in the opening pages of the London telephone directory and, in addition, we will use other media.

    Kiosks, Western Isles
    Mr. Malcolm MacMillanasked the Postmaster-General how many requests he has had for provision of public telephone kiosks in the Western Isles in the past two years; how many have been agreed; and how many have been refused.
    Mr. Bevins: Twenty-four requests have been received and eight have been met. In five other places a telephone is being provided on a rental basis in an individual house.
    Mr. MacMillan: Does not the Postmaster-General think that it is somewhat shabby to have to resort to the device of obtaining a community service by getting an individual to apply for it and then to get his neighbours and himself to share the rent? Would it not be much better simply to face the need for community service in these areas and to provide it?
    Mr. Bevins: The Western Isles are not doing too badly. Altogether, they have about 170 telephone kiosks. I recognise that social needs come into this matter, but, at the same time, I have to bear in mind that the Post Office is losing about £3½ million a year on public telephone kiosks. Where it is possible to assist small local communities by putting a telephone in an individual house, that helps.

  ROYAL AIR FORCE

    Fylingdales Early-Warning Station
    Mr. Dribergasked the Secretary of State for Air what will be the size of the three large balls which are to form part of the Fylingdales early-warning station.
    The Secretary of State for Air (Mr. George Ward): They will be 140 ft. in diameter.
    Mr. Driberg: Was the right hon. Gentleman entirely serious when he seemed to think it possible to landscape such gigantic balls so that they would harmonise with their natural surroundings? Would it not be better to leave them stark and white, as an interesting example, perhaps, of functional architecture, with a certain macabre beauty of their own, and as an appropriate symbol of the general insanity in which we are involved?
    Mr. Ward: As I told the hon. Gentleman last week, we are, of course, taking the advice in this matter of an expert landscape consultant.
    Mr. Chetwynd: Would the Secretary of State deny that the erection of these three brass balls is a visible sign that we are in pawn to Uncle Sam in this part of the National Park?
    Mr. Ward: I know that some hon. Gentlemen on the opposite side would like to blackball the whole project, but personally I think it is a very useful one.

    Education Facilities, Aden
    Mr. Swinglerasked the Secretary of State for Air (1) what progress has been made in the provision of new school accommodation for the children of Royal Air Force parents at Aden; and when he expects to be able to provide all the children with school places.
    (2) in how many cases he is still unable to provide school places for the children of Royal Air Force parents at Aden; what educational provision is being made for these children; and what help has been given by his Department.
    Mr. Ward: Work on the new school at Khormaksar is well advanced, and part of it is already in use. As I told

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    the hon. Member on 16th December, it should be completed early next year. Meanwhile my Department is paying fees for 121 children at civilian schools. No children are without school places.
    Mr. Swingler: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that on several occasions he has said recently, and as recently as the Air Estimates debate, that he is going to move very rapidly on this project? Does he recall that this very long delay has put it three or four years behind and that it is really a disgrace that 120 children still cannot be accommodated who should be accommodated by his Department? Therefore, will not he do something to urge this project on more rapidly?
    Mr. Ward: On the contrary, this new school is making excellent progress. Certainly, during the Air Estimates debate I gave this date of early next year, and that is still the date. As to the delay which the hon. Gentleman has alleged to have taken place, I have explained to him several times the various factors which have complicated the schools problem in Aden. I hope Chat he will be glad to hear that we are now making good progress.
    Mr. de Freitas: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the payment of school fees does not answer the main and most serious problem, that there is an obligation to Service families sent abroad to provide places for the education of their children without swamping the limited local facilities provided by the Colonial Government for a quite different purpose?
    Mr. Ward: We are doing our best to provide places for everybody. As I said, this should be by early next year. The hon. Gentleman knows very well that the population of Aden has increased so rapidly that it is physically impossible to keep pace and build all the school places we need.
    Mr. Swingler: Will the right hon. Gentleman not run away from the fact— I do not want to recall the Question I asked in 1956—that this school accommodation was definitely promised by his Department for the year 1957 and that by the time that these children are accommodated it will in fact be 1961?
    Mr. Ward: The plan which was originally designed to be finished in 1957
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    was a quite different and much smaller plan. Since then the population of Aden has increased so rapidly that we have had to alter the plan twice since then.

  ROADS

    Shrewsbury By-pass
    Mr. Langford-Holtasked the Minister of Transport, in view of his repeated refusal to include in his programme the construction of the north-south by-pass at Shrewsbury, whether he will authorise the Shrewsbury Borough Council to proceed with a road between Monkmoor Road and Ditherington as a classified road.
    The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. John Hay): Since we cannot include the whole by-pass in the programme for some time, we are now considering whether we can include a scheme for a shorter by-pass, part of which would lie between Monk-moor and Ditherington. I am at present unable to say how soon funds might be found either for this or for the less attractive proposal of building only the section between Monkmoor and Ditherington as a classified road scheme.
    Mr. Langford-Holt: Would my hon. Friend bear in mind that at Shrewsbury, due to its peculiar geographical position, a large proportion of the traffic which approaches the town is funnelled through the town by the river, and that there is no short solution to this except by the selection of one of these two roads?
    Mr. Hay: Yes, that is why we are hoping to provide the interim by-pass to which I referred.

    Pedestrian Crossings
    Mr. Fernyhoughasked the Minister of Transport how many applications by local authorities for permission to install pedestrian crossings have been turned down by his Department over the last five years.
    Mr. Hay: About 950.
    Mr. Fernyhough: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that his right hon. Friend took part in a broadcast on 30th April and said:
    "It is no good writing to me about parking problems and pedestrian crossings. Why should I think that I could control all these things

    1265
    from the centre? It is absolute nonsense to think Whitehall can control matters needing detailed local knowledge. That is the job of the town hall."?
    Did the right hon. Gentleman mislead the public of this country when he said that? Is it not true that he turned down hundreds of local authority applications for the constructing of pedestrian crossings? Will the Minister be a little more careful, when next he takes part in a broadcast, not to use such misleading language?
    Mr. Hay: To turn down 950 applications over five years is an annual rate of about 200 a year.
    Mr. Manuel: Too many.
    Mr. Hay: In the period no fewer than 1,149 new crossings were approved.
    Mr. Fernyhough: Can the hon. Gentleman explain why his right hon. Friend said that it was no use writing to him about the lack of pedestrian crossings when it is the right hon. Gentleman who has the power to say yes or no?
    Mr. Hay: Simply because I was asked in the original Question to say how many pedestrian crossing applications had been turned down. If the hon. Member wants to ask me what my right hon. Friend said, he is barking up the wrong tree.
    Mr. Benn: Is it not clear from the figures given that the Ministry of Transport turned down only slightly fewer than the number it approved? Would it not be very wrong for the Minister of Transport to lay the blame on local authorities for failure in their share of the responsibility for road safety as was implied in the Minister's broadcast?
    Mr. Hay: I do not accept that what my right hon. Friend said bore that implication at all. We have just over 14,365 pedestrian crossings and we have reduced the number to this figure since 1950 when it was 32,684. The whole problem in the past has been that if we have too many crossings they are not observed by motorists and do not provide adequate safety measures.

    Road Schemes
    Mr. Fernyhoughasked the Minister of Transport how many schemes for constructing and improving roads, sub-
    1266
    mitted to him by local authorities, have been refused by his Department during the last five years.
    Mr. Hay: Highway authorities apply to us for grants towards the cost of major improvement schemes on classified roads. The large number of such schemes in relation to the funds at our disposal makes a priority system necessary whereby schemes are selected for grant on the basis of need and urgency. This means that schemes must often be deferred, but outright refusal is rare. Systematic records of any such refusal are not kept.
    Mr. Fernyhough: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that during the broadcast to which I have already referred his right hon. Friend said:
    "The initiative for constructing, improving and maintaining over 95 per cent. of our roads is the responsibility of local authorities …"
    Is he aware that the right hon. Gentleman said:
    "I am anxious and willing to do my part,"
    and that, speaking to his radio audience, he added:
    "You must elect local authorities eager to do theirs."?
    It is obvious that the councils have been eager to show initiative and that it is the deadly hand of the Ministry that is stopping them getting on with the job.
    Mr. Hay: If only the party opposite when it had responsibility for these matters had got on with the job we would not have so many schemes that we cannot do now.
    Mr. Mellish: But is the hon. Gentleman not aware that in trying to defend himself and the Minister he must take into account the fact that local authorities resent very much the implication that the right hon. Gentleman created that the local authorities have been responsible for holding up these plans?
    Mr. Loughlinasked the Minister of Transport if he is satisfied that local authorities are submitting schemes for constructing and improving roads in accordance with the national road planning requirements of the areas over which they have control; and if he will make a statement.
    The Minister of Transport (Mr. Ernest Marples): Yes, Sir. The schemes which I invite local highway authorities to submit for grants are those which I

    1267
    have agreed with them individually as being most important either for the national economy or for road safety.
    Mr. Loughlin: Is the Minister aware that his Answer contrasts very markedly with his statement in the broadcast to which reference has already been made? Is he aware that I have had representations from local councillors in my area who resent the implied criticisms of local authorities, other than those manned by Conservative politicians? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that he has consistently turned down schemes which my local authorities have submitted to him, and will he now apologise for this unseemly conduct?
    Mr. Manuel: What, again?
    Mr. Marples: I am sorry that the hon. Member for Gloucestershire, West (Mr. Loughlin) has been disappointed with his local authorities and the recent results. The Ministry of Transport rarely turns down. It has a system of priorities, but the initial choice must rest with the highway authorities themselves, since they have statutory responsibility for improving the classified roads.
    Mr. Benn: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the difficulty is that there is no public national plan for road building in this country? Is he aware that civil engineering contractors complained only a few days ago that they have as many road-building machines idle as they have in use? Is he aware that what is required is the publication of a White Paper by the Government setting out their plans for road building over the next five years?
    Mr. Marples: The hon. Member has a later Question on that subject and had better wait until we reach it. If the hon. Member compares what is being done now in building and improving roads with what was done by his party, I think he will find an improvement.

    Accidents
    Mr. E. Johnsonasked the Minister of Transport when he expects to receive the Road Research Laboratory's detailed report on Christmas road accidents; if, when he receives it, he will publish it as a White Paper; and if he will call for similar reports to cover the Easter period and to cover a normal week.
    Mr. Marples: I expect to receive the full report by the Road Research Laboratory on road fatalities over the Christmas period in about four weeks' time; some preliminary information may be available before the end of this month. The publication of the report and the desirability of calling for further detailed inquiries of this kind are questions to be decided when I have received and read the report itself.
    Mr. Johnson: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that we have very little accurate information about the causes of road accidents? Would it not be possible to devise some means whereby we can obtain and see a detailed report, at any rate about fatal accidents, so that we can decide more easily what action is necessary to prevent them?
    Mr. Marples: That is precisely why I asked the Road Research Laboratory to undertake this rather detailed investigation. It is an exceptional investigation by a specially qualified staff and they are taking a great deal of time and trouble. I think the next move ought to await their report, and we shall then see what we can do.
    Mr. G. Wilson: Can my right hon. Friend give an assurance that a sufficiently large staff has been employed on this inquiry? It seems to have taken a considerable time.
    Mr. Marples: Yes, Sir. There are nine full-time people on the job. They are not only going into coroners' reports but visiting the sites of accidents. This is the most detailed investigation that has ever been undertaken.
    Mr. Benn: If the preliminary figures are available, as the Minister expects, by the end of this month, will he undertake to make them available to the House, even if in duplicated form, so that we may have them before us when we debate the Order which is to bring into force a 50 m.p.h. limit for Whitsun?
    Mr. Marples: The two things are quite unrelated. I think I take the House with me when I say that it is desirable for me to wait until I receive that detailed report, which is not only about the figures but about reasons for the accidents.
    Mr. Langford-Holtasked the Minister of Transport what percentage

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    of accidents on the road in the last twelve months have not involved a private car.
    Mr. Hay: I regret that the information asked for is not available for 1959. In January and February, 1960, about 46 per cent. of all accidents did not involve private cars.
    Mr. Langford-Holt: Does this mean that a new set of statistics is now being obtained for the right hon. Gentleman which was not previously obtained? Can the hon. Gentleman say what relation the 46 per cent. not involving private cars bears to the total number of vehicles on the roads? Does it show that private cars are concerned in more accidents or fewer accidents than the other categories?
    Mr. Hay: I hesitate to try to answer the second part of the hon. Gentleman's question without notice. If he will put down a Question I will give him the answer. With regard to the first part of the supplementary question, the position is that as from the beginning of this year we are able to get statistics about private car and other types of vehicle accidents.

    Road Safety
    Mr. Loughlinasked the Minister of Transport if he is satisfied that local authorities are taking all necessary steps to assist him in his campaign for safer roads; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Marples: As I said in this House last month, the Government can never be satisfied that enough is being done for road safety. I greatly value the co-operation which I receive from local authorities, who are doing excellent work in their own right. This does not mean that the effort of every local authority is as extensive, strong and effective as it could be. I urge all councils to review the position in their areas to ensure that everything possible is done which will help to cut down road accidents.
    Mr. Loughlin: I am glad that the Minister has emphasised that he is not quite satisfied, but is he aware that I have had representations made to me about the broadcast he made and his criticism of local authorities in the matter of road safety campaigns? Is it not about time that the Minister of
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    Transport acted in a responsible manner befitting a Minister of the Crown? If he cannot do that, is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to resign?
    Mr. Marples: No, Sir.

    Car Parking (Multi-Storey Garages)
    Mr. Mayhewasked the Minister of Transport what encouragement he is giving to local authorities to construct automatic multi-storey garages as a means of solving town centre parking problems.
    Mr. Marples: I am always ready to view sympathetically applications by local authorities for loan sanction and compulsory purchase orders for the purpose of providing off-street parking facilities. These may include automatic multi-storey garages where appropriate.
    Mr. Mayhew: Has the right hon. Gentleman's attention been drawn to the pioneering work done in this matter, without the Ministry's encouragement, by Woolwich Borough Council, a much more enterprising body than the Ministry of Transport? Will he circularise other local authorities with the results of the Woolwich experiment?
    Mr. Marples: I agree that Woolwich is to be commended on this multi-storey garage, but it is untrue to say that the Ministry has been unhelpful. We have tried to help Woolwich in this respect, and we will try to help all local authorities which wish to provide multi-storey parking, because I think that it is extremely important in the stream of traffic today.
    Sir W. Wakefield: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is not much point in asking local authorities to erect multi-storey garages or any other garages unless adequate notices are provided so that motorists know where the garages are? Will my right hon. Friend do his utmost to emphasise to local authorities the importance of providing adequate directions for motorists to enable them to park their cars in garages?
    Mr. Marples: I will bear that in mind, and I am sure that Woolwich will, too.
    Mr. Mellish: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, while on the one hand

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    he says that he wants to encourage local authorities to build multi-storey garages, in a Standing Committee he has refused to allow local authorities which are building garages to sell oil and petrol? How can he justify that?
    Mr. Marples: Local authorities cannot trade in oil and petrol, but they can provide the facilities. There is no reason why a local authority which wants to provide off-street car parking should be given entitlement to do a whole heap of other things as well.
    Mr. Ellis Smith: Garages for the rich; no houses for the poor.

    East Anglia-Midlands Communications
    Mr. Priorasked the Minister of Transport what plans he has for improving communications by road from East Angilia to the Midlands, having regard to their inadequacy at the present time, and in view of the growing importance of the ports in that area due to the creation of the European Free Trade Association and the need to attract more industry.
    Mr. Hay: We have to consider the claims of these roads in relation to needs elsewhere in the country. I am afraid that comprehensive improvement cannot be undertaken at present, but a scheme for a new bridge at St. Neots estimated to cost £690,000 is being prepared. In addition a number of smaller improvements to the total value of about £500,000 are under construction or are to start shortly.
    Mr. Prior: Is my hon. Friend aware that people living in East Anglia feel that they are not getting a fair share of the money which is being spent on road improvements, that our rail communications are shocking and that our unemployment position leaves much to be desired? Will he try to do something to help us so that more employment can be brought into the area?
    Mr. Hay: It is a false conception to imagine that individual areas of the country should obtain a fair share of the money available for road improvements. We have, as I said in answer to an earlier Question, had to establish a system of priorities based upon traffic needs and not upon geographical location. We have no doubt at all that the roads of East
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    Anglia are the least heavily trafficked of any in the country, and, therefore, their priority is, I am afraid, at the moment correspondingly less; but we will do what we can as and when we can.
    Mr. Ridsdale: Is my hon. Friend aware that if he compares the London—Colchester—.North-East Essex road with the roads to the South Coast, there is something to be said for giving priority to the area so that we can make proper use of the port facilities of Harwich?
    Mr. Hay: We have all these considerations in mind but have to balance the demands of one road against the demands of many other roads throughout the country.

  SHIPPING

    Pontoon Docks, Aberdeen
    Mr. Hector Hughesasked the Minister of Transport what steps he has taken, or proposes to take, in conjunction with Aberdeen Harbour Commissioners, to remedy the defects in the pontoon docks at Aberdeen Harbour.
    Mr. Hay: The Harbour Commissioners agreed at a meeting with us on 5th November, 1959, to bring all the local interests together to study the problem of the pontoon docks. This they have done and a report is now being prepared.
    Mr. Hughes: A working party has been engaged on this problem for several months past. Will the hon. Gentleman say what steps he is taking, in conjunction with other Ministries, to provide the finance necessary for the job they are trying to undertake?
    Mr. Hay: I think it better to await the report I have referred to in my original Answer. The working party has been at work for some time, as the hon. and learned Gentleman says, but we should like to be able to carry local interests with us in all this, and I think it better to wait for the report before we decide what to do.

    Nuclear Propulsion
    Mr. E. L. Mallalieuasked the Minister of Transport what steps he is taking to have a nuclear-powered merchant ship at sea at the earliest possible moment.
    Mr. Marples: I have invited tenders from five firms for two types of nuclear reactor suitable for installation in a tanker of 65,000 tons deadweight. The closing date for the receipt of tenders is 29th July. The decision whether to build a tanker, and which type of reactor it should have, will be made in the light of what the tenders disclose and of progress with other types of reactor which show promise of application to shipping.
    Mr. Mallalieu: Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that this country will be able to put such a nuclear-powered vessel to sea as soon as four or five of our competitors?
    Mr. Marples: I think that the Americans will be the first in the field because they are already half-way in the construction of a nuclear ship. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] They started before anybody else and I think they will finish before anybody else. I am bound to say that, so far as we are concerned, the first thing to do is to invite these tenders so that there shall not be any delay on that account in the building of a ship if that is considered necessary.
    Mr. Shinwell: Does the right hon. Gentleman contemplate on behalf of the Government building a ship at Government expense? Is that what he is saying, that the tenders are out now and he is waiting for them to come in and he can then estimate the cost? Does he intend that the Government will build the ship, or is it contemplated that it will be built by private shipowners or shipbuilders, and if so, has he any idea where they will get the money to build the ship?
    Mr. Marples: Those considerations will come later. The first thing to find out is the result of the tender which has now been put out for the nuclear reactor for which we are asking. When we have that we can take the matter a stage further. Until that stage is reached it is very difficult indeed to answer a series of hypothetical questions.
    Mr. P. Williams: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that one of the most important things in this matter is that it should be a commercial venture and, therefore, a successful one?
    Mr. Marples: I quite agree, because the ultimate objective is to build a nuclear-powered ship which is economically competitive with a conventional one. Anything else which is non-competitive is likely not to survive.
    Mr. Monslow: Is the right hon. Gentleman suggesting that we are to have a nuclear-powered merchant ship guaranteed at the expense of the State and then to be handed over to highly profitable private industry?
    Mr. Marples: No, Sir.
    Mr. Benn: Has the right hon. Gentleman really not made up his mind about this? Will he give the House an assurance that the Government will not carry this operation through to the stage when it becomes profitable and then hand it over to private enterprise to build and operate the ship?
    Mr. Marples: I think I have made it quite clear that it ought to be a profitable enterprise and an economic ship. The first stage in the process is to find out what sort of nuclear reactor is suitable and how much it will cost. That surely is the logical process.
    Sir G. Nicholson: I may be making a mistake, in which case I apologise, but is the House to understand that my right hon. Friend is undertaking or contemplating an expenditure which has not yet appeared in any Estimate? What is his authority for doing this?
    Mr. Marples: I am not contemplating any expenditure at all. All that has happened is that we have invited tenders from five firms for two types of nuclear reactor. We have given the specification and they will give the prices, and then we shall make a decision.
    Mr. Gaitskell: Is this not a very puzzling situation? The Minister has invited tenders, but he has not told us in the least what he might do when the tenders are received. What is the situation? Are we to suppose that private shipbuilding firms may put in tenders and then the Government may say, "We are not going to do anything about this but just leave it as it is"? The right hon. Gentleman must give us an idea of what is in his mind. Are the Government to build the ship? Are the Government going to invite private shipping companies to tender, or what?
    Mr. Marples: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for intervening, but if he had been present during the debate on 21st March, when the subject was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemoutlh (Dame Irene Ward), he would have known that all these points were dealt with.
    Dame Irene Ward: The Leader of the Opposition is out of date.
    Mr. Marples: Perhaps I may be allowed to repeat what was said on that occasion. My hon. Friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary said:
    "We shall be able to get closer estimates of costs than are available at the moment and find out a lot more than we know already about various technical problems. When we have received the tenders and have assessed them —and I must warn my hon. Friend that this will take a little time—we shall then be in a much better position than we are now to decide whether a ship should be built, and if so, which type of reactor it should have."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 21st March, 1960; Vol. 620, c. 189.]
    This is the normal method of trying to make a sensible approach to a very difficult technical problem.
    Mr. Gaitskell: The Minister has not explained anything at all. Perhaps I may repeat what his hon. Friend the Member for Farnham (Sir G. Nicholson) said just now.
    Dame Irene Ward: My hon. Friend the Member for Farnham (Sir G. Nicholson) is out of date, too.
    Mr. Gaitskell: On what authority is the right hon. Gentleman proposing that this Government expenditure should take place, and how does he expect these firms to put in tenders when they have not the slightest idea what will happen when the tenders are put in?
    Mr. Marples: The fact of the matter is that they axe putting in the tenders. The fact of the matter is that the Government have not committed themselves to any expenditure and will not commit themselves to any expenditure on a ship until they receive technical information.
    Dame Irene Ward: Was not the whole idea behind the original Galbraith Committee, which has been transferred to my right hon. Friend, to ascertain the possibilities of a commercial venture, and ought not my right hon. Friend to be very grateful for the debate which I raised? Why does he not tell the Opposition off?
    Mr. Marples: I quite agree that the best thing is to make one's inquiries first and one's decision second, which is something the party opposite does not understand. There is no point in my giving the Opposition an explanation if they are determined not to understand.
    Mr. Steele: Can the Minister explain why it is that, although, when the Galbraith Committee was considering this matter, its function was to advise the Government about which type of reactor would be suitable, he now appears to be asking for two different types of reactor? Have the Government not made up their mind about which type of reactor is to be used? Does he recall that his hon. Friend who was then Civil Lord of the Admiralty indicated in the House that it was the Government's intention to build the ship and actually gave us a date when it was to be in the water?
    Mr. Marples: I must refer the hon. Gentleman to the debate on 21st March when all this was explained. [HON. MEMBERS: "He was there."] The hon. Gentleman should have been there; it was so interesting.
    At the end of Questions—
    Mr. Hector Hughes: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Unless my ears deceived me, you did call me for Question No. 43.
    Mr. Speaker: The hon. and learned Gentleman is right, I think, as to the first part of his name; I am not sure about the second part. The position was that I had not at that moment seen the Leader of the Opposition rising, and he, of necessity, owing to the convention that he does not put down Questions, is allowed to intervene. I regret that I cannot allow the hon. and learned Gentleman to put his Question now.

  TRANSPORT

    River Craft (Repairs)
    Mr. Jegerasked the Minister of Transport if he will give a general direction to the British Transport Commission that all repairs and lengthening work on its river craft shall be done in its own workshops and shipyards.
    Mr. Marples: No, Sir. I understand that it is the normal practice of the

    1277
    British Transport Commission to undertake this sort of work in its own workshops.
    Mr. Jeger: Would the right hon. Gentleman ask the British Transport Commission to keep a close watch on this, as it is alleged in the Goole area that work of this kind is being given out to contractors who are doing it on overtime while there are threats of redundancy to B.T.C people in its own workshops?
    Mr. Marples: British Waterways gave some contracts to outside contractors when their own workshops were full. I will see that they get the gist of the hon. Member's Question.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. R. A. Butler): With permission, I wish to tell the House that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will make a statement to the House on Friday at 11 a.m.
Mr. Gaitskell: We are all grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving us this information. Is it at all possible for the Prime Minister to come back from Paris a few hours earlier—I understand that he is coming back on Thursday, in any event—so that we could have a statement on Thursday afternoon? Two days is rather a long time to wait before the House of Commons has any statement on the very important events of recent days and an opportunity of putting points to the Prime Minister.
Mr. Butler: I have been in touch with my right hon. Friend. The difficulty is that he has been invited to have lunch with President de Gaulle on Thursday. He did ask me whether I thought that it would be permissible for him to accept that invitation and come back after lunch, which means that it would really be too late for him to make a statement on Thursday. I shall certainly convey to my right hon. Friend the sentiments which the right hon. Gentleman has expressed. It would, however, be much more convenient for my right hon. Friend to make his statement on Friday. I do not think that he will return until rather late on Thursday evening.
Mr. Gaitskell: I do not want to press this and I certainly would not, of course.
1278
wish to prevent the Prime Minister having lunch with General de Gaulle, but if it were possible for him to come back later on Thursday and, perhaps, intervene in the course of the debate, with your permission, Mr. Speaker, I am sure that, for our part, we should be very happy to accommodate him.
Mr. Butler: I think that the right thing to do on an occasion like this, when the Leader of the Opposition expresses a certain sentiment, is to convey it to my right hon. Friend; but I must say that I think it will suit him better to come back here rather late on Thursday and have a chance to collect his thoughts, and make a statement on Friday morning. I have been in touch with my right hon. Friend. Nevertheless. I will convey the right hon. Gentleman's sentiments to him. If I do not make any further statement, I hope it will be taken that my right hon. Friend's statement will be made on Friday.
Mr. Smithers: Will my right hon Friend bear in mind that some of us who think that Anglo-French relations are of great importance would regret it if, out of deference to this House, my right hon. Friend—
Mr. Manuel: Where is his first duty?
Mr. Smithers:—were to forgo a final discussion with General de Gaulle?
Mr. Butler: These things are very difficult to balance. Most of us who are servants of the House are always apt to put our love for this House before anything else. At the same time, I think that my right hon. Friend would find it convenient to accept the invitation from President de Gaulle before he decides upon any other course.
Viscount Hinchingbrooke: In view of the fact that the last debate on foreign affairs was limited in scope, and that no debate can arise on the Prime Minister's statement on Friday morning, will it be possible to consider, for the announcement of business tomorrow, the possibility of a short debate on the results of the Summit Conference?
Mr. Butler: This certainly should be a matter of discussion not only through the usual channels, but with any hon. Members interested, because of the obvious gravity of the situation we face
Mr. Shinwell: If the right hon. Gentleman responds to the suggestion made by the noble Lord the Member for Dorset, South (Viscount Hinchingbrooke), will he bear in mind that, if there is to be a debate on this vital issue, it ought not to be a short debate?
Mr. Butler: Yes, Sir. The right hon. Gentleman is a channel of his own, as I have already conceded, and I should certainly wish to pay deference to his observation. Once we did get started on a debate, it would, naturally, be of such an important character that it could not be of very short duration.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  FINANCE BILL
  Considered in Committee.
  [Sir GORDON TOUCHB in the Chair]
  3.36 p.m.
  The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Derick Heathcoat Amory): I beg to move,
  That the Bill be considered in the following order: Clauses 1 to 3, Schedule 1, Clauses 4 to 9, Schedule 2, Clauses 10 to 17, Schedule .3 Clauses 18 to 36, Schedule 4, Clauses 37 to 58, Schedules 5 and 6, Clauses 59 to 73. new Clauses. Schedule 7, new Schedules.
  The object of the Motion is to enable the Committee to discuss the Schedules immediately after the Clauses to which it refers. That is a procedure which I think the Committee has found convenient in our deliberations during the past two years, and I think that it would be for the convenience of the Committee if we followed the same procedure again.
  Mr. Harold Wilson: I am sure that it is for the convenience of the Committee that the Motion should be passed. It is a new procedure to put down the Motion on the Notice Paper at the beginning of our consideration of the Bill. During the last year or two we have had to make representations to the Chancellor at a very late hour to have the Schedules brought forward into their proper place, and it is far better that we should know where we are and that the Notice Paper should hereafter be printed in accordance with the terms of the Motion.
  Proceeding in this way may help to accelerate our consideration of the Bill, which, I am sure, will be in accordance with the wishes of hon. and right hon. Members on both sides of the Committee. This is, I think, the dullest Finance Bill we have ever seen and all of us want to see it go through with as much speed as is compatible with a thorough investigation of the points raised.
  The Chancellor will have noticed from this morning's Notice Paper that to the Clauses and Schedules 123 Amendments have been tabled, 11 of them from himself, 38 from my right hon. and hon. Friends and myself, and

  1281
  74 from hon. Members opposite other than Government representatives. In the circumstances, while we intend to co-operate to the full in getting the Bill through in the most satisfactory manner possible, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not waste his time discussing with us the idea of a timetable. I think that his discussions should be with those behind him.
  Question put and agreed to.
  The Chairman: I should inform the Committee that I have put in the "No" Lobby a list of the provisional selection of Amendments up to the end of Part II of the Bill.

  FINANCE BILL

    Clause 1.—(WINES.)
    Mr. John Cronin: I beg to move, in page 1, line 23, at the end to insert:
    Provided that this subsection shall not apply to sherry.
    The purpose of the Amendment is simply to exclude sherry from the 12s. reduction of duty which the Chancellor has introduced for reinforced wines. It has been suggested to me that there may be some difficulty in defining sherry. I consulted my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins) and he told me that sherry is, perhaps, like an elephant; it is not easy to define, but everybody knows what it is. I should be content if sherry were regarded as a wine which was not a light wine, which was less than 42 degrees proof and which was imported from South Africa or from Spain.
    The Chancellor said that the principal purpose of the Finance Bill was to introduce a moderate amount of restraint on consumption and it is, therefore, rather puzzling that he should introduce this considerable easement for the drinkers of reinforced wine. We understood from him that the cost of the provisions in Clause 1 would be about £4 million in a year. In a Budget meant to restrain consumption, it is anomalous to hand out £4 million which will be spent entirely in consumption. If the Chancellor has £4 million to dispose of, it could be disposed of more usefully. We have several new Clauses designed to assist widows, disabled persons, blind persons and others who are in difficulties and we
    1282
    feel that that £4 million could be dispersed much more usefully. There seems to be a case for easing the lot of the indigent rather than the bibulous.
    It will be recognised that the consumption of alcohol is not of itself an activity which particularly requires encouragement. Alcohol obviously has considerable social evils, on which I shall not now dilate, although some of my hon. Friends would undoubtedly be happy to do so. We know that alcohol is increasingly becoming a suspicious factor in the ever-increasing toll on the roads. Alcohol is perhaps not the most desirable subject for a concession in the Finance Bill.
    The curious thing is that in the last two Finance Bills there have already been substantial concessions for alcohol. In the last Finance Bill there was a concession to beer drinkers. The Chancellor then regarded beer as a matter of specific gravity. A year before, there was a substantial concession to drinkers of reinforced wines. Consumers of reinforced wines have been treated somewhat generously for two years running and it seems to some of us a matter of dubiety that they should again receive this favourable treatment.
    It must be borne in mind that this is in the nature of a tariff reduction. Normally, tariff reductions are a matter of very close and even fierce negotiation between the countries concerned. We all recollect the prolonged negotiations which took place over the proposed European Free Trade Area. We all know that in normal circumstances whenever there is a tariff reduction, some sort of reciprocal concession is expected from the other country concerned. It is very uncommon in fiscal policy for a tariff concession to be made in favour of another country without any concession of any kind in return.
    3.45 p.m.
    I have spoken against the idea of further reducing the duty on reinforced wine, but in his Budget statement and subsequently on the Second Reading of the Finance Bill the Chancellor pointed out that Portugal was a somewhat exceptional case. He said that Portugal had joined with us in the European Free Trade Association and, therefore, joined with us in various tariff reductions and mutual concessions.

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    Under the terms of the Stockholm Treaty, wine is an agricultural product and, therefore, would not rank automatically for the same tariff concessions as other commodities. The Portuguese, therefore, have a reasonable case when they point out the rather high duties on our imports of port from their country, and port forms one of their principal exports to the United Kingdom.
    There is already a favourable balance to ourselves in the trade between Portugal and the United Kingdom. In 1947, we imported £16 million worth of goods from Portugal and exported to her £22·3 million. The corresponding figures for 1958 were £14·3 million and £22·1 million and, for 1959, £14·8 million and £20·3 million. There is no doubt that we have a very favourable trade balance with Portugal and that the Portuguese have some reasonable ground for complaining if we decrease their exports of port by a comparatively high duty. Further, there is the fact that a substantial amount of British capital— about £12 million—is invested in Portugal.
    Another aspect of the matter which may receive sympathetic attention is that port is a drink 90 per cent. of which is consumed in public houses, or obtained from off-licences, or wine merchants, by people of lower income groups and, therefore, people deserving some reduction in the duty concerned. I think that the Chancellor has made out a case for reducing the duty on port and on madeira, which comes from a Portuguese colony and to which exactly the same considerations apply
    Other reinforced wines received a substantial reduction in 1958, but the same arguments do not apply to reducing the duty on wines like sherry, malaga and marsala. Sherry is easily the most dominant of those reinforced wines, other than port, and comes principally from Spain and from South Africa. A certain amount of sherry is imported from Australia, but the amount is small compared with the overwhelming dominance of South Africa and Spain in the sherry market.
    It is not clear to my why Spain should have this special tariff concession. There is no question of Spain joining us in the European Free Trade Association and, so far as we know, there is no indica-
    1284
    tion that Spain intends to give us any reciprocal trade concessions. Our balance of trade with Spain is very unfavourable. In 1957, we imported £36·6 million worth of goods from Spain and exported only £26 million. In 1958, the corresponding figures were £366 million and £241 million and, in 1959, they were £36 million and £20·3 million.
    It would seem that we have already a very unfavourable trade balance with Spain. I think that the Chancellor, if he is to introduce what is substantially a large tariff concession in favour of Spain, ought to be able to show us a definite concession in our favour to compensate for it.
    Sir Leslie Plummer: Is my hon. Friend overlooking the fact that Spain, South Africa and Portugal at least have this one thing in common which may endear them to hon. Members opposite—that all of them are Fascist countries?
    Mr. Cronin: I am obliged to my hon. Friend for reminding me of this important consideration. Spain is, of course, a country which even the most moderate person would describe as having a Fascist, or almost Fascist, Government. It certainly cannot be a country which is particularly deserving of the sympathy of this country to the extent that we should give Spain completely unrequited tariff concessions.
    My hon. Friend will probably agree with me that we cannot be satisfied with the labour conditions under which sherry is manufactured in Spain. We know that trade unionism is severely suppressed in Spain. I agree that the same argument applies to Portugal, but I think that the Chancellor has made out a case, based on reciprocal treaty obligations in the European Free Trade Association, which to some extent clouds our minds to the political aspects of Portugal.
    South Africa is already receiving the very substantial Commonwealth preference concessions. Again, I think that the Chancellor will probably tell us that no reciprocal concession has been negotiated with South Africa in return for these very substantial concessions. I think that all of us on both sides of the Committee feel considerable disapproval of the general racial policies pursued by the South African Government.
    Mr. Ronald Bell: I notice that the hon. Gentleman has not referred the Committee to the trade balance between this country and South Africa.
    Mr. Cronin: I am glad that the hon. Member raised that point, because it is only fair to admit that the trade balance between ourselves and South Africa is substantially in our favour and that, of course. Is an argument in favour of giving South Africa some concession. I think, however, that that argument is overbalanced by other considerations.
    An important consideration is that we cannot feel approval of the South African Government, and what we are doing now is an extremely public act which will be noted all over the world. A substantial concession like this to the Government of South Africa must be regarded throughout the world as an act of approval of the Government of South Africa. I do not think that that is something which the Committee should be in a hurry to accept with equanimity.
    Another very important aspect of this matter is the labour conditions under which sherry is manufactured in South Africa. Hon. Members may know that about 1¼ million Africans are convicted every year in South Africa for comparatively trivial offences and given prison sentences. About 500,000 are convicted of what would appear to us to be very trivial offences against the pass laws, for not having the documents which they are obliged to carry, or not having properly stamped documents, or being without documents.
    I should like hon. Members to consider what happens to those convicted South Africans. They are for the most part sent to farms and to the establishments of the wine growers. They receive no pay, so for all practical purposes they are used as slave labour. It is a very serious matter if we are to hand out a very large tariff concession for a commodity which is manufactured to a substantial extent by slave labour. That is something which the Committee should consider very seriously.
    I have run briefly over the arguments which, I believe, are in favour of withholding this concession from reinforced wines imported from South Africa and Spain. There are, of course, the opposite arguments of which, no doubt, we
    1286
    shall hear. We on this side of the Committee feel that a satisfactory case has not been made out for giving this special concession to Spain and South Africa, and that unless we have a really satisfactory explanation from the Chancellor we shall have to vote against the Clause.
    Dr. Reginald Bennett: As one who, some years ago, took up on the Adjournment and at other times the case of the import duty on port, I welcome very warmly the concession that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has granted on this occasion. Coupled with his former concession, it amounts to a real alleviation of the difficulties of the Portuguese wine community.
    While I am not attempting to follow the hon. Gentleman the Member for Loughborough (Mr. Cronin) in his investigations of the varying degrees of boycott which he wishes to impose on forms of government of which he does not approve, I find it a little difficult to understand how he proposes to distinguish between what may style itself port and what may style itself sherry.
    One of the curious chemical compositions which has perhaps brought this matter before the Committee is the importation of strong table wines which have been doctored by strong fortified wines to make a weak fortified wine, which is neither port nor sherry, but which is sold as sherry or port, and for which about half the duty is paid compared with that which used to be paid for the genuine article. I understand from my right hon. Friend that in time past the only criterion on which the Customs and Excise operated was the gravity or alcoholic content of the wine, and I have not heard from the hon. Member for Loughborough how he proposes to differentiate between the different Governments which he dislikes on the ground of chemical compositions.
    Mr. Cronin: I appreciate the highly scientific attitude adopted by the hon. Member about this. First, the wines to which he refers, and which are made here are sweets and are dealt with under a different subsection. The other thing is that I have suggested that the definition should be that of the country of origin, which is simply Spain and South Africa, so reinforced wines from Spain and South Africa are sherry for all practical purposes.
    Dr. Bennett: Many other wines are imported from various parts of the world, and they are certainly not Iberian, to which this particular attack does not apply. In the absence of any constructive contribution from the hon. Gentleman about how to distinguish between these various wines, we should content ourselves with thanking my right hon. Friend for the concessions he has introduced and accept them with all gratitude.
    4.0 p.m.
    Mr. R. Gresham Cooke: I did not like the deep political overtones of the speech made by the hon. Member for Loughborough (Mr. Cronin), which imported all sorts of alien subjects into a simple subject like sherry. If we are to arrange our Budgets and tariffs according to whether we like or dislike a country we shall have such a variegated pattern of tariffs that we shall not be able to carry on trade with any country of the world.
    It seems to me that the Clause is right as it is. Since the war, sherry has got out of line with the ordinary foreign light wines, in terms of duty. Since the days before the war the duty on sherry has risen a great deal—until the last Budget it had risen by 375 per cent., whereas the duty on light wines has risen to a much smaller extent. Further, when one goes into a public house one cannot help feeling that sherry has lost its place as a drink among other drinks, and is being put into an unfair relationship with bubbly drinks, and so on.
    Before the war a man would take his wife into a public house and offer her a glass of sherry, but he is not able to do so to the same extent today because it has become so expensive.
    Mr. Gerald Nabarro: What about port and lemon?
    Mr. Gresham Cooke: The same argument applies to port and lemon.
    Mr. Cronin: The hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Gresham Cooke) will concede that, in spite of the duty upon it, the consumption of sherry has steadily increased since the war, and is now greater than it was in 1938 and 1939.
    Mr. Gresham Cooke: Consumption has not risen all that much. I have been looking at the figures, and it is surprising how little it has risen since the war.
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    Last year's reduction of 2s. per bottle in the duty on sherry was not sufficient to make much difference to the price of a glass in a public house, but my right hon. Friend's concession this year will be a help in that direction.
    We must also remember that many of the companies which import sherry are British companies, worthy of support. I therefore hope that my right hon. Friend will reject the Amendment, which I consider to be of a highly contentious and political nature, and stick to the wording of the Clause.
    Mr. Ronald Bell: The hon. Member for Loughborough (Mr. Cronin) made it clear, both in his speech and his intervention, that what he meant by sherry was any strong wine which came from South Africa or Spain. It is quite enough to dispose of his Amendment simply to point out that it contains no definition by which we can distinguish sherry— which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport and Fareham (Dr. Bennett) has pointed out, has become almost a brand name now—from other wines of high specific gravity, such as those defined as "sweets" in the Act that we are amending. I say that that is enough to dispose of the Amendment because, if we cannot define something which we want to take out, the Amendment becomes meaningless.
    If the hon. Member is saying that port-type wines from South Africa should not enjoy the exemption from duty simply because they come from South Africa, he is merely relying upon rabid political prejudice. It astonishes me that some hon. Members opposite put forward this kind of argument when, at the same time, they continually try to advocate the extension of East-West trade. One wonders whether they approve of the internal policies of the countries behind the Iron Curtain, in whose trade they invite us to participate ever more freely.
    I would ask the hon. Member whether his argument does not come to this: the defects of internal government do not matter to hon. Members opposite if the Government happens to be of the Left, but if it does not it is a great scandal, and trade and tariff discrimination ought to be urged against it in this House on every possible occasion.

    1289
    I hope that my right hon. Friend will treat that argument with the contempt it deserves.
    Sir L. Plummer: I hope that hon. Members on this side of the Committee will treat the arguments of the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell) with the contempt that they deserve. Hon. Members on this side have always argued that there should be as much free trade as possible throughout the world. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Yes—throughout the world. Many of my hon. Friends have been in the forefront in protesting against the kind of Governments that exist in various countries with whom we do not agree. We have protested over and over again. We have been much more critical of countries behind the Iron Curtain than hon. Members opposite have been of Fascist countries in Europe, or countries such as South Africa.
    I do not believe that the issue here is that sherry is so expensive that the drinking of it has been stopped by people. We had to drink South African sherry during the war, but we gave it up gladly when Spanish sherry became available again. Now nobody in his senses would want to drink South African sherry, except to douse its taste with gin. It is not a drink that anybody likes; it was forced upon us because of the exigencies of war.
    I would not have thought that the drinking habits of our people were altering. What may happen is that a moderate reduction in the price of wines and sherry will accelerate its consumption—but only temporarily. The brewers believe that this is a temporary thing, because one of our biggest firms has decided to spend £125,000 on an advertising campaign in favour of lager, simply because it believes that our people will revert to beer drinking again, as opposed to wine drinking, especially in our public houses.
    Therefore, I do not believe that the reduction in duty will make an enormous difference. Nevertheless, it is right for those of us who believe that an injustice has been created in another country to attack that country, and to make the sort of speech that my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Mr. Cronin) made.
    Mr. Robert Cooke: As the Member for Bristol whose constituency is undermined by cellars filled with sherry of one kind or another, I feel that I must say something.
    Mr. H. Wilson: Would it not be right to put it on the record that the hon. Member is a Member for Bristol and not the Member for Bristol?
    Mr. Cooke: I am the only Member in Bristol whose constituency is undermined by cellars full of sherry.
    I feel flattered that it should be this subject which is being discussed at the beginning of the Committee stage of the Finance Bill. I intervene only because certain hon. Members opposite have made some extremely offensive remarks about my constituency. It so happens that most of the great firms from Bristol are located solely in that city, although, in deference to my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro), I should point out that one of the most distinguished of those firms also has a branch in Kidderminster. I hope, therefore, that my hon. Friend will fly to my support.
    Mr. Nabarro: My hon. Friend does not need it at present.
    Mr. Cooke: My constituents, upon whose good will I depend in so many ways, greatly welcome my right hon. Friend's concession. I cannot see why hon. Members opposite should be so complaining about the fact that sherry has been given the same concession as port. I can assure my right hon. Friend that we in Bristol, who depend so much on this trade for our well-being and for the employment of so many of our citizens, would never allow any political considerations to stop us indulging in this trade, in which we have been engaged for about 200 years. I therefore hope that my right hon. Friend will resist the Amendment with all the force at his command.
    Sir Godfrey Nicholson: I hope that the Committee will listen for a few moment to someone who happens to be a wine merchant. As I see it, this action of the Chancellor has no political significance; it is a purely fiscal and trading measure. We cannot distinguish between different types of fortified wine —and here I would point out that the

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    proper term is "fortified", and not "reinforced"; it is wine, not concrete.
    One cannot distinguish between different types of fortified wines. What we are debating today, or should be debating, is whether it would be fair to discriminate against any one branch of the wine trade when those two branches of the wine trade, port and sherry, have always been treated the same.
    I do not know whether my right hon. Friend was right to reduce the duty on port. Perhaps he had good international reasons for doing so, but, having reached that conclusion, it follows as night follows day that all fortified wines must receive the same concessions. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] Because it would be most unfair to the trade suddenly to put the trade into three categories and prejudice one type of trade for political and commercial reasons.
    I am not a great sherry drinker, but the strictures which the hon. Member for Deptford (Sir L. Plummer) made on South African sherry are unfair. I prefer Spanish sherry, but South African sherry can be very good. I hope that my right hon. Friend will justify the Clause on the right grounds, and not on political grounds.
    The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Anthony Barber): The Amendment deals with the very narrow point whether, within the ambit of the reduction of the duty on heavy wines, sherry should be excluded. I hope that the Committee will forgive me if I follow my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Mr. Gresham Cooke) and avoid talking in what he called political overtones, because, whatever may be the merits of the case, I hope that I shall be able to convince the hon. Member for Loughborough (Mr. Cronin) that it would be impracticable to accept the Amendment.
    I recognise that it is a matter of opinion whether all heavy wines should be included within this duty reduction, but if one is considering the question of desirability alone I think that there is much force in what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Robert Cooke). Practicability is another matter, and I hope I shall be able to convince the Committee that it would be impossible to accede to
    1292
    the request of the hon. Member for Loughborough.
    I said that it would be undesirable to have a different rate of duty for sherry compared with other heavy wines, and the reason is that to do that would bring the wine duties out of alignment. If it ware necessary I would deploy this argument further on the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill", but one of the reasons which has prompted my right hon. Friend to deal with this matter is that it is recognised—I think by the trade in general and by people outside the trade who have studied this matter —that it is highly desirable that the structure of the wine duties should be reformed, although my right hon. Friend made it clear in his Budget speech that, so far as timing was concerned, he would not have chosen to put this proposal forward this year if it had not been for our relations with the European Free Trade Association.
    Apart from practicability, there is one other aspect which the Committee must recognise. If the Amendment were accepted, it would mean introducing into the wine duties sub-divisions based on the types of wine, and I should have thought that if we did that it would lead to requests for special rates for other wines.
    The hon. Member for Loughborough said that he thought that the Chancellor had made out a good case for some relief in respect of port, but he wished to exclude sherry, and he referred in particular to South African and Spanish sherry. The fact is that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham (Sir G. Nicholson) said, if we were to provide relief for port it follows that we must provide relief for all fortified wines, or, as they are called, all heavy wines. The reason is simple. There is no definition of "sherry" which is known to the law. That being the case, naturally one considers whether, to try to help the hon. Gentleman it would be possible to define sherry.
    4.15 p.m.
    It is impossible to evolve a satisfactory definition. Obviously, one could not simply refer to the name "sherry", because the name could quite easily be changed, and I have no doubt that if sherry were to pay a higher duty than

    1293
    other heavy wines some of those who produce sherry would in future produce it under a different name.
    Mr. G. R. Mitchison: Is not sherry rather like an elephant—easy to recognise and difficult to define? Is the hon. Gentleman saying that all the goods enumerated in the Customs and Excise Blue Book are capable of definition otherwise than by their names?
    Mr. Barber: I am sure that the hon. and learned Gentleman realises that in fiscal matters one must be extremely careful to avoid, wherever possible, imposing a duty by reference to a definition which, if he will pardon the expression, may not hold water. While the hon. and learned Gentleman may feel that he would be able to recognise sherry in all circumstances, it would be impossible to define it satisfactorily for the purposes of the law. After all, if one ignores the question of taste, which I have no doubt the hon. and learned Gentleman has in mind, and considers some of the physical characteristics, the first one that comes to mind is colour, but I am informed that port can be white, and we all know that certain sherries are reddish brown.
    I think that the hon. Member for Loughborough appreciated the difficulties, because he asked why we could not deal with it in some way by reference to the country of origin. My hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell) pointed out that the Amendment does not purport to do that, and I should like to deal with that point, because, if that were possible, the hon. Gentleman could put down another Amendment to deal with the matter in that way. However if we were to proceed by reference to the country of origin —for example to exclude from this reduction heavy wines from Spain or South Africa—that would be contrary to the most favoured nation provisions of G.A.T.T., so we cannot do that.
    I hope, therefore, that, even if I have not convinced the hon. Member for Loughborough on the question of desirability, he will take the view that it is impracticable to do as he desires, and will seek leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Mr. Roy Jenkins: The Finance Bill often tends to be a rather narrow, technical Bill. Per-
    1294
    haps this year it is rather more narrow and more technical than most. Therefore, it is not bad that we should open on an Amendment which is not characterised either by narrowness or by being of a technical nature.
    We have provoked a series of fine speeches from the benches opposite. The hon. Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Robert Cooke) began in very self-confident form by proclaiming himself the Member for Bristol, and then, rather less self-confidently, tried to strike up an alliance with one of the hon. Members for Kidderminster.
    Mr. Nabarro: No. I hasten to tell the hon. Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins) that the horn. Member for Kidderminster is, and always has been, absolutely unique in this House.
    Mr. Jenkins: I am sure that the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) is an absolutely unique representative in this House, and we are very glad of that.
    Let me hasten to assure the hon. Member for Bristol, West that in supporting the Amendment I feel no ill-will towards those distinguished wine merchants in his constituency, the more distinguished but perhaps the lesser known of whom I have had happy relations with for many years.
    The hon. Member for Farnham (Sir G. Nicholson) intervened as a wine merchant. He did not give me complete confidence in his position as a wine merchant, because he said that it was impossible to distinguish between sherry, port or champagne.
    Sir G. Nicholson: I think that the hon. Gentleman is rather too full of his subject. He is getting a little muddled. I never mentioned champagne. I said, purely from the fiscal point of view, that it was difficult to distinguish between any fortified wines. I was not saying it was impossible to distinguish between port and sherry—even the hon. Member could do that.
    Mr. Jenkins: The hon. Member may think that he did not say that it was impossible to distinguish between them, but the fact remains that he found it impossible and I am bound to say that it gave me the feeling that I should

    1295
    prefer to patronise the constituency of the hon. Member for Bristol, West. We were not discussing whether it is difficult to define them. I should have thought it perfectly easy to distinguish between them.
    The hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Gresham Cooke) complained bitterly that my hon. Friend .the Member for Loughborough (Mr. Cronin) had introduced deep political overtones into this debate. The fact is that the Chancellor introduced this concession to the Committee in his Budget speech in explicitly political terms. The right hon. Gentleman made no attempt at all to say that this year he thought there was a fiscal case for reducing the duty on heavy wines, whether port or sherry or champagne.
    Sir G. Nicholson: Champagne is not a heavy wine.
    Mr. Jenkins: Champagne is included in Clause 1. I agree that it is not a heavy wine, but the reduction applies to champagne and chateau bottled clarets or burgundies bottled on the estate.
    The Chancellor did not attempt to advance his case purely on fiscal grounds. He put it forward explicitly—and this was underlined by the Economic Secretary—on the ground that, had it not been for the particular consideration of helping Portugal, he would not have done it this year. The right hon. Gentleman was quite explicit about that and, therefore, this is a political concession. It is a concession specifically introduced to solidify the not very solid structure of the European Free Trade Association.
    While we may be prepared to accept the need for such a concession, it is rather difficult to accept a rather expensive concession which is not justified on fiscal grounds and with no particular social argument in its favour. During the Second Reading debate, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) argued powerfully against this being a social priority this year. There is no fiscal and no social argument in favour of this concession it is made only for the benefit of Portugal. It will cost a good deal of money to bring a relatively little benefit. It is an imprecise weapon. There is no
    1296
    doubt that a substantial part of the concession will go to sherry and therefore, in broad terms, go, first, to Spain and, secondly, to South Africa.
    In this Committee we may have varying views about what we think should be our attitude to South Africa and still more varying views about our attitude to the Spanish régime. But I doubt whether any hon. Member would say that at present South Africa ought to be singled out and be given a trade concession in the way that the Chancellor has singled out Portugal. A similarly strong argument—although the case for putting it is not so overwhelming— could be advanced regarding Spain. That is the objection we feel to this very broadly drawn concession.
    It is true that the duty on heavy wines generally is still rather higher, in relation to light table wines, than was the case before the war, but it is not as much as a few years ago. Sherry received a substantial concession in the 1959 Budget, when the duty came down from 50s. to 38s. Since that time the consumption of sherry has been rising rapidly, and it is probable that it has been rising more rapidly since the 1958 Budget than the consumption of light wines, though the contrary was the case before 1958. I do not think we need worry unduly about the point made by the hon. Member for Twickenham, about whether we are breaking national habits and that not enough sherry is being consumed.
    Mr. Gresham Cooke: In the public houses.
    Mr. Jenkins: I should have thought that, on the whole, far more sherry is being consumed, and a great deal of it at the expense of the Chancellor.
    Mr. Nabarro: Not in the public houses.
    Mr. Jenkins: In any case the Chancellor has not put his case forward on the ground of the ill-treatment of people in public houses, but on the ground of the need to bolster up Portugal as a member of the Free Trade Association, so do not let us hear too much about the public houses.
    If it be that the sherry trade is faltering because the price charged in public houses is such that people cannot afford to buy it, there are certain other actions,

    1297
    independent of the Chancellor, which would appear to be open to the trade. I do not know how many hon. Members read the article in yesterday's Financial Times, which was of interest to me in view of the debate this afternoon. It referred to the structure of the sherry trade. Among a number of other interesting facts, the article drew attention to the extraordinarily high rate of retailers' profit in the sherry trade.
    Of the price paid by the consumer— I think that this would be the price paid when buying a bottle, and that the margin would be greater still if the customer were buying by the glass over the bar counter—
    Mr. Nabarro: It would depend on how good is the barmaid.
    Mr. Jenkins: On a bottle of sherry the retailer's margin is, as the retailers or the trade choose to state it, 28 per cent. But to state it in that way is false, because that is 28 per cent. of the cost to the consumer, which includes duty, and it is 28 per cent. of the end-price. In the retail trade, it is more usual to cite the mark-up price independent of duty or Purchase Tax, or whatever it might be, and to cite it at a percentage of the price at which the retailer received the goods and not the end price. Clearly, from that point of view it would be right that the mark-up in the sherry trade is not 28 per cent., but as much as 56 per cent.
    Without any ill-will towards the constituents of the hon. Member for Bristol, West, or the constituents of any other hon. Member for that matter, it seems to me that if the sherry trade is faltering, or, as was suggested at Question Time yesterday, this concession which the Chancellor has made is not being passed on wholly to the consumer, there is the substantial remedy open to the retailers to reduce this very high profit margin of 56 per cent. I hope that this will be taken into account.
    We are dissatisfied that, without any fiscal or social argument in its favour, it was found necessary to extend the concession given to port—on arguments which are not overwhelmingly compelling, but which we are compelled to accept from the Chancellor—to the rather priggish drink of sherry.
    1298
    The Economic Secretary said that it was difficult to define what was sherry with complete satisfaction, but he did not reply entirely to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering. I think that we should have to scrap a good deal of the contents of the Customs and Excise schedules if we were only to put in categories which could be defined with absolutely complete and logical clarity.
    I recognise the point that he made about G.A.T.T., if we were to deal with this question on a basis of countries of origin, but I do not think that he applied himself as closely as he might have done to seeing whether it is not possible to produce a working definition of what sherry is in common parlance. Therefore, we do not regard this situation as entirely satisfactory. We hope that we shall get better replies from the Government as the Committee stage proceeds. None the less, in view of the technical difficulties, which we appreciate, although they are not so overwhelming as the Economic Secretary suggested, I do not ask my hon. Friends to divide the Committee on this first Amendment.
    4.30 p.m.
    Sir G. Nicholson: The hon. Member made an attack, not based on malice, but on ignorance, upon the wine trade and allied trades. I should point out that it is a keenly competitive trade and margins of profit, at all stages, are no more than are justified. I assure him. quite sincerely, that people are not exploited. I assure him, also, that wine merchants have lost heavily on the reduction of duty, because they had to write down the value of duty-paid stocks. I ask the Committee to believe that in a trade where competition is very keen merchants do not make extraordinary rates of profit.
    Mr. Roy Jenkins: I should have been happy to leave the matter there, but, as the hon. Member is apparently anxious not to do so, may I say that my attack, as he was kind enough to say, was not founded on malice. I do not set myself up as having a great degree of expert knowledge, but I based it quite specifically on a particular analysis of profit margins in this trade published in a highly reputable financial newspaper yesterday.

    1299
    If the hon. Member is challenging what I said, I am not in a position to say that everything that the Financial Times says is accurate. If he likes to tell me that a 56 per cent. mark-up, which I suggested came out from that article, is quite untrue, of course the Committee will accept that. I should like to know his detailed refutation of the detailed arguments placed before the Committee.
    Sir G. Nicholson: I should be happy to show the hon. Member a typical wine merchant's accounts, from which he would see what the position is.
    Mr. Robert Cooke: I should not like to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham (Sir G. Nicholson) in the suggestion that malice was shown against the wine trade—
    Sir G. Nicholson: I said that the hon. Member was not basing his argument on malice.
    Mr. Robert Cooke: I am sorry; I did not understand.
    Although I am not an economist, and cannot speak of percentages or grand totals, I understand that the concession made by the Chancellor in 1958 amounted to 2s. a bottle, and it should be the same under this Budget. So far as I know, the whole concession was passed on to the consumer.
    Mr. Cronin: My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins) has dealt admirably with the arguments advanced by the Economic Secretary, so I do not propose to go into the matter further except to say that I feel considerable disquiet as to what is likely to happen if this is a sample of the kind of negotiations in such a delicate matter as the European Free Trade Association negotiations. If we have to hand out concessions to other countries whenever we do so to one country, we are in a very parlous state.
    Although I am not satisfied with the arguments of the Economic Secretary, or of hon. Members opposite, who seem to take an entirely political view of the situation, I think that my hon. Friends on this side of the Committee will agree that we are most anxious to make progress with consideration of the Bill. I therefore beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.
    Mr. E. C. Redhead: The objections raised to this Clause, and the Amendment which has just been withdrawn, have been limited to the simple aspect of the question of country of origin. If certain political aspects have been drawn into the argument, I am bound to say I think the Chancellor drew them on himself by the rather limited way in which he produced the reasons for this particular reduction in the duties on light wines imported in bottle and on heavy wines.
    What he neglected to do was to point out that, quite apart from the argument which had been adduced on the more political aspects of the matter, there is a case for doing this. If we are to be frank, we have to acknowledge that it is a case which has been pressed on the Chancellor for several years in succession by hon. Members on both sides of the Committee. What the Chancellor is doing—and I think that to this extent he can make an arguable case—is to restore the relationship which existed prewar as between the duties on heavy wines and light wines, when, traditionally, it was the practice to maintain the duty on heavy wines at a level twice that an light wines.
    That relationship was very seriously disturbed in 1949. Although the duties on both light and heavy wines increased steadily during the war years, in 1949, for quite special reasons and to encourage the consumption and sale of light wines, the duty on light wines not in bottle was reduced to 13s. a gallon, whereas that on heavy wines was maintained at 50s. a gallon. It is that great disparity, so different from the situation which existed before, which has given rise to the very natural and understandable disquiet in the trade which has been affected. Manifestly, it will be seen in the fact that it had the result of showing an increase since 1938–39 in respect of heavy wines of 375 per cent. but in respect of light wines of only 225 per cent., compared with spirits of 184 per cent., humble beer remaining at 258 per cent.
    The effect has been quite seriously to limit the sale and consumption of port and sherry and to bring about a degree of apparent discrimination between the

    1301
    heavy and light wines. In 1958, the Chancellor, quite deliberately, tried—in part, at any rate—to redress the balance, although he did not completely do so, when he reduced the duty on heavy wines from 50s. to 38s. Now, I take it, he is restoring completely the old relationship.
    Although some of my hon. Friends, quite understandably and naturally, feel that this reduction is a little incongruous and to some extent untimely in a Bill which, elsewhere, steps up very materially the duty on tobacco, which fails to make provision for certain needy sections of the community in very desirable social directions—-which fails, for example, to make any provision in respect of the restoration of housing subsidies and the like—nevertheless, recognising the technical purpose of this Clause and the fact that on the ground of equity as between two types of wine there is a case to be made for it, we shall not resist the passage of the Clause.
    This particular case, within the limited field of wine, on the ground of equity, ought to have loomed larger in the answers adduced by the Government spokesman for this reduction rather than the point he made that this was at the request of the Portuguese in negotiations connected with the European Free Trade Association.
    There is another factor which, I think, can be fairly adduced in favour of the proposition. It is that it should put an end to that very undesirable practice which has been encouraged by the two great disparity of rates between duties on light and heavy wines. I refer to the practice which has grown up of blending low-strength foreign wines with high-strength imported wines and producing a wine as strong as sherry, for example, but, nevertheless, one on which duty is paid at only 25s. on the foreign or 20s. on the Commonwealth product, as compared with 38s. on genuine sherry. I do not think that that can be justified. It is not even good from the consumer's point of view to have these combinations thrust upon him.
    Nevertheless, I do not think that the Chancellor should be credited with undue generosity in this respect because he is not likely to reduce the revenue
    1302
    although he estimates a reduction of £2½ million as a result of the change made in this connection. The experience in light wines has been that the 1949 reduction of duty made consumption shoot up from 1·3 million gallons in 1949 to 7 million gallons in 1959 and the revenue received increased from £1·7 million to £5 million. Even the modest reduction that was made in the case of heavy wine duties in 1958 has accounted for an increase of consumption of 10 to 15 per cent.
    If, therefore, we do not resist the Clause, we have our hesitations about it on the ground of the untimely choice of this subject for a reduction in duty when, elsewhere, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has not felt it possible to be more generous in directions which would be more socially desirable. Within the limited reasons which I have adduced, however, we shall not resist the Clause.
    Mr. G. R. Howard: The hon. Member for Walthamstow, West (Mr. Redhead) will forgive me if I do not follow him in all his arguments, but there is one respect in which I agree with him. Experience will, perhaps, show that this lowering of duty may well lead to an increased consumption of the wine. It is the feeling of the wine trade that it will do its best, by way of saying "Thank you" to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer for this concession, to see that he does not lose out in the end.
    I could not let the Clause pass without saying a sincere "Thank you" to my right hon. Friend for the concessions which he has made, not only in 1958, but on this occasion, too.
    Dr. Bennett: We have covered the subject of the fortified wines well enough and I am glad that the hon. Member for Walthamstow, West (Mr. Redhead) has endorsed the feeling that we are likely to put an end to the undesirable blending of some curious mixtures under the guise of a particularly duty-evading fortified wine.
    I should like to add a word of thanks to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer for having seen fit to remove an anomaly which, I believe, dates from the latter years of the last century—the double standard of duty on

    1303
    an identical product, the light table wine —by removing the extra surcharge on wine which has been put in bottle overseas.
    I forget the precise delicious quotations to which we have been treated on earlier occasions about this matter. I believe that it was held forth as a chance for the bachelor to contribute, as he no doubt wished to do, towards the well-being of the State. No doubt, the descendants of those bachelors are duly grateful. I am most relieved to see that the rates of duty are now to be charged on the product on an easily identifiable scale and will not bring in perjudice, matrimony, or anything else. I am sure that the whole country will be grateful to my right hon. Friend.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 2.—(SWEETS.)
    Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.
    Major H. Legge-Bourke: Hon. Members will notice that I have put down an Amendment to the Clause, in page 2, line 5, at the end to insert:
    (2) For the purpose of this section sweets shall not include intoxicating liquors which are made from apple or pear juice and which, if of fifteen degrees proof or greater strength, would, except for the passing of section two of the Finance Act, 1956, be cider (which includes perry) and not sweets within the meaning of the Excise Acts.
    I have suggested to you, Sir Gordon, that the point I intended to make is more than adequately covered in the new Clauses and Schedules and Amendments to the Seventh Schedule and the now Schedule put down by my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Mr. Deedes) and others of my hon. Friends. Those, of course, were not put down until last night. In my view, they will be much more effective in doing what I wish to do.
    I should like to make a few observations at this stage, however, in the hope of being able to give my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer plenty of warning of what I have in mind. His experience as Minister of Agriculture will have taught him that he can expect a rapidly increasing production of apples from the plantings of
    1304
    recent years, it taking about seven years for a tree to bear full fruit for the first time. Many of the trees planted just after the Second World Wax are about to come into ever-increasing yield year by year. There is, therefore, a serious problem for the British apple grower.
    There is no doubt that there was an adverse effect in the take-up of apples as a result of Section 2 of the Finance Act, 1956. That was the Section which classified as sweets cider and perry over 15 degrees of proof and limited cider only to apple or pear juice with one fermentation from fruit which had been in its natural state at the start of the process and did not contain any ethyl alcohol obtained from any other substances.
    4.45 p.m.
    The effect of all that was to impose a duty of 10s. 6d. per gallon on still cider under 27 degrees proof, and 18s. 6d. if it was over 27 degrees and £1 8s. 6d. on the sparkling cider, of whatever proof. I do not know what the result of all that has been. I am told that the Treasury had in mind to raise a sum running into millions of pounds from that duty, but that from the reclassified cider it has, in fact, produced under £100,000. If the original duty has failed in achieving its object, there is good reason for making considerable alteration. I will leave my remarks concerning the degree of the alteration until we discuss the appropriate new Clause and new Schedule.
    It is, however, worth bearing in mind from the viewpoint of the horticultural grower that the British cider manufacturers have done their best to take as much as possible of the cull apples from the main crop in this country. A firm operating in East Anglia takes many thousands of tons of apples from my constituency. It has not been greatly helped by the 1956 Finance Act. Some concession should be made especially to enable these firms to compete adequately with some fierce competition which they are meeting.
    Some companies are putting on the market a drink which is made largely from imported pulp. Certainly, I wish to give no encouragement to those people. When we have a surplus production of apples and pears, it is wrong to start importing pulp and making fruit juice into drink, which is then sold to the public who, I am sure, if the choice were available, would much prefer home-grown

    1305
    fruit. I hope that my right hon. Friend now has in mind what we intend to do and I am grateful to the Committee for having heard me.
    Mr. Redhead: Obviously, the Clause, so far as it is consequential on Clause 1 in making corresponding reductions for British wines, will not be resisted from this side of the Committee. I wish, however, to add a word of commendation of the points made by the hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Ely (Major Legge-Bourke), to which, I hope, the Chancellor of the Exchequer will give his attention.
    Beyond that, I ask the right hon. Gentleman once again to consider the archaic and somewhat misleading title of "Sweets". It gives rise to considerable confusion in people's minds. Even hon. Members have inquired whether it means that there is a duty on confectionery under this heading. In common parlance, all that it means is British wines. I notice that in reporting upon the matter, the Commissioners of Customs and Excise adopt that nomenclature and I urge that in future legislation the Chancellor of the Exchequer might be persuaded to do likewise and drop the archaic form.
    Mr. Barber: I listened with interest to the speech of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely (Major Legge-Bourke). If it is agreeable to my hon. and gallant Friend and to the Committee, it would be preferable to deal with the point of which he has spoken and of which my right hon. Friend and I have taken note, when we reach the appropriate new Clause. I should, however, correct something that my hon. and gallant Friend said, no doubt inadvertently, about the duty on strengthened cider. The duty on strengthened cider is limited to any cider or perry of a strength of 15 degrees proof spirit or more. Therefore, anything under that is not liable to duty.
    I want to make an admission to the Committee, in view of what the hon. Member for Walthamstow, West (Mr. Redhead) said. After my right hon. Friend had introduced his Budget and the Resolutions were being put, I heard a reference to a duty on sweets, and for one terrible moment I thought that a wrong power had been taken and that for once I had slipped up.
    Mr. H. Wilson: After that alarming confession by the Economic Secretary, perhaps he will tell us what he intends to do about it. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides will agree that there is something in the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, West (Mr. Redhead) that this is a very old form of words. Would the Chancellor think about it again and perhaps amend the Bill on Report? I do not suggest that it is a substantial point. Can he not get rid of this archaism now and replace "Sweets" by the clearer title of "British Wines", as suggested by my hon. Friend?
    Mr. Barber: I agree that it is somewhat of an anachronism and is very misleading. I am not sure whether it would be possible to do anything this year on the Report stage, but I can give the undertaking of my right hon. Friend to the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) that between now and the next Finance Bill we will look into the question and consider whether it is possible to make this definition in some way which is more palatable and more understandable.
    Mr. Mitchison: Will the hon. Gentleman satisfy my curiosity about one of the sweets? It is called metheglin. What is it? Is it a fertile source of revenue?
    Mr. Barber: I could not answer that "off the cuff". I can only tell the hon. and learned Gentleman that our revenue comes from all British wines, which includes that one, which I have not myself tasted.
    Mr. Wilson: Does that mean that the hon. Gentleman is asking us to pass the Bill without having studied the very learned discussions which we had on this subject two years ago? Does he not recall that there were some very authoritative speeches on metheglin? Was it not then widely understood in the Committee—I hope that it is still the case—that metheglin was much favoured in the Principality, being very similar to Cornish mead, or, at least, mead made in other parts of the country? Is not that so?
    Mr. Amory: I am advised that it is spiced mead.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 3.—(SPIRITS: ABOLITION OF CERTIFICATES AND CONSEQUENTIAL PROVISIONS.)
    Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.
    Mr. Redhead: Before the Committee is asked to part with this Clause, we might seek, if only for the sake of clarity, an explanation of its purpose. From reading its terminology, I presume that it means no more than an amendment of administrative procedure.
    Thus far in the course of the Bill we have had no explanation of its purpose. Neither its object nor its reason is clear from a reading of the terms of the Clause, particularly as it is accompanied by an equally long and somewhat complicated Schedule, with which we shall deal later. The whole thing is rather difficult for a layman to follow.
    Therefore, before the Committee parts with the Clause, the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the Financial Secretary might be good enough to explain its purpose and make clear why it is introduced at this stage. In particular, someone might explain whether any difficulties have been encountered with the form of procedure. I think that this is true, but I should like confirmation that it does not in any way affect the rate of duty on spirits. I should like some assurance that the new procedure represents as adequate a safeguard for the Revenue, as the old procedure did.
    Mr. John Rankin: May I raise a point for clarity from another angle? In subsections 2, 3, 4 and 5 there are repeated references to "this Act" and "the Act of 1952". In Clause 3 (4) there is a reference to "the Act of 1952" and in subsection (5) the words are
    "the provisions of the Act of 1952 specified in the First Schedule to this Act".
    There is a certain amount of confusion in those references, because the Act being referred to in some cases is the Customs and Excise Act, 1952. If we turn to the Seventh Schedule, the subsections which I have quoted become clearer than they are in the context of the Bill itself. As we refer at the very opening of Part I to the Finance Act, 1958, and later to the Entertainments Duty Act, 1958, there is no reason why we should not refer to
    1308
    the Customs and Excise Act, 1952 when we are talking about it in Clause 3.
    I agree that this is a matter of verbal clarity. I do not say that the references cannot be followed if the Schedule is consulted when one is reading the Bill, but there is no reason why the clarity should not be obvious, rather than that hon. Members reading the Bill should have to search for it. I hope that the Government Front Bench will take that point to heart and that we shall see a change on Report stage.
    Mr. Barber: I will certainly take to heart the point made by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin). The reason for using the phrase " the Act of 1952", which is defined in Clause 73, is because that Act, namely, the Customs and Excise Act, 1952, was a consolidation Measure and is in general use, as opposed to the yearly Finance Acts, which are of more specific application. I will certainly consider the hon. Member's point.
    The hon. Member for Walthamstow, West (Mr. Redhead)asked for an assurance that the Clause does not affect the rate of duty. I give him that assurance readily. He asked also for a brief explanation of its purpose. The purpose of the Clause is twofold. Its first purpose is to abolish spirits certificates and to substitute a lighter form of control involving the use of spirits consignment notes. The second purpose of the Clause is to extend for all the purposes of Customs and Excise the existing definition of "Scotch whisky".
    As regards the change from spirits certificates to spirits consignment notes, at present these certificates have to accompany the transport of spirits in two circumstances—first, if they are sent out from the stock of a rectifier or a com-pounder and, secondly, if they are sent out from the stock even of a dealer or a retailer in wholesale quantities.
    The hon. Member for Walthamstow, West asked whether I could tell him that the Revenue would be secure under this new more lax form of control. Again, I am happy to be able to give him that assurance. He obviously realises, having put the question, that the smuggling of spirits still presents a problem, as, indeed, do the difficulties which sometimes arise when non-duty paid spirits are stolen from warehouses.

    1309
    Some form of control is obviously essential. I believe that this new form of control will commend itself to the wine trade. It will help the trade considerably because, apart from anything else, the certificate will no longer have to accompany the spirits on their journey, but can in future be sent by post. It will also be of advantage to the Revenue.
    I think I need do no more than draw the attention of the Committee to the fact that the definition of "Scotch whisky", which has hitherto had only a limited application, is now to be used for all the purposes of Customs and Excise. This is a matter of some importance. It will be of value to the Scotch Whisky Association in its dealings with foreign Governments. It will permit a better control of labelling of whisky in warehouses and will restrict the use of the term "Scotch whisky" in all Revenue documents. This provision, I think, is merely a commonsense extension of an existing definition and something which will be most important and useful to one of our most important export trades.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    First Schedule agreed to.

    Clause 4.—(REPEAL OF ENTERTAINMENTS DUTY.)
    Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.
    5.0 p.m.
    Mrs. Eirene White: I do not think that it is necessary to say very much on this subject, because we have at last achieved our objective of total abolition of the tax. The arrangement proposed in the Clause whereby the tax will not be collected for a certain period, although technically still due, is an obvious commonsense method of dealing with the situation.
    I think it fair to say that, in the present condition of the cinema industry, the Chancellor is perhaps not quite as generous as he led us to suppose in the Budget debate, because the amount that he would have collected had he not abolished the tax would not have been anything as large as he said. However, we do not begrudge the right hon. Gentleman his claim to generosity, because we
    1310
    are glad that he has abolished the tax and we can fairly say "better late than never."
    It is a pity that this tax was not abolished in earlier years, because it has been a bad thing for the industry to have the excuse of Entertainments Duty which has enabled a number of exhibitors, more particularly, perhaps to delude themselves into thinking that it was only the Entertainments Duty which was their trouble and, as a result, into postponing the rationalisation of the industry suggested by Mr. John Davies and Mr. Clifford Barclay at a famous conference in Gleneagles, about three or four years ago. I think that the Chancellor would have been a better friend to the cinema industry had he taken this decision some time back.
    The other point I wish to make is that this abolition of Entertainments Duty will be of most benefit to the larger and more prosperous cinemas for the simple reason that the smaller ones were already exempted from tax under earlier concessions. I think it fair to say that the industry has been looking at this point recently and has expressed a little disquiet to the effect that it is precisely the smaller people who are not going to benefit and that to those who hath shall be given, which, of course, happens in other spheres of life.
    We may be asked later to look at another aspect of the industry, namely, the statutory levy, and to do something to readjust it so as to make it a little more just and to see that those who are getting the maximum relief under this Clause shall pay, perhaps, a larger share of levy towards the production side of the industry.
    We on this side of the Committee have always expressed great sympathy with the exhibitors, Who will, I think, benefit most by the abolition of the duty. I think the reckoning is that in a full year they will get about £4½ million extra revenue through the 'abolition of the tax. But we are also very much concerned with British film production as well as exhibition.
    I think it right to say that the producers expect to get, roughly, £½ million as a result of the abolition, but one must, of course, also point out that cinema attendances are still falling. I believe that the official estimate is that

    1311
    one may even have to calculate another 10 per cent. fall in attendances in the next twelve months. I hope that that is an over-estimate. But if the estimate is correct, then, of course, one must recognise that the takings of the industry will fall by an extent which will almost exactly wipe out the benefit of the abolition of the tax. Therefore, anything that the industry can do to reorganise and to strengthen itself is all to the good.
    I was much interested to see in the newspapers this morning a report of the conference of one of the main trade unions in the industry, N.A.T.K.E., in which one of their principal spokesmen said how necessary it was to concentrate the industry in those cinemas and those areas where it is likely to have the best return, which would be better for the general health of the industry. That is something which some of us have been preaching for some while. It is partly because the abolition of the duty will help the industry to face its problems realistically that we welcome the provisions in the Clause.
    Mr. Nabarro: Before we part with the Clause, I wish to express on behalf of the consumers, the people who go to the cinema, dismay that, notwithstanding my right hon. Friend's generosity in abolishing the last vestige of Entertainments Duty on the cinema, not a penny piece by way of rebate on the price of cinema seats is to find its way into the pockets of the viewers.
    The cinema owners and those associated with them have expressed the view that there will be no reduction in the price of cinema seats notwithstanding the Chancellor's abolition of Entertainments Duty. For years, Mr. Blackburn, you have sat in that Chair presiding over Committees and listening to arguments from all quarters of the Finance Committee to the effect that the cinemas are empty because of the Entertainments Duty. But once the duty is abolished nothing is going into the pockets of the viewers.
    I think that that is a very bad show indeed on the part of the cinema owners. They ought to have reduced the prices of the seats. If what the hon. Lady the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White) says is correct, that cinema attendances are still falling, then the owners and
    1312
    exhibitors have only themselves to blame for that. I have no sympathy with them at all.
    Mr. Rankin: We are grateful, of course, to the Chancellor for his decision to abolish Entertainments Duty. I suppose that the right hon. Gentleman really anticipated events and that he abolished the duty before it abolished itself. As my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White) said, I think that he somewhat exaggerated the occasion, because nobody within the industry expected for one moment that the right hon. Gentleman would extract the sum that he suggested he was losing, namely, a sum of the order of £7 million.
    Mr. Amory: I recognise the point which the hon. Gentleman is making and which is the point made by the hon. Lady the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White). I think it a perfectly fair one. My unfortunate duty is always to have to count my chickens before they are hatched.
    Mr. Rankin: We have realised that for a number of years, but whenever we have made that point at Question Time the Chancellor has always been somewhat loath to recognise it. Of course, no blame attaches to him, and we are grateful for what he has done.
    The interesting point to me was that the actual sum anticipated would have been £5 million had the Chancellor not, quite properly, abandoned the duty. The interest in that sum lies in the fact that it was also the first amount that was extracted from the cinema industry forty-four years ago when Mr. Reginald McKenna introduced the duty for the first time. He said in his Budget speech of that year that he anticipated, as the right hon. Gentleman so often did— perhaps "calculated" is the proper word—that the industry would yield £5 million.
    Mr. A. E. Hunter: I think that my hon. Friend should remember that it was not a tax on the industry, but on the public, the people who went to the cinema.
    Mr. Nabarro: The hon. Gentleman is making my point for me.
    Mr. Rankin: Of course, I am very familiar with the whole position.

    1313
    [Laughter.] Of course I am. I must be lacking in the gift of humour, because I fail to see any humour in the statement which I have just made. I hope that I am familiar with the position of the industry generally and with every aspect of the tax situation.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Feltham (Mr. Hunter) has repeated a point made by the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro). I will not go back on that, for I was merely pointing out that the amount of tax estimated to be derived from the industry by Mr. McKenna was £5 million and the amount of tax which would have finished the cycle would also have been £5 million. In the years between, however, the sum climbed from £5 million to nearly £40 million, and it finished at £5 million. If one tries to calculate the total, as I have tried to do while sitting here, one sees that at least £1,000 million has been paid in tax by the cinemas over these forty-three years.
    Mr. Hunter: My hon. Friend will no doubt recall that when the tax was introduced in 1915 there were very few cinemas. The tax was mainly on theatres. The cinemas were built between the wars, between 1920 and 1939.
    Mr. Rankin: The tax was introduced in 1916 and it was labelled Entertainments Duty, as it is still labelled in the Bill. That is the context in which I am speaking. Throughout the years the other aspects of entertainment to which the tax applied have been gradually released, and many of us have claimed since that it should have been called a cinema tax. Nevertheless, the term Entertainments Duty is still used. The amount collected from the other sources to which my hon. Friend referred was relatively small. In many cases the theatre was making a negligible contribution to the tax. The big contribution came from the cinema. In suggesting a total of £1,000 million, I was making allowances for all the other sources of entertainment which were covered by the tax. We must realise the enormous sum paid from the cinema trade to Chancellors of the Exchequer throughout these years.
    When the hon. Member for Kidderminster criticises the cinemas on the
    1314
    ground that they have not reduced prices, he should recollect the great contribution which the cinemas have made financially and in many other ways, for instance by propaganda in times of distress and of need. He must put in the balance against what he said the other aspects of the work done by the industry.
    Mr. Nabarro: I was not being rude about it. I wanted to make the point that for years past they have been lambasting me, as an hon. Member, because they said the cinemas were empty largely due to the incidence of Entertainments Duty. I alway quarrelled with that; I said that it was due much more to television than to anything else. Now that we have got rid of the Entertainments Duty they refuse to give back anything to the cinemagoer.
    Mr. Rankin: I did not suggest for one moment that the hon. Member was being rude in what he said, nor am I being rude in referring to him. But he said that the public had not received back a penny piece by way of price reductions, and it is fair to say that, except on one occasion, which was three years ago, at no time when we have discussed this matter have they said that if the tax were reduced part of it would be applied to a reduction of prices. I have been in fairly close touch with the cinema people on the occasions when they have been here, and I can recollect only one occasion on which we were discussing this matter when they made a definite statement that if the tax were reduced, part of it would go towards reducing prices. I said to them at that time—and I think I repeated it in the House—that that was an unwise thing to do, for the reason that great developments were taking place in the industry, which involved much capital investment, and that a large majority of cinemas could not afford these new techniques within the cinemas because of a lack of capital.
    But we do not want to fight these old battles again.
    5.15 p.m.
    The Temporary Chairman (Mr. F. Blackburn): Order. I am glad that the hon. Member has decided that he does not want to refight these old battles, because that would be out of order on this Clause.
    Mr. Rankin: I think you will agree, Mr. Blackburn, that to some extent I was drawn out of order by the interruptions. In any event, we do not want to renew these old arguments. The tax has been abolished, and I am sure that no Chancellor will ever again reintroduce it.
    Mr. Nabarro: I am not so sure about that.
    Mr. Rankin: Is the hon. Member speaking for the Treasury? If so, I hope he will say so. He indicated earlier that he is a unique figure in the proceedings of the House of Commons. If he assumes the mantle of the Chancellor of the Exchequer he will certainly be a unique figure. I hope that he will not remain seated where he is when he claims to wear the mantle which he has just assumed in the declaration which he has made. He said that the Chancellor may reintroduce the tax.
    Mr. Nabarro: What I intended to imply was that I would not trust the Treasury not to reintroduce the tax.
    Mr. Rankin: When the Treasury cannot depend on those who sit behind the Chancellor for support, there is every reason why we on this side of the Committee should show our distrust in a more open fashion than sometimes we do.
    We welcome the abolition of the tax and thank the Chancellor, but we ask hon. Members on both sides to remember that the cinema industry has also played its part financially and in every other way with the Treasury, and made a great contribution to the needs of this country, very often when it was in great hazard.
    Mr. Donald Wade: I welcome the abolition of the duty, and I should only be repeating comments which have already been made if I pointed out that the duty should have been removed several years ago. Unfortunately, many of the smaller cinemas have already gone out of business, and to them this abolition comes too late. I have no doubt that the duty has been a contributory cause to their difficulties, although obviously not the only cause.
    When I think of the long discussions which we had last year and the arguments then put forward from the
    1316
    Treasury Bench in support of partial remission instead of abolition, and when I now find that these arguments have been abandoned, my confidence in the validity of arguments from the Treasury Bench is somewhat shaken. But I must not be churlish when a duty is being abolished.
    I also regret the fact that there is to be no reduction in the prices of seats. I should have thought that some of the larger cinemas, which are doing reasonably well, could have made some reduction in prices to their customers. I believe that there is a future for the cinema, though, obviously, there is great competition in view of the development of television. I believe that a good film, particularly a British film, will still continue to attract good audiences, but I think there is a case for some reduction in prices to the cinemagoer.
    I readily admit that those who pressed us to urge the abolition of this duty did not pretend that this would necessarily result in a reduction in prices. They based their case on the injustice of this duty, and while I should like to see some reduction in the prices charged by some of the cinemas, I nevertheless welcome the repeal of the Entertainments Duty.
    Mr. William Shepherd: I wish to say a word or two on the point about the failure of cinema exhibitors to reduce their prices. Clearly, it would be very desirable if, as a result of forgoing the Entertainments Duty, the prices of seats in cinemas were to be reduced. We would all welcome that, and some hon. Members may take the view that, with the substantial profits being earned by companies concerned in exhibiting, there is great justification for some reduction in seat prices.
    I think it is true to say, however, that these large profits are illusory, because if we take the Rank Organisation as an example, it is probably true to say that no more than about 30 or 40 per cent. of its total profits come from exhibition, and that the rest are earned by other activities, many of them outside the cinema business itself. Therefore, there is not the amount available which some people may believe to be the case.
    Moreover, I think it is true to say that in the past decade cinemas have not spent enough money on the maintenance of

    1317
    their establishments. Nor have they paid sufficient wages to their staffs, either on the ground of paying what are reasonable wages or on the ground of obtaining staffs which would give satisfaction to the public. I believe that these requirements—to establish a higher level of building and pay better wages in order to recruit better staffs—are the priorities in the distribution of this amount which will be made available as the result of the repeal of the duty.
    We are abolishing this Entertainments Duty, but we are not abolishing duty on all forms of entertainment. We still have a duty upon television, and a substantial duty upon gramophone records.
    Mr. E. Fernyhough: Football pools.
    Mr. Shepherd: I think it is unwise for the Committee to rush to the conclusion that for all time we have abolished duty on entertainments. I am one of those who hold the view that we have in the past ten years drafted towards too much direct taxation and too little indirect taxation, and I do not view this tendency without concern. Therefore, I would not for a moment like to feel that my right hon. and hon. Friends in the Committee take the view that never at any time, in any circumstances, whatever the degree of prosperity, shall we revert to some form of Entertainments Duty. I believe that if we must have indirect taxation—and I believe that we need more of it—we should make it a tax on industries which can bear it. If for any reason an industry cannot bear it, because of change, there is obviously a case for remission, but it would be quite wrong to try to lay down at this stage the principle that there should be for all time the abolition of Entertainments Duty.
    Mr. Redhead: While the abolition of the Entertainments Duty has been welcomed on all sides of the Committee, as indeed we welcome it—
    Mr. Nabarro: With qualifications.
    Mr. Redhead: — with qualifications, and I propose to refer to one myself, I am bound to emphasise the fact that it is a very belated decision. Nevertheless, we welcome it as a logical and just step which has been constantly urged upon
    1318
    the Chancellor with increasing intensity over the last few years.
    I am mindful of the efforts particularly of my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White), who opened from this side of the Committee, and of my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) in his persistence in arguing this matter. We are exceedingly glad that it is to end, and it is a salutary comment on a duty introduced in 1916 as a temporary war-time tax which has existed for forty-four years. It is stretching the interpretation of the term "temporary", but I suppose we can take some consolation from the fact that, if the world is not yet free from crises, at least, we have emerged finally from the emergency of the First World War.
    There is one aspect of the matter which has just been touched upon by the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Wade) to which I should like to refer, because the Chancellor was rather cagey about it and made no reference to it, although it is tied up with the question of Entertainments Duty and the limitation on what he is doing in this instance. I would remind him that his predecessor in 1957, when the duty was abolished in respect of all other forms of entertainment, took the view, apparently, because he was conscious of the unfairness of limiting the duty to the cinema, that although he was not willing to forgo the revenue which the cinema, which was the biggest contributor to the duty at that stage, gave him, there was a degree of unfairness about the situation which left the cinema still saddled with the burden of the duty while fighting its battle with competing forms of entertainment, primarily that of television.
    The Chancellor of the day, the right hon. Member for Monmouth (Mr. Thorneycroft), in effect said to the cinema industry, "I am not willing to forgo entirely the revenue from the cinema, but as a consolation I will tax your chief competitor," and so he promptly clamped on an Excise duty of £1 on television licences.
    Mr. Nabarro: That is a faulty argument. [Interruption.] No, it is completely faulty, because the next year the Purchase Tax on television sets was reduced, which more than offset the temporary increase in the licence, and

    1319
    the year after that, in 1959, the Purchase Tax on television sets was again reduced, so that it all comes out in the wash.
    Mr. Redhead: If the argument is illogical and does not apply, the fault lies with the right hon. Member for Monmouth, when Chancellor, because in making the proposal, he used these words:
    "Entertainment is not in itself an unreasonable object of taxation and I must obviously continue to look to the patrons of entertainment for a substantial amount of revenue which I should otherwise have to collect in some different way.
    On the other hand, there have been many changes since the duty was introduced in 1916 and, indeed, since it was last revised in 1954. Some forms of entertainment are expanding. As they expand they affect the profit of the other types. In particular, television has, in recent years, grown to be a powerful competitor with other entertainments and I have had to consider whether it is bearing a share of taxation comparable with its rivals. I have not overlooked the fact that anyone who buys a television set pays a substantial amount of Purchase Tax upon it. But there is no tax on its use comparable with the tax on the admission price to a cinema. I am satisfied that a fair balance in the taxation of these competitive entertainments is desirable."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th April, 1957; Vol. 568, c. 989.]
    Those were the grounds upon which the Chancellor imposed an Excise licence duty of £1 on the television licence. While at a subsequent date there were reductions of Purchase Tax on television sets, the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro), familiar as he is with the subject of Purchase Tax, will, I am sure, acknowledge that they were coincident with many other changes in the Purchase Tax Schedules. In short, I venture to suggest they had nothing whatever to do with this particular aspect of the matter.
    5.30 p.m.
    What the Chancellor did then, of course, was completely consistent with a principle which used to be applied in relation to revenue duties. If a specific article was taxed, it was thought equitable to place a corresponding tax on any alternative or competing article serving the same purpose. In this way, we had a duty on matches followed by a duty on mechanical lighters. The same principle is to be seen, as the hon. Member for Kidderminster will have noted, in the Purchase Tax Schedules, whatever anomalies he discerns in them.
    1320
    Although in this instance the television licence duty introduced in those circumstances and for the specific purpose of a countervailing duty was of no benefit to the cinema, the fact that it was adopted raises a pertinent question in connection with this Clause now that the Entertainments Duty on cinemas is to be abolished. Why does the Chancellor maintain the television licence duty? Clearly, the argument adduced for it as a countervailing duty no longer holds good. He is giving up £7,500,000, the estimated revenue from Entertainments Duty in respect of cinemas, but he is holding on to an estimated revenue of £11,500,000 from television licences.
    I emphasise that from the limited change in respect of Entertainments Duty which he is now making the public derives no advantage whatever. The remission of Entertainments Duty is not and— I emphasise this in fairness to the exhibitors—was not expected to be passed on to the public. Latterly, the cinema exhibitors have made the point abundantly clear. Although in theory the Entertainments Duty was paid by the public on charges for admission, the case for its remission rested very largely on the fact that, so long as it existed, the cinema proprietors were limited in the opportunities they had for raising their basic prices to an economic level. Only with the removal of the duty, it was said, and with the ability to go on charging the same gross prices to the public would they be able, in their estimation, to be in a fair position to hope for a more economical basis for their business.
    In present circumstances, it is relevant to point out that the cinema exhibitors have to contemplate not only rising costs but prospective rising costs, for already the employees of the industry, who hitherto, mindful of the difficulties, have exercised restraint, are now submitting pay claims because of the remission. In the circumstances, it is hardly to be wondered that the cinema proprietors have not felt it possible to pass on the tax remission to the public.
    If, therefore, the people generally gain nothing out of this change, they, the licence holders, will still have to meet the duty which is charged directly in respect of the television licence. That situation will continue. I submit to the

    1321
    Chancellor that it is inequitable to take this step without taking into account the corresponding countervailing duty introduced in 1957.
    Mr. Nabarro: Reduce Purchase Tax.
    Mr. Redhead: If the hon. Gentleman wishes to pursue that line, he will, no doubt, have his opportunities later during the Committee stage. There are some Amendments down which we shall, no doubt, argue in due course. I submit to the Chancellor that, if he feels it right and proper, notwithstanding the step he has taken in regard to Entertainments Duty, to extract revenue from television, he might more profitably direct his attention in some way or other to the enormous profits which are being made in commercial television.
    Mr. Denzil Freeth: Did I understand the hon. Gentleman to say that it was reasonable that the exhibitors should not pass on the benefit of this tax remission to the public because the workers in the industry have put in a pay claim? Is not this a very dangerous doctrine to enunciate with approval? We shall never have a reduction in the duty on petrol because the Chancellor will quite reasonably argue that the workers in the transport industry would demand an equivalent increase in wages to make up for any tax remission, with the result that the public would have nothing.
    Mr. Redhead: I referred to that fact as an additional reason for restraint and reserve on the part of the exhibitors, but I did say initially that their position was made abundantly clear, certainly during the last two years, that, given the remission or abolition of the tax which they sought, they would not hope to pass it on to the public. They have, I think, been perfectly frank about it. I am sure that hon. Members who have received representations from the trade will confirm that that has been made abundantly clear. The basic reason has been that, so long as the tax existed, the exhibitors were restricted in their ability to raise their basic prices because every rise in price obviously would attract a higher rate of duty and put the cinema still further out of reach.
    Mr. Barber: This proposal has been universally welcomed, with qualifications, by the hon. Lady the Member for
    1322
    Flint, East (Mrs. White) and her hon. Friends and by the spokesman for the Liberal Party the hon. Member for Huddersfield, West (Mr. Wade). The hon. Member for Walthamstow, West (Mr. Redhead) referred to the history of the tax and pointed out, quite rightly, that it was introduced as a temporary war-time measure in 1916. He then referred to what had occurred in 1957 when all forms of entertainment other than the cinema and public television shows were entirely relieved of the duty.
    There was a slight further reduction of the duty in 1958 and liability was further limited in 1959. I need not go into the details of the several reductions, but the hon. Lady the Member for Flint, East was quite right to point out that many smaller cinemas will not benefit from the reduction because, as a result of the reduction in liability last year alone, less than half the cinemas were, until the Budget, paying any duty at all.
    I think you would regard it as somewhat inappropriate, Mr. Blackburn, if I were to attempt to answer in detail the points made by the hon. Member for Walthamstow, West about the television licence duty and commercial television, but I have taken note of what he said.
    Some hon. Members have regretted that this step to abolish totally the Entertainments Duty has not been taken before. I remember well from the debates last year during the Committee stage of the Finance Bill that considerable pressure was brought to bear on my right hon. Friend to do just that. He then took the view that the decline in admissions would tend to slow down during 1959 and would cease finally at a level of about 600 million a year. I think it is only fair to him to say that that view at that time was shared by the trade.
    Unfortunately, my right hon. Friend's expectations and those of the trade were not fulfilled. The provisional figure for admissions in respect of the financial year 1959–60 is down to 575 million. The rate of closures has continued to be considerable during this last year. It is important to bear in mind, however, that there have been more closures of cinemas paying no duty than closures of those cinemas which were still paying duty.

    1323
    It is obvious, therefore, that it is not just the Entertainments Duty which has been responsible for the decline in cinema-going.
    I ought to give the Committee two sets of figures which are very striking. Admissions for the year 1958 were 754 million. In 1959, admissions were reduced to 601 million. Net closures of cinemas during 1958 numbered 218. Last year, the number was 434.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) expressed regret that there had been no reduction in the price of cinema seats. I think that he will agree with the observations of my hon. Friend the Member for Cheadle (Mr. Shepherd) who pointed out that the cinema industry has had its difficulties, but, nevertheless, I feel bound to say, although my right hon. Friend has no authority in these matters, that I, like my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster, regret that it has not been found possible to pass on at least part of this reduction by way of cheaper seats.
    Mr. Nabarro: I thank my hon. Friend very much.
    Mrs. White: May I ask the hon. Gentleman whether in discussions with the trade there was any suggestion that any remission should be passed on? Has he any ground for supposing that it should be passed on in this way? I do not want to anticipate something which will come to the House later, but I thought it only right to mention that, as I am sure the hon. Member knows, there are discussions in the trade as a result of which the statutory levy may be adjusted. This will have the effect of making larger cinemas pay to the producers a larger proportion of that levy than smaller cinemas. That to some extent will offset for the larger cinemas the benefit arising from the abolition of Entertainments Duty. To suggest that there should be a considerable diminution in the price of seats is unrealistic in the present state of the industry.
    Mr. Barber: I am sorry if the hon. Lady misunderstood me. I did not for one moment wish to minimise the difficulties with which the industry is faced, and I hope that she will acquit me of
    1324
    making any such suggestion. For that reason, I gave the Committee the figures of closures and of the fall in admissions and pointed out that many of these closures—I think more than half—were of cinemas which were not paying the duty. I would not for one moment suggest that the industry is not having difficulties other than those presented by the Entertainments Duty. All I did was to express my regret that at least some part of the remission could not be passed on.
    As this is the occasion of the demise of the Entertainments Duty, I think that the Committee will be interested in the extent to which the yield has fallen in recent years, partly as a result, of course, of reductions in duty. The hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin) spoke of the extent of the contribution of the cinema industry by way of Entertainments Duty The hon. Member was absolutely right. In 1956–57, out of a total of £41 million of Entertainments Duty the yield from cinemas alone was estimated at £35 million. In the following year, out of a total of £27 million, the estimated yield from cinemas was £26 million. By last year it had fallen to £7½ million, to a great extent as a result of the successive reductions which had been made.
    The cinema provides a form of entertainment for tens of millions of people, including, I am happy to say, myself. I hope that the Committee will agree that this step is fully justified. It will cost about £7 million in a full year, but, as the hon. Lady recognised, we should be deluding ourselves if we thought that Entertainments Duty was the only difficulty with which the industry is faced. I believe that its abolition will do much to help the industry.
    Mr. Rankin: Will not the hon. Member endorse what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said when he interrupted me? The Chancellor said, in effect, that £7½ million was his estimated return from the industry. He did not say that the abolition of the duty will cost that.
    Mr. Barber: No. As I am sure the hon. Member will realise, if one abolishes a duty, it is difficult to give any but an estimated figure. That is why I said that the estimated figure was £7 million.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 5.—(TOBACCO.)
    5.45 p.m.
    Mr. Nabarro: I beg to move, in page 3, line 14, to leave out "three shillings and fourpence" and to insert "one shilling and eightpence".
    These figures were not selected at random. In Clause 5 my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer chose to increase the Tobacco Duty by 3s. 4d. a 1b. The purpose of the Amendment is to cut in half precisely the amount of the increase, for a variety of reasons. I wish to deal with the general proposition first and then add a word or two to what I said earlier concerning the increase in taxation in this context.
    I am a smoker. Twelve times as many people smoke in this country as those who consume the wines referred to in Clauses 1 and 2. Twelve times as many people are interested in the Amendment as are interested in Clauses 1 and 2. The great majority of people, I think, smoke either cigarettes or a pipe. I do not like a fiscal policy which reduces the price of beer by 2d. one year and puts it on cigarettes the following year— [Interruption.] The hon. Member ought to wait until I have finished my sentence —with a General Election in between. I do not like the fiscal policy which takes duty off imported and home-produced wine, which affects only a relatively small part of the population, notoriously the middle classes and well-to-do, and in the same Budget clamps duty on cigarettes and tobacco, which affects the overwhelming majority of ordinary men and women, notably industrial workers. I stigmatise a policy of that kind as fiscal flatulence.
    Mr. Ede: It is inflationary.
    Mr. Nabarro: The right hon. Gentleman is confirming what I said in a Budget speech on this topic. All increases in taxation are inflationary.
    I want to deal narrowly with the method of increasing the Tobacco Duty in this Finance Bill because of the widespread dislocation it has caused. A packet of 10 cigarettes of a popular brand before the Budget was priced at 1s. 11½d. and a packet of 20 cigarettes of a popular brand was priced at 3s. 11d. I refer to such brands as Player's, Gold
    1326
    Flake, Capstan and many more like them which most of us who are smokers smoke. An increase of 3s. 4d. a 1b. in the Tobacco Duty has had the effect of raising the price of a packet of 10 cigarettes from 1s. 11½d. to 2s. 0½d. and that of a packet of 20 of the same brand from 3s. 11d. to 4s. 1d.
    About £25 million worth of cigarettes are sold every year through automatic vending machines, or, as they are more commonly called, slot machines. All of these machines are designed and manufactured to take florins. Now that the price of the popular brands of cigarettes are 2s. 0½d. for 10 and 4s. 1d. for 20 the whole of that valuable machinery has been immobilised, and much of it cannot be altered.
    I suspect that hon. Members on both sides of the Committee know that this machinery contains relatively delicate testing devices to ensure that spurious coins are not put into the slot. A florin is carefully tested by that mechanism. There is only a relatively small clearance round it in the machine and the machine cannot easily be altered to take half-crowns. Even if it were altered to take half-crowns, 5½d. change in coppers for ten cigarettes would have to be given and, as it is not possible within the casement of one and the same machine to provide both for half-crown and two shilling pieces, for a packet of twenty cigarettes it would be necessary for two half-crowns to be inserted and 11d. change in coppers would have to be given. All of this is immensely cumbersome, but in addition it would involve the reconstruction and alteration of millions of pounds worth of these automatic vending or slot machines.
    Of all the clumsy and cumbersome devices for raising taxes—first, to select tobacco and then to make the price of 10 cigarettes a halfpenny over the 2s. thereby immobilising the whole of this valuable machinery. It is impossible to conceive a more clumsy method of dealing with a situation than that.
    I am not alone in these thoughts. On the day after the Budget the following telegram was dispatched to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and I wish to read it to the Committee. It says:
    "The Automatic Vending Machine Association regret that the interests of the industry that it represents do not appear to have been taken into account in the increased tax on

    1327
    tobacco and cigarettes proposed in the Budget speech. The Association have in mind the inconvenience to the public involved in having to receive 5½d. change on 10 cigarettes or 5d. on 20 cigarettes of a standard brand and the costs of up to £750,000 in altering 100,000 machines … that are said to be in operation."
    As a result of that telegram to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor, and as they could not expect any earlier reply, the manufacturers communicated with me—[Laughter.] Yes, and not because I am occasionally critical of the Chancellor. I happen to have been engaged in engineering production for most of my life and I do, therefore, know how immensely difficult it is to alter machinery of this kind—especially when only ½d. is involved—and due, no doubt, to my affiliations outside this House with manufacturing interests, the association communicated with me.
    It correctly summarised its views under seven short heads that I shall read. First, the effect of the proposed increase in the tobacco and cigarette duty will be to immobilise the entire sale of cigarettes from vending machines. Second, this disrupts a business whose annual turnover is between 1 per cent. and 2 per cent. of the total sales of cigarettes and, in terms of money, £25 million per annum. Third, equipment to the value of £10 million is immobilised. Fourth, the cost of alterations to the machines— if they can be altered at all—is provisionally estimated at £750,000. Fifth, it is estimated that before this trade can be brought into proper working order at the proposed new prices, six to twelve months' work by technicians and engineers will be required in order to alter, or endeavour to alter, the 100,000 machines involved. Sixth, this length of time must inevitably drive many operators of machines into bankruptcy through being unable to meet their hire-purchase commitments on the machines, and thereby cause unemployment in the works that make the machines.
    I pause here to explain that most of these machines are sold to small tobacconists on hire-purchase arrangements over a period of two years. The tobacconists rely on paying their instalments month by month on the profits they earn from the sale of the cigarettes through the machines. Obviously, if they cannot sell any cigarettes they find it difficult to keep up their instalments.
    1328
    The seventh head says—and these are stern words, indeed—that it seems evident to the industry that when framing this proposal which puts the average price of 10 cigarettes at the ridiculously lopsided figure of 2s. 0½d., the practical consideration of selling involved was never taken into account by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
    I say this in the Chancellor's defence. He could not have gone to those in the trade before his Budget and consulted them about increasing the Tobacco Duty —for obvious reasons—but it does seem to me, from what I have said and on careful consideration of the problem, that he could have had very little regard to automatic machine sales before deciding on the particular measure of Tobacco Duty that he would have— 3s. 4d. per 1b.
    Let me give to the Economic Secretary two analogies. I wonder what would have happened to the Postmaster-General had he decided to increase the price of a postage stamp to 3¼d. My hon. Friends laugh in derision, but that would be just about as sensible as making the price of a packet of 10 cigarettes 2s. 0½d.—just about as sensible. At one foul swoop every coin slot machine for selling stamps—[HON. MEMBERS: "Fell."] I am sorry; in deference to my hon. Friend the Member for Yarmouth (Mr. Fell), the term is a "fell swoop", not a "foul swoop". As I was saying, had the Postmaster-General done that, every coin slot machine for stamps in the country would have been put out of action.
    Suppose that the Postmaster-General had decided to make the price of a local telephone call from a coin box 4½d. instead of 4d.—there being no provision for a halfpenny in any of that automatic machinery. We, in this House of Commons would have been in an uproar in five minutes attacking him; saying how utterly stupid and shortsighted it was either to waste this huge value of machinery or, alternatively, to cause the disruption of the telephone call arrangements and the wastage of resources in skilled labour to make alternative machinery. But none of that would have been any more sensible or any less sensible than to make the price of a packet of cigarettes 2s. 0½d. for 10 and 4s. 1d. for 20—
    Mr. Douglas Houghton: The hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) is comparing what the Chancellor has done with what the Postmaster-General might have done, but the Postmaster-General would have been fixing prices. What the Chancellor has done is to fix taxes. Is it beyond the resources of the tobacco industry, with its enormous wealth and its inflated dividends, to reduce the price of 10 cigarettes by ½d.? If it can do that, it solves its own problem, and has no need to come to the House for the problem to be solved in this way.
    Mr. Nabarro: If the hon. Gentleman had allowed me to continue, I would have dealt with that point and, I hope, dealt with it faithfully. At the moment, out of a packet of 20 cigarettes that sells for 4s. 1d. about 3s. is duty. It may be 3s. 0½d. but, correct to the nearest penny, it is about 3s. The price of the cigarettes, excluding duty, is of the order of 1s. The margin of profit before taxation on that packet of 20 cigarettes is less than a halfpenny.
    Unless the tobacco manufacturers were to sell 10 cigarettes at a loss they could not reduce the price from 2s. 0½d. to 2s. These are published facts. The hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) has challenged me on this point, and I am glad to see him nodding his assent. If he looks up the figures relating to Player's of Nottingham, or Wills of Bristol and other firms, he will find that they could not reduce the price by ½d. on 10 cigarettes unless they were to sell at a loss.
    I say to my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary—though far be it from me to recommend alternative sources of revenue to him—that there are many forms of indirect taxation that do not involve automatic machinery. If he had put a modicum on petrol, for example—I am not recommending it—he would not have immobilised every petrol pump in the country. If he had put a modicum on beer he would not have immobilised all the machinery in the public houses and elsewhere for pulling off pints of ale. He chose the one commodity which is sold very substantially by these automatic vending machines, and because of the amount of the increase in the duty he has caused this huge dislocation in the trade.
    1330
    6.0 p.m.
    The effect of my Amendment is narrow, and I think it is wholly practical in its approach to this problem. If the amount of the duty were cut exactly in half from 3s. 4d. to 1s. 8d. the price of 10 popular brand cigarettes would be 2s., the price of 20 popular brand cigarettes would be 4s.
    I am glad to have stimulated so much discussion on the Opposition Front Bench. The hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison) is a little more vociferous than usual. As I was saying, the prices could be 2s. for 10 popular brand cigarettes and 4s. for 20.
    Let me make this final point to my hon. Friend. The Treasury is going to pay 50 per cent. of all the losses entailed in altering this machinery. If it costs £1 million to alter the machinery the profits of the manufacturers of the machinery and the buyers of it, the retailers, will be diminished by an amount of £1 million or whatever is the cost of altering the machinery. Because of the diminution of those profits the Chancellor's revenue will fall by a sum equal to the incidence of Income Tax and Profits Tax, being 51¼ per cent. at the rate covered in this Bill. He is not going to get all the revenue he anticipates by increasing the Tobacco Duty. At least in the first year there will be a substantial countervailing charge arising from the fall in profits of those machinery makers.
    I repeat, I have never witnessed in this Committee a more cumbersome manipulation of duty than the way the Chancellor has chosen to do it this year. I hope that the Economic Secretary, apart from all the general arguments against Tobacco Duty, will answer these specific points and try to justify to the Committee and to the country why he thinks it is desirable to have a clumsy amount like 2s. 0½d. for 10 popular brand cigarettes and 4s. 1d. for 20.
    Mr. Charles Loughlin: Would the hon. Gentleman kindly give some more calculation of the point about the ½d. profit on cigarettes? Did he mean that this was the manufacturer's profit or the total profit? If it is the manufacturer's profit, would it not be possible to sell cigarettes by a marginal adjustment of the manufacturing,

    1331
    wholesale and retail profits in the vending machines to which the hon. Gentleman has referred?
    Mr. Nabarro: No. I do not think it is practicable. Equally I do not think that it is practicable to deal with the matter by selling one less cigarette in a packet, because a dummy has to be inserted to fill the packet out, and that cannot be handled satisfactorily in an automatic machine. Neither would it be practicable to deal with it by the other alternative, by shortening the length of the cigarette, or reducing the amount of tobacco in it. All these are possible alternatives, but as automatic machinery is involved in all of them, the same difficulty arises.
    If the manufacturers were to reduce by ½d. their price to the retailers they would be selling at a loss. The margin of distributors' profits on cigarettes is already so low as to be incapable of being further reduced. If any hon. Gentleman opposite doubts this let him go to the co-operative wholesale societies and ask them if they can cut the profits on a packet of 10 standard cigarettes. The co-operatives are always in this trouble, that they have to pay a dividend on popular brands of cigarettes, and that often involves their selling those cigarettes at a loss, so tiny is their margin of profit. I suggest to the Committee that it is not possible to take up this id. by manufacturers, retailers and distributors of all kinds combining together to knock it off, because the margin of profit is itself so slender.
    For these reasons I hope that the Committee will support me in this Amendment.
    Mr. Frederick Mulley: For once, I rise to support the hon. Gentleman the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro), and I hope that not only he but a substantial number of his supporters, convinced by his arguments, will support the Amendment in the Lobby when the Division is called. Frankly, though, I am disappointed in the hon. Gentleman, because I had not before understood him to be a man of half-measures. I would have thought it rather more in keeping with his views on taxation if he had been bold enough, as, perhaps, we may convince him to be between now and the time when the Question is put, to vote against the whole 3s. 4d.
    Mr. Nabarro: The hon. Gentleman has been a member of the House of Commons since—1945? No, 1950. Does he not know the simple procedural point, that had I put on the Notice Paper an Amendment to abolish the whole 3s. 4d. it would not have been in order and would not have been called? [Hon. Members: "Why not?"] It would have been dealt with on the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill". I wanted my Amendment to knock off half of the duty dealt with in an individual and unique fashion, so that I could make my point about the machinery quite separately from the general point of the increase in the Tobacco Duty.
    Mr. Mulley: I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his further observations. No doubt, as his influence grows, we shall rearrange the procedure of the Committee so that he can have amenities which at the moment, owing to lack of foresight on the part of those who framed the Standing Orders, are not available.
    Mr. Sydney Silverman: There is no need to criticise the procedure of the Committee in this way. The hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) has been a Member of the House of Commons since, I think, 1945—
    Mr. Nabarro: No. I said that the hon. Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley) had been here since 1945, but corrected myself.
    Mr. Silverman: The hon. Member tot Kidderminster has not been here since 1945. It only sounds as long. He probably knows already that the rules of the Committee would entitle him to make his speech on the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill", and then to vote against it, and he could have made his point against the whole tax equally well.
    Mr. Mulley: I do not wish to engage in discussion, which, I am sure, would be out of order, on the procedure of the Committee, as distinct from discussion on the Amendment before us. Unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman), I rather welcomed the further intervention of the hon. Member for Kidderminster, because I took that to be a pledge to vote against the Clause when the Question on the Clause is put.

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    While I accept completely the hon. Gentleman's criticism of the Treasury in framing the tax increase in such a way as to involve substantial expenditure on the part of all those concerned with automatic vending machines, I would, in parenthesis, say that the Treasury itself will have to pay a substantial part of the cost of new machinery or the cost of making the necessary changes in the machinery. In the meantime, the consumer suffers because a great proportion of these machines, as the hon. Gentleman said, have had to be stopped. I understand that one has to walk a very long time after shop closing hours to get a packet of cigarettes from such a machine.
    However, I take a rather different view from the hon. Gentleman. I am an admirer in many ways of the Treasury, and I take it that the Treasury did this because it knew that there were such things as cigarette vending machines, and I think that probably the difficulties now before the Committee arose because the Treasury took the view that smokers comprise such a good source of revenue that at some time or another the Treasury had to break the 2s. price for 10 standard cigarettes.
    I view this as a deliberate decision on the Chancellor's part as being an indication that in years to come smokers will have further tax to pay. I believe that this is merely a trial run, otherwise I would take the view of the hon. Member for Kidderminster that, knowing the disclocation that would be caused, the Treasury would not have gone to this extent. The simple point that occurred to the hon. Member and is incorporated in his Amendment, that it would be neater and better for everyone to have had an increase that would mean a price of 2s. for 10 standard cigarettes, is probably within the grasp of the Treasury mind.
    Mr. Nabarro: Only just.
    Mr. Mulley: The fact that the Treasury has gone beyond that point is possibly an indication of planning for the future and that it wants half-a-crown to be the coin in the machine, which would give 5½d. a packet as possible spoil for the future. I protest very strongly against the picking out of smokers for an unreasonably heavy
    1334
    share of our national taxation. No one will object that there is taxation on cigarettes, but when one reflects that tobacco alone represents 35 per cent. of the total yield of Income Tax and that £829 million is expected to be collected from this tax, as against £225 million from beer and £155 million from spirits, one sees the size of the contribution which the smoker makes to our national economy.
    The hon. Member for Kidderminster often talks about Purchase Tax. Perhaps it is a revelation to recognise that the smoker is expected to pay £829 million in tax this year against a total yield from Purchase Tax of £535 million. When one further reflects that the smokers are contributing more than four times the total of Surtax, and nearly four times the amount of death duties and of the yield of Profits Tax, one realises these are people who are being asked to pay an unreasonably high proportion of our revenue.
    Smokers are to be found among all sections of the community, from the old-age pensioner to the millionaire. Smoking is not a test of capacity to pay. In less affluent days, I have seen people exchanging half their daily food for a packet of cigarettes. Therefore, this is not a question of a luxury decision. It would be wrong for the Chancellor to pretend that there is an element of moral judgment in picking out, as his predecessors have succeeded in doing in the past, the smoker for this particularly heavy impost.
    The only explanation is that this is a tax which one pays and which one does not notice when one buys in the way one would notice an addition to P.A.Y.E., and that it is thought in Treasury circles to be an ever-present source of additional revenue. It is the pip that will squeak the least. I think that it is only for that reason that every time the Chancellor wants more money he picks on the smoker. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not attempt to justify this additional tax on moral grounds and say that the public should not smoke. As a smoker, I freely admit that it is a stupid, dirty and irrational habit.
    Mr. E. Shinwell: Nonsense.
    Mr. Mulley: I hope that the Treasury does not think that by putting on an additional tax it will discourage people from smoking, because it seems to me that the additional yield is based on the assumption that at least as many cigarettes and as much pipe tobacco will be smoked this year as last.
    When the hon. Member for Kidderminster was giving his figures, I was not absolutely certain that the tax on the standard packet of cigarettes, now priced 4s. 1d., was 3s. I hope that the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, or the Chancellor, in reply to the debate, will tell us—and this should be given wide publicity—the actual tax element in the standard packet of 20 cigarettes. I notice that the rather complicated Customs and Excise schedules show that the Customs duty now will be £3 10s. per 1b. for cigarettes and that on that basis, with an increase of 3s. 4d. per lb. or 2d. per packet, the tax could amount to as much as 3s. 6d. per packet of 20 cigarettes.
    I shall certainly support the hon. Member for Kidderminster in the Lobby, on the sound principle that half a loaf is better than no bread, but I also hope that he will join with us in the Lobby on the Question "That the Clause stand part of the Bill", to strike a blow for the smoker and reject this quite despicable duty.
    6.15 p.m.
    Mr. Freeth: If my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) had moved this Amendment in Committee on the Bill before 5th May I should probably have supported him, first, for the very cogent reasons which he outlined from the point of the view of the effect of the extra 2d. per packet on the use of automatic vending machines. On that aspect of the matter I should like to mention a point which my hon. Friend did not raise, namely, that it is not only a matter of the profits of those who make, run or let out these vending machines. It is a matter of the comfort or discomfort of the smoker who, when the shops have closed, wants to be able to obtain cigarettes from a machine and who now will not be able to do so for at least a year.
    I should have thought that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor might have considered the case of smokers who want
    1336
    to buy cigarettes after the shops have shut, and particularly those, including troops, travelling on long journeys who want to use vending machines on the railway platforms. I should have thought that there was a strong case for increasing the tax on 20 cigarettes by 1d. instead of by 2d., particularly when the extra annoyance involved in the present increase is experienced throughout such a wide range of the community.
    At the beginning of 1958, the Tobacco Manufacturers' Standing Committee estimated that 75 out of every 100 men and 41 out of every 100 women smoked cigarettes. That is a fairly substantial proportion of our population. My right hon. Friend, in planning to collect £19½ million extra tax in the current year, is annoying that section of our population virtually beyond endurance—and this is a sum out of a Budget of about £6,000 million. We are dealing with a sum equivalent to ·003 per cent. of the Chancellor's total estimated revenue.
    Sometimes, I have a high opinion of the Treasury and sometimes a very low one. I am certain that the Treasury tries to put its Budget estimates on a very conservative basis so that the likelihood of the Chancellor finding himself with a larger deficit above the line than he anticipated will be very small. But in the last financial year there was an error in the estimate of revenue of £305 million, or of 5·7 per cent., and an error in estimated total expenditure of £98 million, or 1·5 per cent., and we are arguing here not about a matter of 5·7 per cent., but of ·003 per cent.
    I should have said just after my right hon. Friend's Budget speech that a sum of this kind was one which, frankly, it was not the job of the Chancellor to try to meet by imposing a small amount of very irritating taxation, and I took the view that my right hon. Friend's object of restraining demand could have been met perfectly well by monetary means. Unfortunately, my right hon. Friend effectively scuppered any chance of success in that field. In his Budget speech he uttered the following words:
    "I must tell the Committee that I think it likely that the time may soon arrive when it would be right that we should take other steps to restrain further expansion of private credit; and we stand ready to do so."— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th April, 1956; Vol. 621 c. 46.]

    1337
    In the four weeks ending mid-April the statement of bank advances from the clearing banks showed a rise over the month from £81 million to £98 million. This seemed to me an unusually large rise for this third month of the year, although the first quarter normally shows a fairly substantial rise in bank advances. From the inquiries that I made from bank managers, and so on, I discovered that everybody who read my right hon. Friend's Budget speech—and most people found this phrase highlighted in the Press as being the sting in the tail— had taken it as being a plain and frank warning that he intended to introduce credit restrictions, and had, therefore, hurried to their banks to get the overdrafts which they were afraid they would not get if they waited. Therefore, we had an increase in effective demand in the economy of £17 million in the month of March-April Which we need never, I am certain, otherwise have had.
    Considering that my right hon. Friend's credit restrictions and hire-purchase restrictions were not announced until 5th May, nearly three weeks after the end of the clearing banks' month to which I have referred, it surely is obvious that the figures which we shall see for the month from mid-April to mid-May are likely to show a further substantial increase in respect of the people who did not get their overdrafts in the first eleven days after my right hon. Friend's rather extraordinary statement and threat. Therefore, on the side of bank advances it seems to me that my right hon. Friend has entailed this country having—
    The Temporary Chairman (Sir Norman Hulbert): I hope that the hon. Member will deal with the Amendment.
    Mr. Freeth: I am sorry, Sir Norman. I thought that I was explaining why I did not feel it possible to vote for a reduction in the Finance Bill by supporting the cut of £19½ million proposed in the Amendment by my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster, and that one reason was that, owing to my right hon. Friend's mismanagement of the economy, we had already increased the effective demand by £17 million more through bank advances.
    Mr. Nabarro: Did my hon. Friend— I want to get this correct; he was facing the other way and I could not hear
    1338
    clearly—say "owing to my right hon. Friend's mismanagement of the economy"?
    Mr. Freeth: That is perfectly correct.
    Mr. Nabarro: Jolly good. Another recruit.
    Mr. Freeth: Alas, it is due to my right hon. Friend's mismanagement that I cannot join my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster in the Lobby tonight. As we have had an extra £17 million in demand in that month, and are likely to have a further large increase in bank advances in the month between mid-April and mid-May, with an increase in the last pre-Budget month in hire-purchase debt, not of £16 million, which was the rate of increase in both January and February, but of £31 million, it is, alas, painfully obvious that it would be unsafe to increase demand even by £19½ million as my hon. Friend wants. I therefore regret that my right hon. Friend's mismanagement will cause me to go into the Lobby with him tonight.
    Mr. Anthony Fell: The speeches of my hon. Friends and the "noises off" from the Opposition have been so encouraging and the speeches have been so well put—indeed, I have seen smiles on the Treasury Bench, the first time for a very long time—that I am absolutely convinced that the Chancellor is giving instructions that the speech in reply shall be one of acceptance. I hope that while the Government spokesman is accepting the Amendment he will speak for long enough to tell us why it was ever necessary to impose this rise in tax.
    Mr. Shepherd: I should like to say a word about the Amendment proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro), although I shall not be able to follow him into the Lobby.
    Mr. Nabarro: But my hon. Friend agrees with me, none the less?
    Mr. Shepherd: If it were not for the fact that I smoke an occasional cigarette I might be tempted to justify taxation on tobacco as a source of revenue. That is not my intention at the moment. What I want to do is to say a word or two about the precise method used and the amount of the increase.

    1339
    The hon. Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley) believed that there was a good deal of sophistication on the part of the Treasury in fixing this highly significant increase. I do not think there was an element of sophistication on the part of the Treasury. I rise principally to say that it is inevitable that through fiscal changes industry will be affected. It is the duty of Government Departments and, in particular, the Treasury to have more regard for the convenience of industry than they appear to have. I am prepared to believe that in many cases—and there is more than one instance of this matter other than the one with which we are dealing—where the Treasury has done something highly inconvenient to industry it has been done not because it is cussed, but because it has not thought of the effect of the change upon industry.
    I am, in effect, asking my right hon. Friend to say that he will give instructions to the Treasury that in the changes that are being made and will be made in the future the convenience of industry will be borne in mind. I would emphasise that many people are involved, not only in this case but in other cases, in a great deal of work and trouble because someone in the Treasury does not think of the resulting effect of changes. We have had the instance in connection with the Purchase Tax where highly inconvenient percentages are chosen, whereas a more convenient percentage would greatly reduce the amount of work in offices. I hope that my right hon. Friend will make it clear to the very able men in the Treasury that they have a duty to regard the convenience of those in industry as well as a duty to regard the interests of the Revenue.
    There is a further word that I should like to utter arising out of the interruption by the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton), who seemed to be working himself up into a high state of indignation. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster demonstrated beyond doubt that it would not be possible for some manufacturers to reduce their profits by ½d. per packet of 10 cigarettes, but there was some doubt about the retail
    1340
    margins. The retail margin that at present applies, of roughly 8 per cent. if one is buying as an ordinary retailer without any wholesale advantages, is an exceedingly small one, and it is impossible to make a reasonable living out of such a small margin unless one has a very high turnover.
    I do not think that it would be possible for retailers to take out of their very small margin the amount of difference which this tax increase represents. I do not think that we could take the easy way out that the hon. Member for Sowerby would like to take. I do not intend to vote for the Amendment, but I wish to impress upon my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer the need, in future changes, to have proper regard for the convenience of those engaged in trade and industry.
    6.30 p.m.
    Mr. William Ross: I am a supporter of the Amendment, but not for the reasons that have been given. What would be the position if the Chancellor, instead of increasing the tax, had reduced it? Would the hon. Gentleman have been prepared to say that the inconvenience to the trade should have denied the consumer that reduction?
    Mr. Shinwell: If, as I understand it, the effect of the Amendment, if carried, would be to reduce the price of my tobacco, I extend to the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) my wholehearted support and will willingly follow him into the Division Lobby.
    Mr. Nabarro: Get fell in, Manny.
    Mr. Shinwell: Somehow, in spite of the hon. Member's emphasis on the iniquities of the Chancellor, I have a suspicion that when it comes to the final fence he may refuse to jump over it, and that will be for me a matter of considerable disappointment.
    I listened to the speech of the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Denzil Freeth) and I understood from it that he was in complete accord with the views of the hon. Member for Kidderminster, but that because the Chancellor had committed the offence of implying that there might be some restriction of credit, as a result of which there was a rush on the part of those who sought bank advances to consult their bank managers,

    1341
    he could not extend his support. It occurred to me that if we could defer consideration of this matter for the next month to ascertain whether has predictions were likely to be fulfilled, and to see whether bank advances would rise more substantially than was anticipated by the Chancellor or by the hon. Member, then we might come to a rational conclusion on this Amendment, but as that is impossible we must obviously come to a conclusion now.
    I cannot see why Chancellors of the Exchequer should always have a "down"—to use blunt language in this matter—on we smokers. We have heard my hon Friend the Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley) talking about smoking as a dirty and irrational habit. It is nothing of the sort. People all over the world have been smoking, at any rate in this country, since the days of Sir Walter Raleigh. Although Sir Walter was subsequently beheaded, it certainly was not because of his smoking but because of other offences, into which I shall not enter. I have been smoking since the age of 13. My venerable father, who died two or three years ago at the age of 93—and that was due to an accident—smoked all his life. In his later years I provided him with a regular supply of tobacco.
    I therefore deny absolutely and emphatically that smoking is a dirty or an irrational habit, or that it conduces to ill-health, or insanitary behaviour, or anything of that sort. Indeed, if it comes to dirty and irrational habits, some of the oratory that we have to listen to is much more irrational than excessive smoking. I think that it was the late Mr. Baldwin who described oratory as the "harlot of the arts". That surely was irrational and even obscene.
    All this nonsense about the effects of excessive smoking being conducive to cancer and other ailments is a lot of poppycock, and all the medical experts are talking through their hats. It depends on the physical constitution of the person concerned. Some people could not smoke a cigarette—I do not smoke cigarettes because I do not think that it is worth while—and could not smoke a pipe of tobacco without turning green. But that is not an argument against smoking. It is an argument against those particular individuals indulging in it. Day by day I have to sit here and listen
    1342
    to questions about the effect of smoking, and it is a lot of nonsense and "flapdoodle".
    Another thing which I must mention about the decision of the Chancellor is that I know how these things are done in the Treasury. I have some knowledge of these matters. The Chancellor is having his Budget prepared for him and he consults a number of officials in the Treasury. They all have ideas as to how taxation should be raised and increased, but very seldom reduced. It never occurs to them that some time they might suggest a reduction in taxation. They would not justify their existence if they did. So, some "fuddy-duddy" in the Treasury comes along, and when the Chancellor says that there is a little gap to be filled, suggests "Let us put it on the poor smoker." Thus this £19 million is put upon the smoker. It is a mere bagatelle compared with the amount that is embodied in the national budget. If the Chancellor had not imposed this extra tax it would not have made the slightest difference to the national economy, which would have carried on just as well.
    Mr. Denzil Freeth: I may have misled the right hon. Gentleman and the House in talking about ·003 per cent. It should be ·3 per cent. Like others greater than myself, I have been misled by those "damned dots".
    Mr. Shinwell: I am not a mathematician. I agree with the late Lord Randolph Churchill that these are "just damned dots" to me. I leave them to the experts and to the mathematicians. It is no use talking to me about percentages and decimals.
    I pay 11s. 8d, for 2 oz. of tobacco. Why should I have to pay that simply because the Chancellor has succumbed to the blandishments of someone in the Treasury? He has conceived the silly notion that in order to balance the Budget he must impose this tax on the smoker. I see no sense in this at all.
    We have to consider not people like ourselves, who can afford to smoke excessively—some of us even smoke cigars at great cost—but the wider public, the working classes, the poor people who want a smoke and regard it as a necessity. It is not merely a luxury but a necessity for many people. We impose

    1343
    this tax on them and it is one that I do not think people should endure without strong protest. On their behalf I make a strong protest. I wonder why some of my colleagues on the Front Bench do not take part in this discussion.
    Mr. Douglas Jay: I am waiting until my right hon. Friend finishes.
    Mr. Shinwell: My right hon. Friends seem to foe waiting a long time. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] I am bound to say that there was no attempt on the part of any of my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench to rise, and it was precisely because of their hesitation that I rose. It was because I saw nobody ready to get up that I did so in order to make the protest that I think ought to be made.
    Mr. H. Wilson: As my right hon. Friend knows, we are always most grateful for his help, especially on a Finance Bill. Perhaps I should point out to my right hon. Friend, who has no doubt studied the Order Paper, that our Amendment on this important matter on the tax on tobacco is more fundamental than that at present being debated. That is still to come.
    Mr. Nabarro: What does the right hon. Gentleman mean by saying that it is more fundamental?
    Mr. Wilson: Furthermore—
    Mr. Nabarro: On a point of order. Is it any part of the duty of the right hon. Gentleman to decide on your behalf, evidently, Sir Norman, which are fundamental Amendments and which are not? Is it not an impertinence and a reflection on the Chair to suggest that my Amendment is not fundamental?
    The Temporary Chairman: I had not observed any reflection on the Chair.
    Mr. Nabarro: I had.
    Mr. Wilson: If I may continue, our main argument on the subject of the tobacco tax will be on the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill", when we propose to oppose the whole of the increase. The hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) is suggesting only a reduction in the increase. That is why we are reserving what we have to say for the later debate.
    Mr. Shinwell: I am sorry to interrupt the proceedings. These interjections are all very interesting, but they do not affect the argument which I have adduced in support of the contention which was argued by the hon. Member for Kidderminster. There is no Amendment on the Order Paper to leave out the Clause. Since this matter has been raised, I will deal with it and I hope that I can deal with it without interruption. If I am provoked, I will provide the necessary replies. [Interruption.] It is no use hon. Members trying that sort of thing. I will say what I want to say. I am not informed about the intentions of the Opposition Front Bench. Let us have it out now. It will be within the recollection of hon. Members that I did not start this quarrel. All I was doing was to support what I thought was a reasonable argument to reduce the Tobacco Duty.
    I understand that we are still a democracy, in spite of the desire of some people to prohibit some of us from expressing an opinion. [Interruption.] It simply will not work. I want to express my opinion and I intend to state it. I did not intend to speak at any length. I was not aware of the opinions of the Opposition Front Bench. I waited to see whether someone on the Opposition Front Bench would get up to speak, and in fact I asked some of my hon. Friends beside me, "Why does not someone speak from our Front Bench?"
    I thought that it was my party's opinion that the increase in the tobacco tax was an imposition. I found an Amendment on the Order Paper dealing with the provision of cheap tobacco to old-age pensioners, which I willingly support, but which has nothing to do with the general question of the effect of the tax on the ordinary smokers of cigarettes, tobacco and cigars. It was on their behalf that I ventured to make my protest. If a more emphatic protest is to be made later, I shall be glad to hear it and to support it, but I was not aware that it was coming.
    I repeat that I cannot see why it is necessary for the Chancellor to impose this tax at a time when our finances are in a state of flux and it is difficult to see what will happen to the country's economic position over the next twelve months, or two or three years, but when

    1345
    we are certainly not in a precarious financial position. Everyone in the Committee would have supported an increase in taxation, derived from any source, if that had been our position. However, in the circumstances, I support the hon. Member for Kidderminster, much as I am reluctant to do so, if for no other reason than that he has produced substantial arguments which appeal to what intelligence I possess.
    I support him, but I make it clear that I do not enter a fight of this kind unless I go all the way. I do not care for starting a fight and then running away. One should be beware of entrance to a quarrel, but, once having entered it, one should go all the way. I agree with Shakespeare in that regard—[Laughter]— although I agree that he did not consult me before putting that thought in writing. It is no use threatening the Chancellor and indulging in tactics of this sort if at the last minute one is to refuse to go into the Division Lobby.
    6.45 p.m.
    I hope that the hon. Member for Kidderminster means business. The Government will not resign if they lose the battle on this issue, and there is no reason why they should. I am one of those who believe that the Government should not resign except on losing a vote of censure. That is the democratic method. I do not expect them to resign on this issue if they are defeated. I appeal to hon. Members on both sides of the Committee to support the hon. Member for Kidderminster if they believe that this is an imposition on smokers.
    Mr. Barber: My right hon. Friend the Chancellor has already explained, during the Budget and on Second Reading of the Bill, why it was necessary to provide for a very small net increase in taxation and, in particular, why tobacco was selected. When he moved this Amendment, my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) asked me to answer a particular point with which, as he put it, he had dealt in an individual and unique manner. I hope that it will be for the convenience of the Committee if I do precisely that.
    Before doing so, perhaps I can assure the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinvvell) that if I limit my remarks to the subject of slot machines, I can certainly unreservedly accept, on behalf
    1346
    of my right hon. Friend, the right hon. Gentleman's assurance that his habits are neither dirty nor irrational.
    I appreciate that the problem posed by my hon. Friend is a real problem, I do not wish to minimise it, but merely to try to give some idea of its extent. It may be that some slot machines cannot be adapted, but many thousands of them can be converted quite simply. As my hon. Friend will know, most of the slot machines with which we are concerned are designed to supply packets of 10 cigarettes at the standard price.
    If some machines cannot be adapted to take 2s. 1d. and to give ½d. change, there is another method of dealing with the difficulty. I understand that the Imperial Tobacco Company, which produces the bulk of the cigarettes which are sold in the United Kingdom, has said that it does not propose to supply packets of cigarettes containing only nine cigarettes, which would be one answer to the problem. It has suggested that machines which cannot be converted could be stocked with filter tipped cigarettes at the new price of 1s. 9d. for 10. In that event, the machines could easily be altered to give 3d. change, 2s. having been inserted.
    I realise that that is not the sort of answer which is wholly desirable, but it is fair to point out that in the case of the limited number of machines which cannot be converted in any circumstances there is an alternative which is worth consideration and which is being considered by the trade.
    My hon. Friend referred to the tax loss. He said that the Treasury would pay 50 per cent. on Income Tax and Profits Tax resulting from the scrapping of some of these machines.
    Mr. Nabarro: No. I must pull up the hon. Gentleman at once. I said that the Treasury would lose 51¼ per cent. as a result of the diminution of profit in respect of machines to be altered. Where the machines have to be scrapped, the total sum in respect of obsolescence allowance for Income Tax purposes—an entirely different matter, as the Economic Secretary should know—would be payable to the owner of the assets.
    Mr. Barber: I did, in fact, take down what my hon. Friend said but, of course, I accept the wider remarks which he has now made.

    1347
    I would point out that the observations which I was about to make apply equally to all that he said just now. The essential point is that this charge against direct taxation is, of course, a once-and-for-all loss to the Revenue whereas the increased yield from the Tobacco Duty is a continuing one. Whatever it is, I doubt whether it is really of the significance that my hon. Friend suggests.
    My right hon. Friend explained why it was necessary to raise this duty this year. If this Amendment were accepted, it would result in a loss of revenue in this year of nearly £20 million. The result would be that either the revenue would have to be obtained from some other source—my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster has declined to suggest an alternative source—or, secondly, we should have to abandon some of the concessions made by my right hon. Friend.
    As to the difficulty concerning slot machines, I think it right that the Committee should keep the matter in perspective. I am told that only 2 per cent. of the cigarettes sold to the public are sold through slot machines. I am also told that many of the conversions are well under way. Despite the difficulties, I cannot believe that it would be right, regardless of fiscal requirements, to assume that the price of a packet of cigarettes must be kept permanently at or below 4s. for 20, or 2s. for 10, which is the logical consequence of my hon. Friend's argument. He referred to some of the difficulties, and he quoted at length from a telegram, which will be involved in converting machines and he also referred to the cost.
    Before coming into the Chamber this afternoon, I was given the May issue of a trade journal which my hon. Friend may have seen, called Tobacco. As he has read at some length from the telegram which the trade association sent to my right hon. Friend, I think it relevant to inform the Committee that an article in it deals at length with the problem of modifying these machines, but does not say that scrapping is inevitable, although I realise that in some cases that may be so.
    It states that work on the machines began immediately after the Budget. Within a fortnight, for example, the
    1348
    Imperial Tobacco Company dealt with about 50 per cent. of the vendors, that is, the automatic vending machines which they issue to retailers. In general, some machines are fairly easily adjustable, but in others it will be necessary to put in an entirely new coin selector, which is a more expensive operation.
    Then there is a reference to costs. The article states that the costs of adjustment vary with the type of machine. In some cases it will be between £8 and £10, according to the Automatic Vending Machine Association. In the more elaborate machines, the cost is likely to be considerably more than £10. In most cases where machines are loaned or rented by retailers the cost will be borne by the owners of the machines. Some machines will be adjusted by fitting an extra slot to take the odd ½d. and this is likely to cost about £8. I think that the article in the trade journal puts the matter in perspective.
    Since the last increase in the Tobacco Duty, in 1956, the trade itself increased the price of a packet of 20 cigarettes by 1d. Even if we were to accept my hon. Friend's Amendment to increase the price of a packet of cigarettes by only 1d. on this occasion, it is certainly not inconceivable that at some time—I hope in the distant future—the trade may find it necessary to take action to increase the price of 20 cigarettes by 1d. If that were done, it would have precisely the same result as the proposal of my hon. Friend. That is the main reason why I ask my hon. Friend, in all seriousness, not to press his Amendment.
    Mr. Fell: I think that we are getting a little confused. My hon. Friend says that there may come a time when the trade has to increase the price, but he is assuming that the duty on tobacco will go on at the same new rate all the time. Why is it not equally possible that if the manufacturers have to put up the price for one reason or another the tax may come down a little? Why does he assume that the tax will for ever be 3s. or more on a packet of cigarettes?
    Mr. Barber: I was proceeding on the hypothesis which I said I hoped would be in the far distant future, that the trade might have to increase the price of a packet of 20 cigarettes by 1d. I explained that if the Amendment were

    1349
    accepted—and I made no reference to the rate of duty, as I assumed that the rate of duty would be the same—this would be the inevitable consequence. Of course, I hope that it will be possible to reduce the duty in due course.
    So I return to the main reason why this Amendment is not acceptable. Surely it would not be right for the Chancellor to abandon a proposal to raise £20 million in taxation, not on any fiscal grounds, not on any social grounds —[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] No, this is a matter which we shall be discussing on the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill"—but simply because a certain amount of difficulty will arise in converting some only of the slot machines, the total of which accounts for only 2 per cent. of the sale of cigarettes.
    Mr. Jay: We shall certainly vote in favour of the Amendment because we do not believe that there ought to be any increase in the Tobacco Duty. I think that the Economic Secretary gave a most lame and unconvincing reply to the main argument of the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) that this tax ought not to be increased. It is true that the Amendment proposes only half the increase, but since half a loaf is better than no bread, we shall certainly give it our support.
    I have only two quarrels with the hon. Member for Kidderminster this evening. One is that he never supports his own proposals in the Division Lobby. We shall watch with interest today to see whether he shows more courage than the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Denzil Freeth).
    Mr. Nabarro: I am sorry that the right hon. Gentleman used the word "never", I refer him to the evening of Thursday, 7th April—[An HON. MEMBER: "Historic."] Not historic, one of many incidents when I was obliged to lead a large number of hon. Members opposite into the Lobby including the Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins). They all fell in behind me.
    Mr. Jay: We hope that Wednesday, 18th May, will be a similar occasion. My only other quarrel with the hon. Gentleman is that I should not go quite as far as he in the abusive language which he used about the Chancellor. He has now accused the Chancellor of flatulence and turpitude.
    Mr. Nabarro: I said "fiscal flatulence". I did not suggest that the Chancellor was guilty of physical flatulence.
    7.0 p.m.
    Mr. Jay: And I said that I was not prepared to go as far as that. I accuse the Chancellor only of cynicism and opportunism in this tax imposition.
    The hon. Member for Basingstoke, in a rather surprising speech, accused the Chancellor of mismanagement of the economy. Until a few weeks ago the hon. Member was a Parliamentary Private Secretary to an important economic Department. No doubt it was because he regards the Chancellor as mismanaging the economy that he resigned.
    Mr. Denzil Freeth: I have not resigned from anything.
    Hon. Members: He got the sack.
    Mr. Jay: I do not know whether the hon. Member means that he has been sacked or that he still occupies his post. If he is still there, his attack on the Chancellor is even more interesting, and we must entirely accept his accusation of mismanagement of the economy by the Chancellor.
    Mr. Freeth: Perhaps I may make the matter clear. I have not been Parliamentary Private Secretary to an economics Minister since immediately after the last election. I am Parliamentary Private Secretary to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Education—and the Ministry of Education is not an economics Department.
    Mr. Jay: Even so, the hon. Member's criticisms provide interesting evidence of the real feelings of hon. Members opposite.
    The hon. Member for Kidderminster accused the Chancellor of reducing the tax on beer a year ago, before the election, and raising it on tobacco afterwards. This accusation has never been answered. Is it really coincidence that the tax on beer went down before the election and up on cigarettes afterwards? We have had no answer to that question—certainly not from the Economic Secretary today. I regard that as an example of cynicism.
    Secondly, in this Finance Bill Tobacco Duty is increased and the duty on wines

    1351
    goes down. This also seems to be an example of cynicism and—here I agree with the hon. Member—of mismanagement of the economy. We have had no explanation or defence of that piece of mismanagement. In addition, as we shall argue at greater length on the subsequent Amendment, it seems to us that this use of the Tobacco Duty is a specially cynical deal for the old-age pensioners, who had their tobacco tokens taken away only two years ago.
    I turn now to the argument of the hon. Member for Kidderminster concerning slot machines. This is not our main objection to the increase in tax. Nevertheless, it did not seem to us that the Economic Secretary answered the argument put forward by the hon. Member for Kidderminster. I do not know whether it is possible for manufacturers to reduce their prices by ½d. without losing the whole of their profit, but it would surely have been possible, and should have been possible, for the Treasury to work this out before taking this decision and to have made itself sufficiently knowledgeable on the subject of slot machines and the various multiples involved to have avoided inflicting this inconvenience on the industry.
    The Customs and Excise authorities are in very close touch with the tobacco industry, and I should have thought that they would have known enough about it already to have been able to devise an increase which would not have given rise to the difficulty referred to. Everything the Economic Secretary said just now convinces me that the Treasury did not foresee this problem and made very little attempt to overcome it.
    Mr. Barber: I want to make it clear that this kind of difficulty was foreseen. We considered it very sympathetically. Nevertheless, we did not feel that it overrode the other considerations which prompted us to increase the duty.
    Mr. Jay: That merely amounts to the Economic Secretary saying that he knew that this increase would inflict great inconvenience upon everybody but that the Government nevertheless decided to go ahead with it.
    For all the reasons I have given, and especially because we do not believe that the increase is justified, we shall divide in favour of the Amendment, and hope
    1352
    to have the support of the hon. Member for Kidderminster.
    Mr. Nabarro: I initiated this discussion, and the Amendment stands in the names of my hon. Friends and myself. There is no question of my burking the issue. I regard the Economic Secretary's reply as wholly unsatisfactory. I confine my arguments to the very narrow front of the grave practical problems arising from an inconvenient sum such as 2s. 0½d. for 10 cigarettes of a popular brand and 4s. 1d. for 20. In his intervention in the speech of the hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) my hon. Friend has admitted that the Treasury had thought about all these matters before increasing the Tobacco Duty by the sum stated in the Clause, and therefore knew that this huge sum of money was to be immobilised, in the value of slot machines or automatic vending machines all over the country. This simply makes the Chancellor's sins far, far worse.
    It is not a question of the right hon. Member for Battersea, North dividing the Committee; I shall divide it. That is why I put down the Amendment. I invite as many of my hon. Friends as I can muster to join me, including those who made such sympathetic noises in the course of my speech. It is no good my looking at my hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Denzil Freeth); he stigmatises the policy of the Chancellor of the Exchequer as mismanagement of the economy but he will not support the first venture to put the Chancellor back on to the primrose path.
    Mr. Denzil Freeth: That is exactly why I will not vote for the Amendment. It would put the Chancellor even more on the primrose path of dalliance to destruction.
    Mr. Nabarro: I cannot agree with that at all.
    I do not wish to widen the argument, as the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) did, into general considerations of the increase in Tobacco Duty. In my view that question belongs to the debate on the Question "That the Clause stand part of the Bill", and I shall act appropriately then, for I have my own views on this matter in the general background of our economy today.

    1353
    This Amendment is concerned with a narrow issue, and I appeal to as many as possible of my hon. Friends to join with me in the protest that I am making. I invite hon. Members of the Liberal Party to join with me. I am glad to see that the two present are nodding assent. Lastly, I make a powerful appeal to the whole of the Socialist Party to get "fell in" behind me and to vote the right way.
    In case their is any danger of the Patronage Secretary misunderstanding my point of view on this important matter, I would tell him that I do so as a practical individual who dislikes the
    Chancellor of the Exchequer—who once in his career was a businessman— deliberately causing heavy wastage of machinery and resources, and a huge wastage of the time and labours of skilled men, over months and months ahead, in altering machinery, the whole of which wastage could have been avoided had he acted with a little fiscal prescience in this matter.
    Question put, That "three shillings and fourpence" stand part of the Clause:—
    The Committee divided: Ayes 234, Noes 179.

    Division No. 84.]

    AYES

    [7.10 p.m.

    Agnew, Sir Peter

    Gammans, Lady

    Linstead, Sir Hugh

    Allason, James

    Gardner, Edward

    Litchfield, Capt. John

    Amory, Rt. Hn. D. Heathcoat (Tiv'tn)

    Gibson-Watt, David

    Loveys, Walter H.

    Ashton, Sir Hubert

    Glover, Sir Douglas

    Low, Rt. Hon. Sir Toby

    Barber, Anthony

    Glyn, Dr. Alan (Clapham)

    Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

    Barlow, Sir John

    Glyn, Sir Richard (Dorset, N.)

    McAdden, Stephen

    Barter, John

    Goodhart, Philip

    MacArthur, Ian

    Batsford, Brian

    Goodhew, Victor

    McLaren, Martin

    Baxter, Sir Beverley (Southgate)

    Gower, Raymond

    McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia

    Beamish, Sir Tufton

    Grant, Rt. Hon. William (Woodside)

    Maclean, Sir Fitzroy (Bute &N. Ayrs)

    Bell, Ronald (S. Bucks.)

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

    Macleod, John (Ross & Cromarty)

    Bingham, R. M.

    Green, Alan

    McMaster, Stanley R.

    Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel

    Gresham Cooke, R.

    Maddan, Martin

    Bishop, F. P.

    Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.

    Maginnis, John E.

    Black, Sir Cyril

    Hall, John (Wycombe)

    Maitland, Cdr. J. W.

    Bossom, Clive

    Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)

    Marlowe, Anthony

    Bourne-Arton, A.

    Harris, Reader (Heston)

    Marshall, Douglas

    Box, Donald

    Harrison, Brian (Maldon)

    Marten, Neil

    Boyle, Sir Edward

    Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)

    Mathew, Robert (Honiton)

    Brewis, John

    Hay, John

    Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)

    Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry

    Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

    Mawby, Ray

    Brooman-White, R.

    Hendry, Forbes

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

    Browne, Percy (Torrington)

    Hill, Dr. Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton)

    Mills, Stratton

    Bullard, Denys

    Hill, J. E. B. (S. Norfolk)

    Montgomery, Fergus

    Burden, F. A.

    Hobson, John

    Morgan, William

    Butcher, Sir Herbert

    Hocking, Philip N.

    Neave, Airey

    Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nairn)

    Holland, Philip

    Nicholls, Harmar

    Carr, Compton (Barons Court)

    Hollingworth, John

    Nicholson, Sir Godfrey

    Channon, H. P. G.

    Hopkins, Alan

    Noble, Michael

    Chataway, Christopher

    Hornby, R. P.

    Oakshott, Sir Hendrie

    Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)

    Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Patricia

    Ormsby Gore, Rt. Hon. D.

    Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)

    Howard, John (Southampton, Test)

    Orr-Ewing, C. Ian

    Cleaver, Leonard

    Hughes-Young, Michael

    Osborn, John (Hallam)

    Cole, Norman

    Hutchison, Michael Clark

    Osborne, Cyril (Louth)

    Collard, Richard

    Iremonger, T. L.

    Page, A. J. (Harrow, West)

    Cooke, Robert

    Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

    Page, Graham

    Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.

    Jackson, John

    Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale)

    Cordle, John

    James, David

    Partridge, E.

    Costain, A. P.

    Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)

    Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)

    Coulson, J. M.

    Jennings, J. C.

    Peel, John

    Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)

    Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

    Percival, Ian

    Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.

    Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

    Peyton, John

    Cunningham, Knox

    Jones, Rt. Hn. Aubrey (Hall Green)

    Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth

    Curran, Charles

    Kerans, Cdr. J. S.

    Pike, Miss Mervyn

    Currie, G. B. H.

    Kerby, Capt. Henry

    Pilkington, Capt. Richard

    Dance, James

    Kerr, sir Hamilton

    Pitman, I. J.

    d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

    Kershaw, Anthony

    Pitt, Miss Edith

    Deedes, W. F.

    Kimball, Marcus

    Pott, Percivall

    de Ferranti, Basil

    Kirk, Peter

    Powell, J. Enoch

    Digby, Simon Wingfield

    Kitson, Timothy

    Price, H. A. (Lewisham, W.)

    Doughty, Charles

    Lambton, Viscount

    Prior, J. M. L.

    Duncan, Sir James

    Lancaster, Col. C. G.

    Profumo, Rt. Hon. John

    Eden, John

    Langford-Holt, J.

    Proudfoot, Wilfred

    Emery, Peter

    Leavey, J. A.

    Ramsden, James

    Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn

    Leburn, Gilmour

    Rawlinson, Peter

    Finlay, Graeme

    Legge-Bourke, Maj. H.

    Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin

    Fisher, Nigel

    Legh, Hon. Peter (Petersfield)

    Rees, Hugh

    Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

    Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

    Rees-Davies, W. R.

    Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)

    Lilley, F. J. P.

    Ridley, Hon. Nicholas

    Freeth, Denzil

    Lindsay, Martin

    Ridsdale, Julian

    Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley)

    Stodart, J. A.

    Vickers, Miss Joan

    Robinson, Sir Roland (Blackpool, S.)

    Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm

    Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)

    Roots, William

    Storey, Sir Samuel

    Wall, Patrick

    Ropner, Col, Sir Leonard

    Studholme, Sir Henry

    Ward, Rt. Hon. George (Worcester)

    Royle, Anthony (Richmond, Surrey)

    Summers, Sir Spencer (Ayle bury)

    Watts, James

    Russell, Ronald

    Sumner, Donald (Orpington)

    Whitelaw, William

    Scott-Hopkins, James

    Talbot, John E.

    Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)

    Seymour, Leslie

    Tapsell, Peter

    Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

    Shaw, M.

    Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

    Wise A. R

    Shepherd, William

    Teeling, William

    Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

    Simon, Sir Jocelyn

    Temple, John M.

    Wood, Rt. Hon. Richard

    Skeet, T. H. H.

    Thomas, Peter (Conway)

    Woodhouse, C. M.

    Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'rd & Chiswick)

    Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin

    Woodnutt, Mark

    Smithers, Peter

    Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)

    Woollam, John

    Spearman, Sir Alexander

    Turner, Colin

    Worsley, Marcus

    Speir, Rupert

    Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.

    Yates, William (The Wrekin)

    Stanley, Hon. Richard

    Tweedsmuir, Lady

    Stevens, Geoffrey

    van Straubenzee, W. R.

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

    Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)

    Vane, W. M. F.

    Mr. Chichester-Clark and

    Mr. Sharples.

    NOES

    Ainsley, William

    Healey, Denis

    Pentland, Norman

    Albu, Austen

    Herbison, Miss Margaret

    Popplewell, Ernest

    Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

    Hill, Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe)

    Prentice, R. E.

    Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

    Hill, J. (Midlothian)

    Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

    Awbery, Stan

    Holman, Percy

    Proctor, W. T.

    Bacon, Miss Alice

    Holt, Arthur

    Pursey, Cmdr. Harry

    Baxter, William (Stirlingshire, W.)

    Houghton, Douglas

    Rankin, John

    Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.

    Howell, Charles A.

    Redhead, E. C.

    Bence, Cyril (Dunbartonshire, E.)

    Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

    Reynolds, G. W.

    Benn, Hn. A. Wedgwood (Brist'l, S. E.)

    Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

    Robens, Rt. Hon. Alfred

    Blyton, William

    Hunter, A. E.

    Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

    Boardman, H.

    Hynd, H. (Accrington)

    Robertson, Sir David

    Bowden, Herbert W. (Leics, S. W.)

    Hynd, John (Attercliffe)

    Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)

    Bowen, Roderic (Cardigan)

    Irving, Sydney (Dartford)

    Ross, William

    Bowles, Frank

    Janner, Barnett

    Royle, Charles (Salford, West)

    Boyden, James

    Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas

    Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.

    Braddock, Mrs. E. M.

    Jeger, George

    Short, Edward

    Brockway, A. Fenner

    Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)

    Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)

    Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

    Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

    Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

    Brown, Thomas (Ince)

    Johnston, Douglas (Paisley)

    Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)

    Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

    Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

    Small, William

    Callaghan, James

    Jones, T. W. (Merloneth)

    Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

    Castle, Mrs. Barbara

    Kelley, Richard

    Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank

    Chapman, Donald

    Kenyon, Clifford

    Spriggs, Leslie

    Chetwynd, George

    Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

    Steele, Thomas

    Cliffe, Michael

    King, Dr. Horace

    Stewart, Michael (Fulham)

    Corbet, Mrs. Freda

    Lawson, George

    Stones, William

    Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

    Lee, Frederick (Newton)

    Strachey, Rt. Hon. John

    Darling, George

    Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)

    Summerskill, Dr. Rt. Hon. Edith

    Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

    Loughlin, Charles

    Swain, Thomas

    Davies, Harold (Leek)

    Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

    Swingler, Stephen

    Davies, Ifor (Gower)

    McKay, John (Wallsend)

    Sylvester, George

    Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

    Mackie, John

    Symonds, J. B.

    Deer, George

    McLeavy, Frank

    Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

    Delargy, Hugh

    MacMillan, Malcolm (Western Isles)

    Taylor, John (West Lothian)

    Dempsey, James

    Mahon, Simon

    Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

    Diamond, John

    Mallalieu, J. P. W. (Huddersfield, E.)

    Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline)

    Dodds, Norman

    Manuel, A. C.

    Thornton, Ernest

    Driberg, Tom

    Mapp, Charles

    Thorpe, Jeremy

    Ede, Rt. Hon. Chuter

    Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.

    Timmons, John

    Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

    Mason, Roy

    Tomney, Frank

    Edwards, Walter (Stepney)

    Mayhew, Christopher

    Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn

    Evans, Albert

    Mellish, R. J.

    Wade, Donald

    Fell, Anthony

    Mendelson, J. J.

    Wainwright, Edwin

    Fernyhough, E.

    Millan, Bruce

    Watkins, Tudor

    Fletcher, Eric

    Mitchison, G. R.

    Weltzman, David

    Foot, Dingle

    Monslow, Walter

    Wells, Percy (Faversham)

    Forman, J. C.

    Moody, A. S.

    Wheeldon, W. E.

    George, Lady Megan Lloyd

    Morris, John

    White, Mrs. Eirene

    Ginsburg, David

    Mort, D. L.

    Whitlock, William

    Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.

    Moyle, Arthur

    Willey, Frederick

    Gourlay, Harry

    Mulley, Frederick

    Williams, D. J. (Neath)

    Grey, Charles

    Nabarro, Gerald

    Williams, Rev. LI. (Abertillery)

    Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)

    Neal, Harold

    Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)

    Grimond, J.

    Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)

    Winterbottom, R. E.

    Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)

    Oliver, G. H.

    Woof, Robert

    Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil (Colne Valley)

    Oram, A. E.

    Yates, Victor (Ladywood)

    Hamilton, William (West Fife)

    Padley, W. E.

    Hannan, William

    Pargiter, G. A.

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

    Hart, Mrs. Judith

    Paton, John

    Mr. Cronin and Mr. Probert.

    Hayman, F. H.

    Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)

    Mr. Nabarro: On a point of order, Sir William. May I raise a point of order with you about the conduct of the last Division?
    The Deputy-Chairman (Major Sir William Anstruther-Gray): What is the hon. Member's point of order?
    Mr. Nabarro: It is this, Sir William. I initiated the last Amendment in connection with the Tobacco Duty and I made clear in the concluding stages of my speech on that Amendment that I wished to force a vote. Immediately the Question was put, and it was clear that there was a division of opinion in the Committee, I left my seat here and, as fast as my feet could carry me, I travelled to the Table to enter the Tellers for the Noes—a right hon. Gentleman opposite and myself. On my arrival at the Table I was greeted by the learned Clerk, who informed me that the Tellers for the Noes had already been entered, namely, the hon. Member for Loughborough (Mr. Cronin) and the hon. Member for Aberdare (Mr. Probert), Both of them are Opposition Whips.
    I conceive that in certain circumstances it is of substantial political importance as to who are the Tellers in a particular Division, and as I initiated this Amendment and got to the Table as fast as I could get there, can you, Sir William, please inform me on what grounds the choice of Tellers—namely, the hon. Member for Loughborough and the hon. Member for Aberdare—was made and why, as I initiated this Amendment and was supported by a right hon. Gentleman opposite who had agreed to tell with me—I am glad to see that the right hon. Gentleman is now nodding assent—we were precluded from acting as Tellers, especially having regard to the fact that two Tellers— [Interruption.] No, I did not want someone who knew the job. I can line up at the Table much more smartly than those two hon. Gentlemen—[HON. MEMBERS: "Order."] May I complete my point of order, Sir William?
    The Deputy-Chairman: I think that I am sufficiently seized of the hon. Member's point. I sympathise with his feelings in the matter, but I take full responsibility for what I did. I called for Tellers. Tellers for the Ayes were handed in and Tellers for the Noes were handed in. It so happened that
    1358
    the Tellers for the Noes were two hon. Members both of whom sit on the Opposition Front Bench. It is normal for that to be the case. I accepted those names, the Division took place and it was an orderly Division.
    Mr. Nabarro: Further to that point of order, Sir William. I would not wish you to think that I am casting any reflection at all on the conduct of the Chair. What I am endeavouring to bring to your attention is the manifest unfairness of the situation—[HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] Yes, the unfairness of the situation. I cannot go from my seat on these benches to the Table as fast as an hon. Gentleman sitting where the hon. Member for Aberdare and the hon. Member for Loughborough were sitting. The hon. Member for Aberdare had two names on a piece of paper which he put on the Table immediately the voices were collected—[HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] Because it is of political significance that I should be a Teller for my own Amendment. That is "why not".
    I represent to you, Sir William, that this system is extremely unfair. I shall write to Mr. Speaker about it tomorrow.
    Mr. Ross: Why not tonight?
    Mr. Nabarro: Because I shall be engaged in making further speeches about the Tobacco Duty. I shall write to Mr. Speaker tomorrow, complaining, and I shall endeavour to have an appropriate entry made in the Standing Orders.
    The Deputy-Chairman: Whatever may happen in the future will be dealt with in the future, but the point of order raised by the hon. Member relating to the recent Division has been dealt with and I think that the Committee should now proceed to discuss the next Amendment.
    Mr. Shinwell: Further to that point of order, Sir William. I came into the Chamber as the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) was raising his point of order, which concerns me to some extent. May I explain that what happened was that the hon. Member for Kidderminster had tabled an Amendment which could only be described as an unofficial Amendment. He asked if I would tell with him and

    1359
    I agreed. I make no apology to anyone for that. It is constitutional in respect of an unofficial Amendment.
    It transpired that at the behest of the Opposition Front Bench we were to support the Amendment. My right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) intimated that we should support the Amendment. When I asked what was the position I was told by one of my hon. Friends who is a Whip that we were going to put in Tellers. I make no complaint; it was understood that it was an unofficial Amendment.
    The Deputy-Chairman: I heard what has been said by the right hon. Gentleman, but I do not recognise in it any point of order for me to deal with.
    Mr. Cronin: I have some responsibility in this matter in that I handed in the names of the Tellers for the Noes. I should mention the reason I did so, so that the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) may realise that no discourtesy was intended towards him at all. The hon. Member for Kidderminster had announced several times in his speech that he would lead the Opposition through the Division Lobby and I did not see how he could do that and be a Teller at the same time. [Laughter.]
    The Deputy-Chairman: Order. I think it time that the Committee discussed the next Amendment.
    Mr. Houghton: I beg to move, in page 3, line 18, at the end to insert:
    Provided that the Treasury may by regulations provide for mitigating, in the case of pensioners satisfying the conditions of the regulations (whether as to age, class of pension or otherwise), the effect of the increase in the retail price of tobacco occasioned by this subsection, for making up, out of sums received by the Commissioners of Customs and Excise on account of customs duties, the deficiency in the price received by persons supplying pensioners with tobacco in pursuance of the regulations and for purposes incidental and supplementary to the foregoing.
    It may be convenient if with this Amendment we discuss the next Amendment in line 24, at the end to insert:
    (3) In this section the expression "pensioner " means a person to whom a pension has been awarded under the Old Age Pensions Act, 1936, the Widows', Orphans' and Old Age Contributory Pensions Act, 1936, the National Insurance Act, 1946, or any corresponding enactment for the time being in force in Northern Ireland.
    The Deputy-Chairman: I think that that would be convenient.
    Mr. Houghton: This is a proposition to enable the Treasury to make regulations in the case of pensioners for mitigating the effect of the increase in the retail price of tobacco. In the debate on the previous Amendment the Committee was reminded on a number of occasions of the effect of the increases in taxation. There is an increase in the price of twenty cigarettes of a popular brand from 3s. l1d. to 4s. 1d. and an increase of perhaps l½d. to 2d. an ounce on pipe tobacco. Reference was made to the weight of taxation on tobacco at the present time. I understand that out of the price of 4s. 1d. for twenty cigarettes of a popular brand not less than 3s. 0½d. comprises taxation. My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley) referred to the enormous sum which the Revenue now collects from the tax on tobacco—nearly £830 million.
    7.30 p.m.
    The Committee may ask whether the Amendment means that it will be necessary to reintroduce the Tobacco Duty relief concession given to pensioners until its withdrawal in 1958. The answer is that it may be and probably will be so. I recall what happened between 1947 and 1958 on this matter. From 1947 to 1958 a special concession was given to pensioners of an exemption from additional tax levied in 1947, the cash value of which for a single pensioner was 2s. 4d. a week and, for a married couple, 4s. 8d. In 1958, when the basic pension scales were increased, the Government withdrew that concession.
    When the retirement pension for a single person was increased by 10s., from 40s. to 50s. a week, the Tobacco Duty relief concession, the cash equivalent of which was 2s. 4d. a week, was withdrawn. When the standard pension rate was increased by 15s. from 65s. to 80s. for a married couple, the relief concession, whether for one pensioner or two, was also withdrawn. They had had the benefit of that concession on the tobacco tax for eleven years, mitigating very substantially the burden of the increased taxation on tobacco during that period.
    We questioned very sharply indeed the justice of withdrawing this concession

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    at the time of the increase in the pension rates in 1958, but it was withdrawn. The question now is, would that system have to be reintroduced to give effect to this Amendment? It would probably be necessary to do something on similar lines, at all events, to give effect to the Amendment, although the Amendment itself does not prescribe any method by which it should be done.
    The next question is whether it would mean re-erecting the apparatus which existed from 1947 to 1958 or, if some other elaborate administrative action is needed in order to give effect to this Amendment, would that be justified for what may appear superficially to be quite small increases in price? We on these benches believe that anything is justified to protect the standard of living of the pensioners, which is already too low. We are resolved to defend the pensioners from any erosion, however small, of their existing standards. We believe, therefore, that our Amendment is justified because of the imposition of this extra burden on the already too slender resources of old-age pensioners.
    We heard from the Economic Secretary in the course of the last debate that this increase would bring the Exchequer very nearly £20 million a year, which is four times as much extra duty as will come to the Revenue from the Profits Tax this year and almost equivalent to the amount of Profits Tax levied in this Bill which will come to the Exchequer in a full year. It is, therefore, the most significant impost of extra taxation in the Bill. It is designed to curb the purchasing power of a very large section of people, because whatever they spend on tobacco the more tax they will pay and the less they will have to spend on other things. That seems to be the economic theory behind this increase in tax.
    A few moments ago the Economic Secretary, when pressed to accept the Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro), said that a loss of nearly £20 million of increased taxation would involve either some compensating increases in taxation elsewhere, or perhaps render the Chancellor unable to make the concessions on taxation elsewhere in the Bill. In his Budget speech, the Chancellor said:
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    "It follows from my assessment of the economic outlook that I must raise at least sufficient additional revenue to cover the cost of these concessions, and, indeed, rather more."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th April, 1960: Vol. 621, c. 63.]
    He then passed straight to his proposals to increase the Tobacco Duty. So this duty has both an economic and a fiscal purpose, economic because of the general climate in which the Chancellor introduced his Budget, leading him to conclude that restraint on demand was desirable, and fiscal because he needed compensating taxation to reimburse the Exchequer for the concessions being made elsewhere in the Bill. The Chancellor presumably intends the economic purpose of the increase in tax to apply to old-age pensioners as well as to the rest of the community.
    The purpose of the Amendment is to contract out of this increase, to contract out of this purchasing squeeze, old-age pensioners, on whom we believe it is an oppressive and additional burden. This tax is a deliberate increase in the cost of living. We are against that in general, and even more against it in the particular context of old-age pensioners. There are about 5 million retirement and non-contributory old-age pensioners who would benefit under the Amendment. Without it they will contribute a substantial proportion of the total extra tax if they continue—as many of them may not be able to afford to do—the same level of consumption of tobacco. We believe that to be unjust and we seek to relieve them of it.
    A question which may also be asked is, what amount per head in Tobacco Duty relief should be given under this Amendment? We have not fixed an amount. Previously it was 2s. 4d. a week in cash equivalent, but we are now dealing with the mitigation of the extra tax proposed in Clause 5 and not with events which have gone before. It may be that l0d. or 1s. a week is a reasonable concession to give to old-age pensioners who would apply for it under the conditions under which the concession would be likely to be operated.
    Is it worth all this trouble to re-erect this scheme in order to achieve this purpose? We believe that it is, and if the Chancellor does not, then we suggest that there is another remedy, which his

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    right hon. Friend the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance can take in the debate on Friday. We have seen from the newspapers that the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance was called to a Cabinet meeting this week. Whether it was to decide whether he or his right hon. Friend the Chancellor should meet our objections in this matter, or whether it was to decide that nothing should be done on either count, we shall not know until the end of the week, but if the Chancellor tells the Committee that this grievance can be met in another way and that the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance will deal with it on Friday, then I am sure that I can persuade my right hon. and hon. Friends to permit the withdrawal of the Amendment. Failing such an assurance, we shall fight every inch of the way.
    I hope it will not be said that, although there is an increase in the Tobacco Duty affecting old-age pensioners this year, reliefs were given to them last year or elsewhere which offset the addition which they will have to pay for their tobacco and cigarettes. It is true that last year there was a reduction in the beer tax and in the price of beer, but it is no reply to us to say that the old-age pensioners' beer is cheaper this year than last. And surely no one suggests that in the Bill we are to make their port and sherry cheaper. Apparently even the removal of the Entertainments Duty will not make cinema seats any cheaper, and yet the additional tax on tobacco is to some extent necessary in order to reimburse the Exchequer for the removal of the Entertainments Duty, which will bring no benefit to the consumers, including the old-age pensioners. None would suggest that the old-age pensioners' game of solo may be cheaper by the removal of the tax on playing cards.
    The truth is that some of the concessions given in the Bill are of doubtful value to the consumer in more directions than one. In any case, any of these suggestions would be merely the miserable accountancy of cheeseparers, because what small concessions have been given to old-age pensioners are welcome and necessary and what additional burdens are imposed on them are unwelcome and hurtful, however small they may be.
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    We therefore must take a stand here. It was a particularly heartless addition to taxation to select a commodity from which many old people get a good deal of solace, comfort and enjoyment. That was recognised in 1947 when, for urgent economic reasons at the time, the Labour Chancellor increased the Tobacco Duty and at the same time introduced the Tobacco Duty relief arrangements to which I have referred.
    7.45 p.m.
    I admit straight away that not all retirement pensioners are poor. Bearing in mind what has been said by the hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward), it is also necessary to acknowledge that not all poor people are retirement pensioners. But I am sure that the Committee agrees that the old-age pensioners are not only a large and clearly defined group in the community, which makes the administration of a concession of this kind possible, but, on the whole, represent the poorest sections of the community. The fact that one-fifth of them receive National Assistance is clear proof of that.
    The pension is inadequate. I hope that there will be no dispute about that. But what it should be and what steps should be taken about it is not a matter for debate on the Amendment. We hope, however, that we shall have sufficient response from the Chancellor to send some message of cheer to the old-age pensioners who will have and are having this increase in tax to bear. Have we to wait until the Chancellor himself retires before there is any conviction on the Conservative benches about the inadequacy of the retirement pension? Must he leave and live on 50s. a week?
    The Deputy-Chairman: Order. I hope that the hon. Member will not go too far outside the provisions of his Amendment.
    Mr. Houghton: No Sir. I had got just as far as the Chancellor and I was about to leave him.
    It is the inadequacy of the pension which makes our insistence on this Amendment stronger. If the pension were adequate we should not be debating the pennies on tobacco, even though they arose from a tax with which we did not agree. But these millions of people are still making their budgets in pence, and in a society which is beginning to

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    call itself affluent and about which other political slogans have been used until we are a little tired of them, there is this large section of the community which is laying out its money each week literally in pence. An addition to their expenditure in terms of pence is, therefore, a serious matter. Because we believe that it is a serious matter, my right hon. and hon. Friends will not hesitate to press the Amendment to a Division.
    I hope that the Chancellor, whose attendance during the debate we welcome, will find some means of mitigating this additional tax for those covered by the Amendment. Unless he does so, we on these benches will be more than disappointed and we shall be all the more angry that this Clause imposing additional taxation in this way is before us.
    Mr. Raymond Gower: The hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton), in the course of his moderate and reasoned speech, said that not all retirement pensioners are poor. He could equally truthfully have said that not all retirement pensioners are smokers. That is of some importance when we consider this fairly narrow Amendment.
    I do not dissent from the spirit in which he moved the Amendment, but I think that its implementation in all circumstances would be undesirable. By implication he compared the present increase in taxation with the very much larger increase in the Tobacco Duty which took place under the Labour Government about thirteen years ago, but he will recall that that was on a totally different scale and at a time when apparently there was no feasible chance of an early increase in the rates of basic retirement pension.
    Indeed, in the lifetime of that Government there was for many pensioners no subsequent increase between 1947 and 1951. For others there was an increase of merely 2s. 6d. a week. Therefore, that rather small concession was perhaps of great importance to them at that time. It was admitted, even by those who thoughtfully, and perhaps in the circumstances considerately, brought the concession in, that in some ways it was an unfair concession because it gave a benefit only to some pensioners and not to others.
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    A return to that sort of concession today might be regarded, even by some pensioners, with foreboding. It is so easy to say that anyone who would oppose this modest concession is hard hearted. I certainly like concessions given by private people in the nature of cheaper tickets to go into football matches, and so on, but when it comes to administration by the State, ultimately the most desirable thing is an increase in the basic pension. I cannot develop that aspect.
    Hon. Members: Why not?
    The Deputy-Chairman: Order. The hon. Member is going rather wider than the Amendment.
    Mr. Gower: Yes. I would be out of order in developing that aspect.
    The hon. Member for Sowerby also pointed out that one-fifth of the people for whom the concession is designed are in receipt of National Assistance. I remind him that a much larger number of people are now in receipt of National Assistance than a year ago. This is because of deliberate Government policy, which was designed to increase the real standard of those people who are in receipt of that kind of assistance and also, by increasing the disregards, to enlarge the number of people who receive it.
    This sort of concession might be regarded as somewhat retrograde, as it would not perpetuate but revive a concession which formerly obtained which was in some measure unfair. If the concession were reintroduced at this stage, it might be regarded by pensioners with foreboding, as an indication that they were to get no increase in the basic rate for three or four years. They did not receive an increase in the three or four years which followed the concession of 1947. That would be an unhappy picture for them to face.
    I have every confidence that they will not have to wait for anything like that time, or even a small proportion of that amount of time, before they receive a concession similar to that which has been already given to those in receipt of National Assistance. For those reasons, while I can sympathise with the object of the Amendment, I do not think that it would be advisable for my right hon. Friend to accept it.
    Mr. Tom Brown: In the concluding part of his speech, the hon. Member for Barry (Mr. Gower) said that he had sympathy with the two Amendments. I remind him now, as I have often reminded privately and in public, that we have a saying in Lancashire, "Sympathy without relief is like mustard without beef. It is very sharp". Therefore, I expect that a manifestation of the hon. Member's sympathy will be expressed by his vote in the Division Lobby.
    As my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) said, the object of the two Amendments is to mitigate the effect of the increased Tobacco Duty on old-age pensioners and those who, unfortunately, happen to be in the lower income groups. That is the specific objective of the two Amendments. If there had been no increase in the Tobacco Duty, these Amendments would not have appeared on the Notice Paper.
    When the Chancellor of the Exchequer presented his Budget in 1959, I used a Lancashire word. I said that he was "skinny". I did not mean skinny physically. I meant that in the application of his generosity he had been skinny towards old-age pensioners and those in the lower income groups. On this occasion, I must use another Lancashire word. He is very harsh. That is the word we use in Lancashire to describe a situation when people are withdrawing something, or holding something back which should be given. They are described as harsh. I leave it at that.
    I remind the Chancellor of the Exchequer of what was contained in the Gracious Speech, delivered in November, 1959. He will recall this, because it has been mentioned several times. It was said that the old people and those in the lower income group would have the care and attention of Her Majesty's Government. That promise was made. Since the Gracious Speech was delivered nothing has been done for the old-age pensioners. Does not the Chancellor of the Exchequer think that it is about time that something was done? A great responsibility rests upon him and the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance. They cannot escape it. It is their duty to act in accordance with what was laid down in the Gracious Speech.
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    There lived in this country many years ago a very famous preacher and philosopher named the Rev. Charles Kingsley. When there was a condemnation of those who smoked, he said that tobacco and the smoking of tobacco was a hungry man's food, a thirsty man's drink, a lonely man's companion, a cold man's fire, and the finest weed that grew under the canopy of Heaven.
    The question before us is not whether tobacco smoking is a bad habit or a good habit. It is to what extent we can help those who have reached the eventide of their life. It is on their behalf that I make my special plea, joining hands with my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby, that we should do something for the old folks in the eventide of their life. We should make it easy, more pleasant and more enjoyable for them.
    The people for whom I plead are those who, by their activities in their various vocations in the years which lie behind them, played their part in building the prosperity that this country now enjoys. They did this by profound loyalty, deep devotion, and courage. They helped in no small way. I have said this before and I do not apologise for repeating it. They helped in no small way to enable this nation to become one of the greatest nations for its size in the whole world.
    A study of the pages of history and an examination of our political, industrial and social background, with all our difficulties, will show that the people now in receipt of pensions played their part nobly and well, and that they are entitled to consideration at the hands of the Government. For what they have done for OUT industry and commerce they are entitled to any help that the Government can afford to give—and the Government can afford to give this help.
    8.0 p.m.
    Surely, we will not deny the old folk some solace in their solitude. Let the Committee and the Chancellor remember that the old-age pensioners and those in the lower income groups live in loneliness, which is a terrible thing. I do not say that this concession would completely alleviate their loneliness, but it would go some way to help them. If, by enabling them to have a pipe of tobacco, or a cigarette, we can alleviate

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    that loneliness let us do it, and let us not be so niggardly in our approach.
    I have a number of social welfare clubs in my constituency—I shall have the pleasure attending the opening of one in a few days' time. I visit these clubs occasionally, and I take with me a few pipes and a little extra tobacco. I am always amazed at the psychological effect of those small gifts on the old people. Nothing gives them more pleasure than that extra tobacco, not because it comes from their Member but because it is a little extra over and above what they can afford to buy with their meagre pension.
    We are not asking for a lot. According to the prison regulations, even the prisoner who is serving a sentence for wrong-doing is allowed 1 oz. of tobacco a week, or, alternatively, 100 cigarettes a week. If those who have done wrong and are paying the penalty can have a concession of this kind, surely the same consideration can be shown by the Government to those of whom I speak. The Government claim these days to be days of prosperity and a high standard of life. I do not challenge that claim, but though there is an improvement in our standard of life there is also a depreciation of the standard of living of the old folks. Therefore, I say again, if those in our prisons are entitled to a concession, so are our old people and those in the lower income groups.
    Hon. Members opposite say that these people should save on this and on that, but I suggest that no hon. Member would be able to provide much for tobacco out of such a meagre pension as theirs. It would not be wise for me—and I have no desire to do so—to recite to the Committee typical budgets of these old folk, but those of us who go among them know that there is conclusive evidence that they cannot afford to pay the increased price of tobacco.
    It is interesting to examine how the Tobacco Duty has grown and the effect that it has had, not only on the old-age pensioners but on other people. It is now 300 years since the duty was first introduced, and the increase in it in those three centuries is staggering. It originated in 1660, when it was 2d. per 1b. In the early part of the eighteenth century it was raised to 6½d. In 1910, the figure was 3s. 8d.; in 1915, it was 5s. 6d.;
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    in 1917, 7s. 4d.—and when it was raised to 7s. 4d. there was such an outcry, not from the old-age pensioners—there were few if any then—but from the ordinary public that it was reduced to 6s. 5d.
    From 1918 to 1926, the duty stood at 6s. 2d., and there was a slow but gradual increase until 1931, when it stood at 9s. 6d. per lb. In 1939, it was 11s. 6d.; in 1940, 17s. 6d.; in 1942, 29s. 6d.; in 1945, 38s. 8d.; and on 16th April, 1947, when a concession was made to old-age pensioners by the then right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland, Mr. Dalton, as he then was, it stood at 54s. l0d. per lb. In 1948, the duty was raised to 58s. 2d., and on 17th April, 1956, it went to 61s. 2d. a lb.
    Every time, without exception, the increase has hit the old-age pensioners and the people in the lower income groups. Before taking any step either to increase present taxation or to impose new taxes the Chancellor and his Treasury advisers should take into consideration what effect their action will have on the poorer sections of the community. I remember that When I was about 11 years old I would be sent for tobacco for my dear old dad. The tobacco had to be weighed, and it was weighed against 1d. weight. The 1d. weight was put on one end of the scale and the tobacco was put on the other end, and one got 1d. of tobacco. That was away back over 60 years ago, but these are things that stick in one's mind and cannot be erased. We cannot erase memories of past hardship. It seems to me that with all our development and evolution, with all our advances, things seem to get worse to worse for the people for whom I speak.
    We must also remember the size of the family. Our family of old folks is increasing. In 1901, there were 1¾ million people over the ages of 60 and 65. Today, the figure has increased to over 5¼ million if not 5½ million, people of those ages. I do not suggest for a moment that they are all smokers, nor do I suggest that all of them cannot afford to pay the increase, but I do suggest that ways and means should be found by the Government to alleviate the suffering and hardship created by this increase in the Tobacco Duty.
    May I briefly recite how this duty has increased since 1954–55? The net yield of the Tobacco Duty in 1954–55 was

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    £649,879,583. In 1960, it has risen to £788,723,000, and in 1961, the year to which the Budget and this Finance Bill relate, it will be £829 million, the highest figure ever reached in this country by the medium of the Tobacco Duty. I have a great respect for the Chancellor, who is a very human man, but I must say to him that the increase in the Tobacco Duty cannot be justified on any grounds whatever.
    I will not suggest that the Chancellor ought to have adopted other methods of raising money, but surely he could have selected some other section of the community to get the revenue. This certainly cannot be justified, and I therefore appeal to the Chancellor to accept our Amendments, remembering the promise that was made in the Gracious Speech that our old folk and those in the lower income groups shall participate in the increased pros-perky and standard of life of the people.
    Mr. Hunter: I want, briefly, to support the Amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) and supported by my hon. Friend the Member for Ince (Mr. T. Brown), and to appeal to the Chancellor to make this concession.
    The Economic Secretary to the Treasury, in the previous debate, said that the Treasury had considered the automatic machines and the difficulties with such apparatus before the decision to increase the duty. I want to ask the Chancellor whether he considered the old-age pensioners.
    Mr. Amory indicated assent.
    Mr. Hunter: The Chancellor nods. The old-age pensioners are not machines, but human beings, and I therefore hope that he will make this concession tonight.
    The Amendment does not ask a lot from the Treasury, but this extra taxation does mean a lot to those in the lowest income scale, that is, the old-age pensioners mainly, whose pensions are supplemented by National Assistance. A penny on a packet of 10 cigarettes, 2d. on 20 or 3d. on 1 oz. of tobacco is a lot to those who live on a razor edge existence and have to balance every week a budget which is mainly concerned with food, with heat in the winter—and that is a big item—and in which cigarettes, or pipe
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    tobacco, naturally cannot have a very important part.
    8.15 p.m.
    For a man or a woman, who may be 70 or perhaps 80 years of age, and who for many years have been smokers, to have to give up the habit of smoking is a terrific break, especially when they are living alone, perhaps either as widow or widower, when cigarettes or a pipe of tobacco can be a great consolation to them. Therefore, I make an appeal to the Chancellor, This is not a "golden handshake" and has nothing to do with a gift of thousands of pounds to one individual. It would mean that the old-age pensioners, as they could under the arrangements previously made, could apply, if they are smokers, and receive a concession. I think the last concession was worth 2s. 4d. a week.
    If the Chancellor agrees about the need for an increase in the retirement pension —and I know he is very human and that everyone in the Committee recognises that—surely he will also agree to make this concession. In almost every Budget a concession is generally made, perhaps on Income Tax allowances or on beer, and if the Chancellor is to make a concession this year during the Finance Bill debates, let him make it to the old-age pensioners. If the right hon. Gentleman does not want to take an extra 1d. on 10 cigarettes from the old-age pensioners, and 3d. oz. on tobacco, let him agree to revert to the lower tobacco tax in existence before his Budget was introduced. I make an earnest appeal to the Chancellor to make this concession tonight to the old people and so relieve them of the extra tobacco tax.
    Mr. John Morris: I support the Amendment. Time after time we have discussed the problem of the old-age pensioners, and every time that I have addressed an old-age pensioners' rally, I have had to plead guilty and say that I had no news, no solace, and no hope for them at all. If the Chancellor accepted the two Amendments, he would be giving some alleviation to them in their problems today.
    We have heard from the hon. Member for Barry (Mr, Gower), who, unfortunately, has left the Chamber, words full of sympathy for the old-age pensioners, but his constituents, unfortunately, will

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    not know where he stands. He made some vague reference to the pensioners not having to wait for some relief, without saying whether he was in favour of the practical proposal contained in these Amendments. He cannot have it both ways. Either he is for supporting the Amendments and making a stand on behalf of the old-age pensioners, or he is against it.
    Many of the old-age pensioners today, as the Chancellor knows, are living on National Assistance. The old-age pensioner has a weekly budget day. The Chancellor has an annual Budget Day. He deals in millions of pounds, but the weekly budget of the old-age pensioner is a budget of pence. I ask the Chancellor to have regard to the circumstances of the old-age pensioners today. The joys of old age do not increase, and one of the joys is that of tobacco. If the Amendments were accepted, they would give some consolation to the old-age pensioners. I therefore ask the Committee most sincerely to accept these Amendments in the light of the present terrible and pitiful plight of old-age pensioners.
    Mr. J. J. Mendelson: I should like to intervene very briefly in the debate on the Amendments because of the arguments that have been produced by the hon. Member for Barry (Mr. Gower), and I do so particularly, although the hon. Member is not here at the moment, because I thought the Chancellor was nodding his head in approval of what he had heard put forward by his hon. Friend. I thought the Chancellor distinctly indicated his approval of the major argument put forward by the hon. Member.
    First, the hon. Member for Barry put forward what I thought was a rather dangerous new doctrine, which I hope is not the sort of doctrine which the Chancellor will accept. He argued that because there are a considerable number of people who are poor and who are not old-age pensioners, that is in some peculiar way related to the Amendments which the Committee is discussing. Obviously, the implication of that argument and doctrine would be that we can at no time bring any relief to any section of the population unless at the very same time we bring relief to all other sections.
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    That, certainly, is absurd. In all social legislation, it is agreed by all people involved, and certainly by all social workers, that from time to time we may find that we can do something to help alleviate distress for one section of our people, but cannot do similar things immediately for everybody else.
    I am glad that the hon. Member for Barry has just returned, because I should like to deal with another argument which he put forward. He said that it ought to be remembered that on a past occasion when a concession was made to old-age pensioners it was justified because there was no immediate increase in the pension itself, and there was not one for some time. In the absence of any specific knowledge which the hon. Gentleman may have received from the Chancellor or the Cabinet that an increase in the basic pension is impending, I should say that that is a very dangerous argument to use in this debate, because it means that the Committee is being asked to be stultified in a justified demand.
    I did not hear anything in the hon. Gentleman's speech saying that the Amendments were unjustifiable. If we are to assume at any given moment when discussing an important and justifiable Amendment that because an increase may be pending in some unspecified future therefore we ought not to press the Amendment, then all the useful work of the Committee on matters of this kind will become impossible.
    Mr. Gower: I made it perfectly clear that, whereas we on this side of the Committee have stated that the retirement pensioners should share in increasing prosperity, in 1947 or 1948, when an allowance was made for them, there was no feasible prospect of any increase in their pension, and there was not one for the remaining three or four years of the Labour Party's term of office for some pensioners and only 2s. 6d. for others.
    Mrs. Harriet Slater: Does not the hon. Member for Barry (Mr. Gower) remember that in the last debate on old-age pensions one of his hon. Friends—I think it was the hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mr. Denzil Freeth)—said that it was a little early to do anything and that we should do it when the time was opportune? That

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    might mean in four years' time, before the next General Election.
    Mr. Mendelson: I do not think that the hon. Member for Barry has answered my point at all. There does not seem to be any ability on his part to predict. What I am objecting to is the use of his argument that at some unspecified date in the future an increase in pensions may be pending, and that, therefore, it would be wrong for this Committee to give some immediate relief to a section of our people. That is an unjustifiable argument, and we should remove it from our minds in deciding how to vote on the Amendment.
    The hon. Gentleman referred—and so may other people in this debate, and I rather suspect that the Chancellor will when he replies to it—to the fact that not all old-age pensioners are smokers. That also seems to me a very dangerous social doctrine. We have a great deal of social legislation which is not always used by everybody at any given moment. I refer, for instance, to our health services.
    Mrs. Slater: And education.
    Mr. Mendelson: In any parallel case we have always used the argument that because not everybody may be making use of the service or benefiting by it that can never be a reason for not having it.
    This is really very important. Let me give another example on not so vast a scale as the health services. I have been associated in my time, as I know many hon. Members on both sides of the Committee have been, with schemes to provide special travelling facilities for old-age pensioners, or people handicapped in some way—blind people, for instance. We have never accepted the doctrine, now being introduced by the back door, that because not every old-age pensioner is a smoker therefore there is no real case for the Amendment.
    I am driven to the conclusion that unless the Chancellor can tonight give the Committee a very definite assurance —so definite that we can go back and say to our constituents who are old-age pensioners that we have received such an assurance officially in the name of the Cabinet—that an increase in the basic pension is about to be announced, or
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    that the Chancellor and his colleague the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance have agreed in some other way to meet the point of this Amendment, there are no grounds on which the Chancellor and his hon. and right hon. Friends can refuse to support it. I still hope that such an announcement will be made, but if it is not made I wholeheartedly agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) in saying that it is our duty to press the Amendment to a Division and, what is more, to make quite clear that the introduction of that kind of social doctrine ought to be denounced when it makes its appearance in Committee.
    Mr. Hector Hughes: I support the Amendment because the Clause is incomplete without it. It is not only incomplete but it is also unjust. The Clause is Olympian in its calm and stupid disregard of the conditions of British life, and it assumes that in Britain we are all equal in capital, income and comforts. It imposes 3s. 4d. tax on all smokers equally—indeed, on all people equally whether they be smokers or not. It ignores the fact that some people are rich and some are poor, some have mansions and some live in slums, some smoke and some do not, some have big incomes and some have small incomes. It ignores, indeed, the fact that old-age pensioners are very poor indeed.
    These Amendments seek to rectify these omissions in the Clause. These Amendments are realistic. They seek in a very small way to do justice to a very small, a limited, class. The Amendments, as I say, are realistic, and I appeal to the Committee to support them on those grounds.
    I shall not repeat the arguments which have been put so eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton), who moved the Amendment, and, indeed, toy other speakers. I approach the Clause and the Amendment from another angle. The purchasing power of the pensioners mentioned in the Amendment is very small. It should be remembered—it is not remembered by the draftsmen of the Clause, but it is remembered by the draftsmen of the Amendment—that the pensioners mentioned in the Amendment were the

    1377
    wealth producers of yesterday, and it is right that they should be remembered now. The Amendments are an attempt in a realistic way to ease the life of the pensioners.
    Not all people are addicted to smoking. I am not, for instance, though I would smoke the odd cigar on a ceremonial occasion once in six months. I am not putting forward my own addiction in this respect.
    I shall not deal with the cold mathematics of it, which have been dealt with by my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton), but I beg the Committee to realise that the Clause states:
    "Each of the rates of the duties of customs and excise on tobacco shall be increased by three shillings and fourpence per pound …"
    and makes no exception of any class in the community, however deserving or however small it may be.
    To implement these Amendments would cost the State very little money, but it would mean a great deal in comforts for a very small class. The plight of that class is terrible. Its access to the amenities and comforts of life is small. The Chancellor realises that under his régime many wealthy people get the golden handshake, but the poor pensioner gets very little.
    8.30 p.m.
    These Amendments are a step in the right direction. Indeed, I go so far as to say that unless the Committee realises the facts of the situation and implements the Amendments it will be doing a disgraceful job of work. It is only right that these exceptions should be made, and I appeal to the Committee to pass the Amendments.
    Mr. Ross: If he had been minded to satisfy and meet the complaints that have been made from this side of the Committee by accepting the Amendments, or by offering another way out by making an announcement of the kind which my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson) had in mind, I am sure that the Chancellor would have risen a long time ago. From experience of Finance Bills and of the habits of those who reply to debates on Amendments we can deduce that we shall get no satisfaction from the Chancellor.
    1378
    We are trying to mitigate the effect on retirement pensioners of the increase in the tobacco tax, and not necessarily merely to the extent of the amount that is raised by the change which the Chancellor announced in his Budget. Is it right that we should do that? Is it right that old-age pensioners should have to bear this additional burden because, for some reason or other, in the handling of the nation's finances the economic situation has become rather precarious? In order to try to put things right and to tug at the reins, we have this additional tax on tobacco which has the result of imposing an additional cost of 1d. on ten cigarettes and 2d. on twenty and 3d. on an ounce of pipe tobacco.
    Is it right that this should apply to the people who are specifically mentioned in the Amendments? Are we right in suggesting that the people who should not pay this penalty for national easy living should be the people who are not participating in that easy living— the old-age pensioners? I think that even the Chancellor would say that, if he could do it, he would prefer that old-age pensioners did not pay the additional tax on cigarettes and tobacco. If that is so, can he do it? We have a precedent. From 1951 to 1958 the party opposite was quite content to continue the tobacco concession. Indeed, on one occasion when there was an increase in the price of tobacco the concession was increased in value, and when it was withdrawn in 1958 it was worth 2s. 4d.
    I am glad that the hon. Member for Barry (Mr. Gower) is still in the Chamber. He pins his faith on how good his hon. and right hon. Friends on the Front Bench were to old-age pensioners, and with particular reference to those on National Assistance. When the pension was increased by 10s., that was a reason given for doing away with the concession of 2s. 4d. Those in the greatest need at that time, those on National Assistance, did not have an increase of 10s., but one of 5s. Therefore, the historic safeguards from the Front Bench opposite in respect of those in greatest need do not bear very much examination. When we are asked by the hon. Member for Barry to rely on some future beneficence from people who are known for their niggardliness I do not think that he will find many supporters on this side of the Committee.

    1379
    We prefer to ask the Chancellor to reinstate a concession which should never have been taken away. Hon. Members should consider the injustice of it: port and sherry—cheap—and the tobacco tax which will affect the old-age pensioner. With all respect to what some hon. Members may think, old-age pensioners do not deluge themselves nightly with port and sherry. An old-age pensioner has £2s. 10s. a week. He will not be able to get very many packets of cigarettes at 4s. 1d. each with that.
    In some of the changes in the spending pattern of old-age pensioners which are forced upon them by Government action —this is the second this week; last night the Minister of State, Board of Trade, defended a tariff proposal which would increase the price of imported tomatoes by 2d. per lb.—we cannot do very much to safeguard them. However, here we can safeguard the old-age pensioners by reinstating the concession which was accepted by the Conservatives for seven years. It would certainly help to mollify the feelings of not only old-age pensioners but people throughout the country whose reaction when the Budget was announced was, "Why is not something done for the old-age pensioners?". That was the instinctive and socially healthy reaction of the great mass of the people.
    The Chancellor failed then. A man who realises he has made a mistake and recovers from it shows a tremendous amount of courage. We are told—I do not know with what truth—that the right hon. Gentleman will leave political life very soon. I invite him to seize this chance to enshrine himself in the hearts of the old-age pensioners. Actually, he has two chances, one tonight and another on Friday. Tonight he has the opportunity to insulate the old-age pensioners from the increase in the tobacco tax.
    This is a serious matter for old-age pensioners. When men and women retire they face a considerable drop in income, but they cannot change the habits of a lifetime, and I do not think we should expect them to do so. Nevertheless, many of them have to accept a very considerable change in relation to their tobacco habits. They cling to what little they have left. Sixpence per week in respect of this increase means a lot to them.
    1380
    While the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) was speaking, many hon. Members opposite showed great sympathy and concern about the difficulties of the makers and users of automatic vending machines. Not many of those makers or the retailers will be on National Assistance as a result of what is done in the Budget, but many old-age pensioners will find life just that little bit more difficult with this additional impost.
    Surely the Chancellor appreciates that our Amendment is right. He may say to us, "It is not very easy to do", and we shall suggest to him that it has been done before and could be done again. The only other argument is that it is not right to do it because there are among the old-age pensioners some who are not smokers. But it is only the smokers who are being hit by the tax. That is the logic of the answer to the hon. Member for Barry: only the smokers among the old-age pensioners will suffer additionally by this increase in tax. Our Amendment is addressed to this tax and to those people. There is nothing unfair in that.
    Mr. Gower: Does not the hon. Gentleman recall that when these concessions were in force Members were constantly asking for similar concessions for people who did not smoke but who bought sweets? When the present Minister of Pensions and National Insurance decided to terminate that concession he did it because he felt that it would be better for all pensioners to get an equivalent money value. He therefore added to the increase which he proposed to bring in and so gave a larger increase to compensate for the loss of this concession to some pensioners.
    Mr. Ross: I do not accept any of that argument. I do not accept the argument that it is wrong to adopt this Amendment because we would not have this concession for sweets. Discussing sweets would be out of order, but in any case there is no tax on them, so the question of an additional Government impost on them, causing hardship, does not arise.
    I have already dealt with the adequacy of the additional pension. The increase for a man on National Assistance was 5s., but the Government took away 2s. 4d. and so gave a net increase of

    1381
    2s. 8d. When Members opposite argue that they always help those who are poorest, they should reflect on what they did in 1958, because, by their own proclamations they are judged as having done something very wrong. What we suggest here is right and practical, and I hope that the Chancellor in this, his last. Budget will do something to endear himself, though belatedly, to the old-age pensioners.
    Mr. Cronin: I express my approbation of the excellent speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross). As he comes from north of the Tweed, he has particular experience of the difficult and miserable conditions of old-age pensioners, and unemployment in Scotland is substantially worse than in England.
    The main aspect of the Amendment is that it is uncommon in that it gives the Committee an opportunity to do something which is largely for people who are in really straitened circumstances. Usually, Amendments to the Finance Bill refer to questions of Income Tax which very many people pay. Others deal with Purchase Tax and Excise duty and have a diffuse effect over the whole population. Here, however, the Committee has an opportunity to pass an Amendment which affects, almost exclusively, people who are in really difficult and unhappy circumstances. For that reason the Chancellor should give it sympathetic attention.
    I shall attempt a little clairvoyance and prophesy what the Chancellor will say in reply. First, he will say that during the years 1947 to 1957 there were considerable practical difficulties when this scheme was administered. That is a fair point. During that period there were difficulties, for instance, when retirement pensioners were in hospital for long periods. There were complaints that pensioners, people suffering industrial injuries, post office workers, widows, retired policemen and various other categories, were excluded from the scheme, who could, on grounds of equity, normally have been considered to be suitable candidates. But we have drafted this Amendment in such a way that it gives the Chancellor a free hand to introduce any regulations he likes to fit the scheme to all possible circumstances. We do not confine him even to the Amend-
    1382
    ment. If he wishes to introduce an Amendment himself on Report, we shall be very happy to accept it, provided that it satisfies the principle which we have in mind.
    8.45 p.m.
    The Chancellor may also say that this is intended to subsidise one kind of amenity, tobacco, and that there are some people who do not smoke and that it may be felt to have a rather unfair effect. Several hon. Members have already dealt with that argument. The Committee should bear in mind that when the Royal Assent was given to the National Insurance Act, 1958, retirement pensioners who were smokers were then deprived of their tobacco tokens to the value of 2s. 4d. a week, so that it was the smokers who then suffered. It seems to be no more than common justice that they should not receive some benefit.
    The Chancellor may suggest that the benefits are rather small and may cause great administrative difficulty; but, if he says that, he will under-estimate the strength of feeling throughout the country about the need to improve the lot of retirement pensioners. I am sure that Post Office officials would handle this work with pleasure and would not for a moment grudge any extra work which they have to do to see that these old-age pensioners got their tokens.
    This is undoubtedly a comparatively small concession, but we would be happy to withdraw the Amendments in to to if we had some assurance from the Chancellor that an equivalent concession was to be made to retirement pensioners in the immediate future. Hon. Members on this side of the Committee know that the plight of the vast majority of retirement pensioners is so miserable and is such an affront to our present civilisation that any concession, however small, is better than nothing. The smallness of the concession is an argument in its favour, because it will cost the Treasury very little.
    It should be remembered that when my noble Friend, Lord Dalton, introduced this scheme in 1947, the tobacco tax was not as high as it now is and the scheme was received with general approbation. Lord Crookshank, who was handling the matter from the Front Bench for the then Conservative Opposition, gave the

    1383
    scheme the fullest possible approbation and said:
    "We are very willing, of course, that this Clause should be read a Second time".— [OFFICIAL REPORT, 9th July, 1947; Vol. 439, c. 2338.]
    He gave unqualified approval and that was at a time not only when the Tobacco Duty was less than it now is, but when retirement pensioners had a pension which, in comparison with the whole cost of living, was higher than it is now. If the Chancellor rejects the Amendment, will he say what has been the specific change in the views of the Government supporters since that time? What is the difference between now and 1947? Have hon. Members opposite become more hard-hearted?
    I do not think that the Chancellor himself is hard-hearted. I think that he is a sympathetic person. One sees rumors in the Press that he is shortly to cease to be Chancellor. Some of us may feel some slight symptoms of dismay at that prospect.
    The Temporary Chairman (Mr. F. Blackburn): We cannot discuss the Chancellor's future prospects on this Amendment.
    Mr. Cronin: The prospects of retirement pensioners are bound up with the question of who is the Chancellor. If we have a Chancellor—
    The Temporary Chairman: There is only one Chancellor who can give a concession on this Amendment.
    Mr. Cronin: I do not want to delay the Committee and I would not think of questioning a Ruling from the Chair. I would suggest to the Chancellor that, although we think that he is a person of good intentions, good intentions are not enough. We want him to take some really effective action, and I would ask him carefully to bear in mind the traditional terminus of the road which is paved with good intentions.
    Mr. Laurence Pavitt: I think that hon. Members on this side of the Committee have deployed almost every conceivable argument in an effort to persuade the Chancellor and the Government to accept the Amendment. I would add my pressure from the very human and personal angle of how it affects individual old-age pensioners.
    1384
    I had the privilege for several years of being warden of an old-age pensioners' hostel and of having a number of old people under my care. During that period it became increasingly obvious that the amount of enjoyment left to them in the evening of their Eves was very small indeed. As they reached the end of the 70s and the beginning of the 80s, so the area of their enjoyment gradually receded.
    I remember old gentlemen of 79, 80 and 81 whose main consolation and enjoyment in life was a pipe of "'baccy". I am not pleading in terms of millions or, like the hon. Member for Barry (Mr. Gower), in terms of statistics and £ s. d., but in terms of the individuals to whom this Amendment, if the Chancellor can see his way to accept it, will mean so much towards the end of their lives. These are people who have given their life and service to the community.
    I am not a smoker. My experience with medical practitioners has convinced me of the very strong relationship between smoking and lung cancer. The old-age pensioners whom I served were East Londoners who refused to leave East London during the blitz. They had lived in Stepney all their lives and they wanted to remain in their own homes irrespective of enemy action. If old gentlemen wish to perpetuate their smoking I think that just as the heroes of the last war were permitted to die in their homes, so old-age pensioners should be permitted to smoke their pipes in peace.
    One of my pensioners, who was 79, was a bachelor. His first girl friend was run over by a horse tram and he was twice jilted after that, but he was a cheerful old boy who found great pleasure in his little bit of tobacco which some of us helped to provide for him. I hope that the Chancellor will take on the rôle of fairy godmother in this instance. It is a hard story which we put to him, and we ask him to accept the Amendment.
    Mr. Amory: This is the first time that I have been referred to as a potential fairy godmother.
    The tone of the discussion that we have had is exactly what it should have been on a matter of this kind, quiet, objective and serious. I found the speech of

    1385
    the hon. Gentleman the Member for Ince (Mr. T. Brown), who has just left the Chamber, as attractive as I always do. Last year he called me "skinny" and this year he has called me "harsh," two Lancashire terms at which I take no offence. It may be that he is right. It may be that any Chancellor justifies both those terms.
    I wish that I could have accepted the Amendment, but I really do believe that it would not be a good way of helping the old people. The effect would be to restore a scheme of concessions to old-age pensioners that was introduced in 1947 and ended in 1957. The hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) said that 5 million people stood to gain. That would be so only if they were all habitual smokers; otherwise, the number would be just under 3 million.
    But it is not upon the comparative smallness of the number that I base my case. It is worth reminding the Committee, as my hon. Friend the Member for Barry (Mr. Gower) did, that this scheme was introduced to mitigate a quite unprecedentedly heavy increase in the Tobacco Duty, amounting to 1s. on a packet of 20 cigarettes. The Government of the day felt that this increase was so sharp that it would bear unfairly upon old-age pensioners, and a scheme was introduced to provide for the issue of tokens, to a value of 2s. at that time, to certain specified classes of pensioners.
    Looking back at the debate that took place it is difficult to believe that had the 1947 increase in duty been no more than 2d. a packet the scheme would ever have been invented. I say this because the scheme was open to serious objections in principle, as became evident fairly soon after it had been introduced. It is admitted to have been not wholly fair in its application, because it created anomalies as between one pensioner and another and as between one smoker and another. Those anomalies seem to have been felt. Some classes of pensioner were ineligible for the concession. I believe that it was the hon. Member for Loughborough (Mr. Cronin) who said that the Amendment went wider, because it provided for regulations. I think he will find that it does not go wider than the same classes of pensioner that were covered by the previous scheme.
    1386
    The concession gave a relative benefit to the pensioner who smoked which was not available to the non-smoker, and a relief to the smoker who was a pensioner in one of the eligible classes which did not extend to any other smoker, although his or her circumstances might be just as difficult as those of a pensioner, or even more so. Whatever we may think, all this led up to a general feeling of unfairness. The scheme was subject to constant criticisms from those who thought that their claims to other benefits were as great as those of the eligible pensioner.
    I would add that the scheme was difficult to administer, although I do not want to put much weight upon that fact. That is not a wholly satisfactory reason for rejecting an Amendment. The main reason is based upon the experience that we had during the years when the scheme was in operation, when some who benefited and many who did not considered it not to have been a fair or successful scheme. It was also subject to a lot of abuse, because it was quite impossible to make sure that the tokens were used only for their proper purposes and only by the proper people.
    Fundamentally, the weakness of the scheme was that it was unsound as a piece of social policy. It was in flat contradiction to the general principle that social benefits for the old should be provided in cash and not in kind. Experience has shown that that principle is sound. Individual tastes and requirements vary very widely, and I think it wrong—and something which inevitably leads to the kind of inequities which I have been describing—to provide social benefits by way of concessions in relation to specific commodities.
    I believe that we are bound to run into trouble if we adopt that principle generally. It was particularly undesirable to make this departure from general policy on something which was not absolutely essential, although I agree that when one has been in the habit of smoking all one's adult life it is reasonable to think that people will want to continue that habit. I do not want to make much of that point.
    9.0 p.m.
    Mr. Mendelson: Would the Chancellor not agree that it is also an important social principle that, because

    1387
    the old-age pensioner faces such a drop in income when he becomes a pensioner compared with what he earned while he was at work, it is serious that he should also have to pay higher prices for something which he has been used to for many years?
    Mr. Amory: I will say a word about higher prices, because there is no question but that higher prices bear more on the elderly than on any other section of the community.
    When this concession was in force it gave rise to claims for similar relief on what people thought were still more essential and more universally used commodities, such as milk and tea. One thing would have led to another and if we had continued the principle we should have got into deeper trouble without providing the benefit to the elderly which would have been our object.
    The policy of the present Government has been, first, to ease the position of pensioners by increasing their cash incomes, and, secondly, to do our utmost to hold steady the price level so that their real purchasing power may rise. The cost of living has been stable now for two years. We have no reason to be apologetic about our record on either of these two heads, and I am surprised at the way hon. Gentlemen from the opposite side of the Committee have spoken about what they referred to as the quite exceptionally hard position of old-age pensioners at the moment.
    I do not want to go into this in detail, but the statistics are all against them if they are speaking relatively. This question arose at the General Election. The electorate gave a very sharp and clear answer on that, and that answer has been substantially repeated at the recent local elections.
    Mrs. Slater: Would the right hon. Gentleman like to go to the old-age pensioners' conference next week and tell them what he has just told the Committee, that they are not suffering any hardship? He will then hear their answer.
    Mr. Amory: I did not say that, and I hope that the hon. Lady will read what I said.
    1388
    The facts which I have made clear whenever I have spoken on this subject in public can be illustrated by one or two figures. I think that this is relevant to the Amendment because of the observations of many hon. Gentlemen. One hon. Gentleman said that the General Election was held seven-and-a-half months ago. For the last five years of the Socialist Government nothing at all was done. During those five years the cost of living rose by 30 per cent.
    Mr. Alfred Robens: It must be remembered that there was a substantial rise in the first year.
    Mr. Amory: There was a tremendous rise in the first year after the war, and it would have been astonishing if the Government had not increased pensions. The sad thing was that almost from the moment they made the increase the value of it was eroded by rises in the cost of living.
    Mr. Ross: Why did the spokesman for the Conservative Party tell us we had done it far too soon?
    Mr. Amory: Done what far too soon?
    Mr. Ross: Raised pensions, allowances, and these other welfare things.
    Mr. Amory: Every remark made by members of this Government has been to the contrary, because it seemed incredible to them that the Socialist Government waited for so long before they finally increased the rate, and then they did it only for some pensions.
    The figures relevant to the Amendment are that during the last five years of the Socialist Government the cost of living rose by 30 per cent., and the old-age pension increased by 15 per cent. Since 1951, the cost of living has risen by 32 per cent., and the basic old-age pension has been increased by 66 per cent. We have increased it three times and each time by more than the cost of living. Today, the pension for a single person buys 10s. l0d. worth of goods more than in 1951. The effect on the cost of living of the increase in the tobacco duty is taken into account when the National Assistance scales are fixed.
    I thought that the hon. and learned Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hector Hughes) got a little tangled up between direct and indirect taxation. He said

    1389
    that in indirect taxation the income of individual taxpayers should be taken into account. That would be a new principle. The hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) referred to the basic pension of 50s. and said that it would be difficult to provide many packets of cigarettes from that. We must remind ourselves that no one need live only on the old-age pension of 50s. The scheme pro-pounued in the Amendment involves a smaller amount than the original scheme, but were the concession made on strictly the same lines it would mean 4d. a week as opposed to the 2s. in the 1947 scheme.
    The extension of this relatively small benefit on a narrowly selective basis would be open to all the objections of principle which I have described and all the objections of practice which became so apparent during the period in which the original concession was enforced. Therefore, I must advise the Committee to reject the Amendment.
    Mr. Robens: Naturally, the Chancellor would expect me to say that we are very disappointed at the reply that he has felt compelled to make, and he would be quite right. The debate has taken place quietly and with narrow objectivity. It is an indication of the greatness of Parliament that in dealing with a Finance Bill destined to raise nearly £6,000 million it can pause for a few hours to think in terms of pence for the old-age pensioners. I am only sorry that the Chancellor has been unable to do what I hoped that he would do. I was certain that he would reject this Amendment for many of the reasons he has given, but I hoped he would say that it was proposed to give an increase in the old-age pension, and the right hon. Gentleman has not done so. Perhaps that is the most disappointing thing about his speech.
    The Chancellor has forgotten that before and during the General Election Ministers of the Crown said that the position of all old-age pensioners would continue to improve vis-à-vis the rest of the community: the standard of living of every one would be raised by the action of the Government. This was a very firm pledge. This evening the Chancellor of the Exchequer has not applied himself to the fact that the Budget has reduced the standard of
    1390
    living of a large number of pensioners, but that is a fact that cannot be gainsaid.
    When one considers those pensioners who smoke and are in receipt of public assistance, it is not that there is a reduction in their standard of living in relation to the things they eat, but there is a reduction in their standard of comfort and their happiness. I should have thought that the Chancellor would have taken the opportunity to say that it was not his intention to reduce the standard of the poorest of the population, those old-age pensioners subject to a means test and in receipt of public assistance.
    Mr. Stephen McAdden: It is National Assistance.
    Mr. Robens: Well, National Assistance. If the hon. Gentleman were in receipt of it he would not mind what it was called so long as he could get the few shillings to enable him to live.
    Mr. McAdden: Will the right hon. Gentleman take it from me that I have been on National Assistance? He has not.
    Mr. Robens: It certainly is the case that I have not been on National Assistance.
    Mr. McAdden: I have.
    Mr. Robens: I should be very interested to know the circumstances under which the hon. Member for Southend, East (Mr. McAdden) was on National Assistance, but that is a matter for another day and I am not particularly interested in it just now. What surprises me is why he should sit on the benches opposite—
    Mr. McAdden: If the right hon. Member will give way I shall tell him—
    Mr. Robens: Probably his pockets have been very well lined since his change-over from one class to another.
    Mr. McAdden: On a point of order, Sir Gordon. Is it in order for a right hon. Gentleman, no matter who he may be, to make suggestions that an hon. Member on this side of the Committee has had his pockets so well lined that he is in a position to take a certain attitude and, by implication, to reflect that the views the hon. Member advocates in this Committee are dictated by the

    1391
    way in which his pockets are lined? If the right hon. Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens) has not the guts to give way, can you persuade him to do so?
    The Chairman: It is in order to say that an hon. Member's pockets are well lined, but responsibility for the accuracy of that statement is for the hon. Member who makes it.
    Mr. Robens: I am glad you support me, Sir Gordon. I now go back to what I was saying to the Chancellor when the hon. Member interrupted to tell us some of his life history.
    What the Chancellor had done has meant that the poorest of the community, these old-age pensioners on a means test and National Assistance, have in fact had their standard of living reduced at a time when the Chancellor and his friends have been indicating that their prospects were going to be much brighter. He well knows that this was the only method open to us in order to draw attention to the peculiar position of the pensioner today and the effect of the Tobacco Duty on the old-age pensioner who smokes. We are well aware of the administrative difficulties which followed the introduction of tokens, but at least this gives the opportunity once again of having some statement from the Government on old-age pensions. It will give the old-age pensioners' annual conference a wonderful message of hope.
    The Chancellor tonight is saying to the old-age pensioners, "There is nothing for you in the kitty. If you happen to smoke you will have to pay the same taxation as everyone who smokes, irrespective of their income". We regard this as mean and niggardly. It is outrageous and disgraceful—more broken pledges given to old-age pensioners at the General Election. We shall show our view of the way in which this matter has been treated by dividing the Committee.
    Mr. McAdden: I am sorry to delay the proceedings of the Committee for a moment or two, but I cannot allow the right hon. Member for Blyth (Mr. Robens) to get away with some of the things that he has said. He has attempted to convey to the Committee that the only hon. Members who have any experience of the problems of working people in the country are those who sit
    1392
    on his side of the Committee. That is an arrogant and unjustifiable assumption, especially when it comes from a director of one of the wealthiest concerns on this country, indulging in a considerable amount of retail trade from which the directors receive a considerable profit.
    Mr. Robens rose—
    Mr. McAdden: I shall not give way, because the right hon. Member would not give way to me.
    Mr. Robens: On a point of order, Sir Gordon. May I be informed of what company I am a director? I have no knowledge of that.
    Mr. McAdden: I am sorry the right hon. Member wishes to dissociate himself from the very considerable income which he formerly derived, if he does not now derive it, from the co-operative society. If he suggests that that is not of some importance, I am sorry.
    The point which I am trying to make is that pensioners of all kinds, who are worried about this issue, are divided into political parties. Conservatives smoke in exactly the same way as do Socialists, and all are concerned about this problem. I can understand the agitation which the right hon. Gentleman seeks to stir up on this issue, but the fact is that under a Conservative Government the purchasing power of the pension is considerably higher than it was in 1951.
    Although right hon. and hon. Members opposite may take some comfort to themselves that during the life-time of the Socialist Government there was a concession for old-age pensioners in respect of tobacco, the fact is that the amount which the pensioner could spend on other things was considerably reduced, and it is only since Conservative Governments have been in power that these substantial advances have been made.
    I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Chancellor for the work which he has done over the last few years, since he has been Chancellor, to maintain the cost of living at a steady level. That is the greatest good which can be done not only for the old-age pensioners but for all the people of the country. I should not have intervened had not the right hon. Gentleman, who was unwilling to

    1393
    give way to me, made an unjustified attack upon me, which I now take the opportunity of rebutting. If he and his hon. Friends would only realise that the great majority of the people of this country are fed up with the class-war attitude which they seek to adopt, this country would be a better place in which to live.
    9.15 p.m.
    Mr. Shinwell: I should be the last person in the world to engage in a dispute with the hon. Member for Southend, East (Mr. McAdden). Surely we do not need to inveigh against each other on account of our affluence; that is not the issue at stake. I am not concerned with defending my right hon. Friends, who are physically and mentally equipped to defend themselves against all comers and who require no assistance from me. But any accusation which is made against the integrity of my right hon. Friends will be emphatically rebutted by me. There is no occasion to indulge in personal accusations.
    I confess that I have not listened to a substantial part of the debate. I popped In now and again, and the Chamber was so dull that I thought that the best thing to do was to retire. Having listened to some part of the debate, however, I want to pinpoint the vital issue. This was a concession enjoyed by the mass of old-age pensioners. There is no denying that, and I think the hon. Member for Southend, East will readily admit the truth of it. This was undoubtedly a beneficial concession, as we know from the experience of our contacts with old-age pensioners.
    I do not dispute that hon. Members opposite make contacts with old-age pensioners, which is natural and inevitable, because from time to time they seek the support and solicit the suffrage of old-age pensioners. Very often they mislead them. But for the fact that the Conservative Party has misled the electors of the country ever since I can remember, they would never have gained office. They would be down and out, as they undoubtedly deserve to be.
    I turn to the vital point. Once a concession has been enjoyed by people who, it will be readily admitted, are not too well off, why should it have been taken away? It is agreed that old-age pensioners, in spite of improvements in
    1394
    their financial position and in spite of National Assistance, are not too well off. That is conceded by everyone. These persons enjoyed a concession over a period of years. No matter who was responsible, the fact remains that the concession was beneficial to them. Why should it have been taken away? Because it was taken from them, we are entitled to protest.
    I am surprised that hon. Gentlemen opposite—who I am sure are anxious to treat these old persons, as we are, in a proper and humane fashion—do not support this proposal. Never mind about the Chancellor of the Exchequer. As I said in a previous speech, he cannot help himself. He has his Treasury officials behind him. He has to balance his Budget— not that I believe that it is necessary to balance a Budget in this fashion. There have been occasions in the past when we did not balance the Budget, and the country prospered. If it did not prosper at a particular time, it made a very speedy recovery.
    I do not know what sum would be required. No doubt my right hon. Friends have stated all the facts in the course of the debate. However, I will put it at £1 million. A mere matter of £1 million, provided to assist old-age pensioners of the male variety, because I understand that this applies substantially to male old-age pensioners, will not ruin the country.
    In those circumstances, I ask hon. Gentlemen opposite to shake off the rigidity of the party system, as some of us are capable of doing from time to time. I ask hon. Gentlemen opposite to assert their independence, respond to their honesty and internal convictions, and not be afraid of the Patronage Secretary or any of his accomplices, or perhaps I should say "associates".
    I understand that an increase in the rate of old-age pension is out for the time being, more is the pity, unless the Chancellor of the Exchequer would like to interject at this stage and make a promise that shortly he will revise the old-age pension. If he is not prepared to do that, he should be prepared to make this modest concession. That is all we ask for. If he does not do that, I am sorry to say—I say it with the greatest reluctance—that the Government ought to be ashamed of themselves.
    Mrs. Slater: I am surprised that the fact that we have raised this issue should, at this late stage in the debate, be described as class warfare by the hon. Member for Southend, East (Mr. McAdden). I do not suppose that he would like us to remind him that it will be class war with a vengeance when we come to later Clauses dealing with the amount of retirement pension which someone who retires from a directorship can get without having to pay tax on it. That will not be class warfare. It will be merely looking after the people whom hon. Members really represent in the House of Commons.
    The Chairman: The hon. Lady is rather anticipating a future Amendment.
    Mrs. Slater: With respect, Sir Gordon, I am not merely anticipating. I am drawing a comparison, which has already been levelled at us who have sat here throughout the debate tonight.
    The right hon. Gentleman said that the statistics were all against us. He did not say specifically that old-age pensioners were not suffering any hardship, but the inference was there in his argument. I therefore intervene to say that I defy anyone in the Committee to go to industrial areas, not to Southend and comparable places, and talk to old-age pensioners and find that they agree that there is no undue hardship in having to live on £2 10s. a week. That is what it amounts to. There are thousands of old-age pensioners who live on £2 10s. a week and who will not apply for National Assistance.
    A few weeks ago I told a meeting of old-age pensioners that every one of them should claim National Assistance, and should do so without any sense of inferiority at all, but, as I have said in the House before, this is the generation of old-age pensioners that has been reared in the school that did not like
    charity. [HON. MEMBERS: "'It is not charity."] No, it is not charity, but the point is that one cannot convince them of that. They have been reared in the school that remembers the means test and the workhouse, and it is extremely difficult to convince them that National Assistance is not charity. We know that it is their right; that it is paid for by National Insurance. We hope that they will claim it, but many do not.
    Those who have no conception of how old-age pensioners have to live, of how little £2 10s. buys today, cannot appreciate why we on this side have tabled this Amendment. We would rather have an increase in the old-age pension, of course. We think that is right, but, failing that, and when an injustice is done, all we on this side can do is to try to alleviate that injustice.
    As has been said, many old-age pensioners have three things that give them comfort in their old age. One is a fire, another is a cup of tea, and the third is their tobacco or their cigarettes. An hon. Member opposite laughs—that shows an attitude of mind. How anybody can laugh at such a statement, I do not know. It only shows that some hon. Members opposite do not appreciate the conditions under which these people live. I feel indignant when people laugh during a discussion of such a subject as this.
    We have tabled this Amendment to try to give some small measure of relief to those people to whom tobacco and cigarettes are some comfort, and I suggest that those who claim to be sympathetic with old people in present circumstances will have no hesitation in voting for the Amendment.
    Question put, That those words be there inserted: —
    The Committee divided: Ayes 166, Noes 244.

    Division No. 85.]

    AYES

    [9.28 p.m.

    Ainsley, William

    Bowles, Frank

    Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

    Allaun, Frank (Salford, C.)

    Boyden, James

    Davies, Ifor (Cower)

    Allan, Scholefield (Crewe)

    Brookway, A. Fenner

    Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

    Awbery, Stan

    Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

    Deer, George

    Bacon, Miss Alice

    Brown, Thomas (Ince)

    de Freitas, Geoffrey

    Baxter, William (Stirlingshire, W.)

    Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

    Delargy, Hugh

    Ballenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.

    Cattle, Mrs. Barbara

    Dempsey, James

    Benee, Cyril (Dunbartornthire, E.)

    Chetwynd, George

    Diamond, John

    Benn, Hn. A. Wedgwood(Brist'I, S.E.)

    Cliffe, Michael

    Dodds, Norman

    Blyton, William

    Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

    Driberg, Tom

    Boardman, H.

    Cronin, John

    Ede, Rt. Hon. Chuter

    Bowden, Herbert W. (Leics, S.W.)

    Darling, George

    Edelman, Maurice

    Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

    Mabon, Or. J. Dickson

    Royle, Charles (Salford, West)

    Edwards, Walter (Stepney)

    McKay, John (Wallsend)

    Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.

    Evans, Albert

    Mackle, John

    Short, Edward

    Fernyhough, E.

    McLeavy, Frank

    Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)

    Fletcher, Eric

    MacMillan, Malcolm (Western Isles)

    Skeffington, Arthur

    Foot, Dingle

    Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

    Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

    Forman, J. C.

    Manuel, A. C.

    Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)

    George, Lady Megan Lloyd

    Mapp, Charles

    Small, William

    Ginsburg, David

    Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.

    Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

    Gordon, Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.

    Mason, Roy

    Sorensen, R. W.

    Gourlay, Harry

    Mayhew, Christopher

    Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank

    Grey, Charles

    Mellish, R. J.

    Spriggs, Leslie

    Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

    Mendelson, J. J.

    Steele, Thomas

    Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)

    Millan, Bruce

    Stewart, Michael (Fulham)

    Hall, Rt. Hon. Clenvil (Colne Valley)

    Mitchison, G. R.

    Stones, William

    Hamilton, William (West Fife)

    Monslow, Walter

    Summerskill, Dr. Rt. Hon. Edith

    Hannan, William

    Moody, A. S.

    Swain, Thomas

    Hart, Mrs. Judith

    Morris, John

    Swingler, Stephen

    Hayman, F. H.

    Mort, D. L.

    Sylvester, George

    Herbison, Miss Margaret

    Moyle, Arthur

    Symonds, J. B.

    Hill, J. (Midlothian)

    Mulley, Frederick

    Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

    Holman, Percy

    Neal, Harold

    Taylor, John (West Lothian)

    Houghton, Douglas

    Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)

    Thomas, lorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

    Hughes Cledwyn (Anglesey)

    Oliver, G. H.

    Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline)

    Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

    Oram, A. E.

    Thornton, Ernest

    Hunter, A. E.

    Padley, W, E.

    Timmons, John

    Hynd, H. (Accrington)

    Pargiter, G. A.

    Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn

    Hynd, John (Attercliffe)

    Parker, John (Dagenham)

    Wainwrlght, Edwin

    Irving, Sydney (Dartford)

    Paton, John

    Warbey, William

    Janner, Barrett

    Pavitt, Laurence

    Watkins, Tudor

    Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas

    Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)

    Weltzman, David

    Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)

    Pentland, Norman

    Wells, Percy (Faversham)

    Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

    Popplewell, Ernest

    Wheeldon, W. E.

    Johnston, Douglas (Paisley)

    Prentice, R. E.

    White, Mrs. Eirene

    Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

    price, J, T. (westhoughton)

    Whitlock, William

    Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

    Probert, Arthur

    Willey, Frederick

    Kelley, Richard

    Pursey, Cmdr. Harry

    Williams, D. J. (Neath)

    Kenyon, Clifford

    Rankin, John

    Williams, Rev. LI. (Abertillery)

    Key, Rt. Hon. c. W.

    Redhead, E. C.

    Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)

    King, Dr. Horace

    Reynolds, G. W.

    Wnterbottom, R. E.

    Lawson, George

    Robens, Rt. Hon. Alfred

    Woof, Robert

    Lee, Frederick (Newton)

    Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

    Yates, Victor (Ladywood)

    Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)

    Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)

    Loughlin, Charles

    Ross, William

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

    Mr. Howell and Mr. Mahon.

    NOES

    Agnew, Sir Peter

    Cole, Norman

    Glyn, Sir Richard (Dorset, N.)

    Atlason, James

    Collard, Richard

    Goodhart, Philip

    Amory, Rt. Hn. D. Heathcoat(Tlv'tn)

    Cooke, Robert

    Goodhew, Victor

    Ashton, Sir Hubert

    Cooper-Key, Sir Neill

    Gower, Raymond

    Atkins, Humphrey

    Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.

    Grant, Rt. Hon. William (Woodside)

    Barber, Anthony

    Cordle, John

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

    Barlow, Sir John

    Corfield, F. V.

    Green, Alan

    Barter, John

    Costain, A. P.

    Gresham Cooke, R.

    Batsford, Brian

    Coulson, J. M.

    Grimond, J.

    Beamish, Col. Tufton

    Courtney, Cdr. Anthony

    Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.

    Bell, Ronald (S. Bucks.)

    Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)

    Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)

    Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Cos & Fhm)

    Crosthwalte-Eyre, Col. O. E.

    Harris, Reader (Heston)

    Blggs-Davlson, John

    Cunningham, Knox

    Harrison, Brian (Maldon)

    Blngham, R. M.

    Curran, Charles

    Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)

    Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel

    Currie, G. B. H.

    Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)

    Bishop, F. P.

    Dance, James

    Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

    Black, Sir Cyril

    d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

    Hendry, Forbes

    Bossom, Clive

    Deedes, W. F.

    Hiley, Joseph

    Bourne-Arton, A.

    de Ferranti, Basil

    Hill, Dr. Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton)

    Bowen, Roderic (Cardigan)

    Digby, Simon Wingfield

    Hill, Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe)

    Box, Donald

    Doughty, Charles

    Hill, j. E. B. (S. Norfolk)

    Boyle, Sir Edward

    Drayson, G. B.

    Hinchingbrooke, Viscount

    Brewls, John

    Duncan, Sir James

    Hirst, Geoffrey

    Brooman-White, R.

    Eden, John

    Hobson, John

    Browne, Percy (Torrington)

    Emery, Peter

    Hocking, Philip N.

    Bullard, Denye

    Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn

    Holland, Philip

    Burden, F. A.

    Farr, John

    Hollingworth, John

    Butcher, Sir Herbert

    Finlay, Graeme

    Holt, Arthur

    Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nairn)

    Fisher, Nigel

    Hopkins, Alan

    Carr, Compton (Barons Court)

    Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

    Hornby, R. P.

    Cary, Sir Robert

    Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)

    Howard, John (Southampton, Test)

    Channon, H. P. G.

    Freeth, Denzil

    Hughes-Young, Michael

    Chataway, Christopher

    Gammans, Lady

    Hutchison, Michael Clark

    Chichester-Clark, R.

    Gardner, Edward

    Iremonger, T. L.

    Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)

    Gibson-Watt, David

    Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

    Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)

    Glover, Sir Douglas

    Jackson, John

    Cleaver, Leonard

    Glyn, Dr. Alan (Clapham)

    James, David

    1398

    1399

    Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)

    Oakshott, Sir Hendrie

    Stanley Hon. Richard

    Jennings, J. C.

    Orr-Ewing, C. Ian

    Stevens, Geoffrey

    Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

    Osborn, John (Hallam)

    Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)

    Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

    Osborne, Cyril (Louth)

    Stodart, J. A.

    Jones, Rt. Hn. Aubrey (Hall Green)

    Page, A. J. (Harrow West)

    Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm

    Kerans, Cdr. J. S.

    Page, Graham

    Storey, Sir Samuel

    Kerby, Capt. Henry

    Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale)

    Studholme, Sir Henry

    Kerr, Sir Hamilton

    Partridge, E.

    Summers, Sir Spencer (Aylesbury)

    Kershaw, Anthony

    Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)

    Sumner, Donald (Orpington)

    Kimball, Marcus

    Peel, John

    Talbot, John E.

    Kirk, Peter

    Percival, Ian

    Tapsell, Peter

    Kitson, Timothy

    Peyton, John

    Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

    Lambton, Viscount

    Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth

    Teeling, William

    Lancaster, Col. C. G.

    Pike, Miss Mervyn

    Temple, John M.

    Leavey, J. A.

    Pilkington, Capt. Richard

    Thomas, Peter (Conway)

    Leburn, Gilmour

    Pitman, I. J.

    Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)

    Legge-Bourke, Maj. H.

    Pitt, Miss Edith

    Thompson, Richard (Croydon, S.)

    Legh, Hon. Peter (Petersfield)

    Pott, Percivall

    Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin

    Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

    Powell, J. Enoch

    Thorpe, Jeremy

    Lilley, F. J. P.

    Price, H. A. (Lewisham, W.)

    Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)

    Lindsay, Martin

    Prior, J. M. L.

    Tilney, John (Wavertree)

    Litchfield, Capt. John

    Profumo, Rt. Hon. John

    Turner, Colin

    Longden, Gilbert

    Proudfoot, Wilfred

    Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.

    Loveys, Walter H.

    Ramsden, James

    Tweedsmuir, Lady

    Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

    Rawlinson, Peter

    van Straubenzee, W. R.

    McAdden, Stephen

    Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin

    Vane, W. M. F.

    MacArthur, Ian

    Rees, Hugh

    Wade, Donald

    McLaren, Martin

    Renton, David

    Wakefield, Sir Wavell (St. M'lebone)

    McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia

    Ridley, Hon. Nicholas

    Wall, Patrick

    MacLeod, John (Ross & Cromarty)

    Ridsdale, Julian

    Ward, At. Hon. George (Worcester)

    McMaster, Stanley R.

    Robinson, Sir Roland (Blackpool,S.)

    Ward, Dame Irene (Tynemouth)

    Maddan, Martin

    Roots, William

    Watts, James

    Maginnis, John E.

    Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard

    Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)

    Maitland, Cdr. J. W.

    Royle, Anthony (Richmond, Surrey)

    Wise, A. R.

    Marshall, Douglas

    Russell, Ronald

    Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

    Marten, Neil

    Scott-Hopkins, James

    Wood, Rt. Hon. Richard

    Mathew, Robert (Honiton)

    Seymour, Leslie

    Woodhouse, C. M.

    Matthews, Robert (Meriden)

    Sharples, Richard

    Woodnutt, Mark

    Mawby, Ray

    Shaw, M.

    Woollam, John

    Mills, Stratton

    Shepherd, William

    Worsley, Marcus

    Montgomery, Fergus

    Simon, Sir Jocelyn

    Yates, William (The Wrekin)

    Morgan, William

    Skeet, T. H. H.

    Nabarro, Gerald

    Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'd & Chiswick)

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

    Nicholls, Harmar

    Smithers, Peter

    Mr. Edward Wakefield and

    Nicholson, Sir Godfrey

    Spearman, Sir Alexander

    Mr. Whitelaw.

    Noble, Michael

    Speir, Rupert

    Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.
    Mr. H. Wilson: We on this side of the Committee had envisaged that, after a suitable debate on the Amendment moved by the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro), and on the Amendment which has just been disposed of, the main arguments about the Tobacco Duty would be deployed on the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill", but it seems to me—I do not know how it will seem to other hon. Members in the Committee—that we have had a fairly full discussion on the points in question while debating the Amendments—taking into account also, of course, the debate on the Budget.
    I do not want in the least to discourage any of my hon. Friends who have substantial points to make on the increase in the Tobacco Duty from making them, but I think that most of us who have taken part on the debates on the Amendments proposed to this Clause will now feel that we have had
    1400
    a good run over the field. For my part, I would be prepared to recommend my hon. and right hon. Friends to allow us to come to a decision quite quickly on the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
    I do not think that the Chancellor will be in any doubt about what we intend to do about the Clause. We have opposed his decision to increase the Tobacco Duty. We voted against it immediately he announced it on Budget day. We voted against it on the Report stage of the Budget Resolutions. We have been dealing with it in Committee for some hours now and, obviously, we shall register our disapproval of the Chancellor's action in the Division Lobby when you, Sir Gordon, put the Question.
    I do not intend to repeat the arguments which we have used. The Chancellor knows them and if those arguments did not convince him I have little hope that they will do so by repeating this evening. They were

    1401
    clearly stated by my right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) two or three hours ago, and they emerged in the more recent debate on the position of old-age pensioners.
    If I may suggest to my hon. and right hon. Friends that we now come to a speedy decision on the Question, " That the Clause stand part of the Bill" it is on the very clear understanding, as far as I am concerned, that if hon. Members opposite want to continue the argument on the Clause it will be very difficult for me to persuade any of my hon. Friends to take that attitude. I want to explain that while not only on this Clause, but throughout the Bill, we are more than willing to help the Bill go through fairly quickly—
    Mr. Ede: Why?
    Mr. Nabarro: There is a rebellion over there already.
    Mr. Wilson: My right hon. Friend the Member for South Shields (Mr. Ede) has been so busy with other things, perhaps, that he has not had time to read the Bill. If he had read it he would know that it is the dullest Finance Bill introduced by a Chancellor of the Exchequer since Chancellors of the Exchequer were invented.
    Mr. Ede: It sounds to me like a cure for insomnia.
    Mr. Wilson: The best cure for insomnia is in bed, and if my right hon. Friend has any difficulty—
    Mr. Ede: That is where I have used it.
    Mr. Wilson: If my right hon. Friend is in any difficulty he can take the text of the Bill away with him and we will try to secure that he gets to bed early before he reaches Clause 12. If he is still in difficulty I advise him to skip some Clauses and get on to Clause 26; but I would be out of order in discussing the merits or demerits of Clause 26 tonight.
    As I have said, while, throughout the Bill, we want a full debate on some of the big issues raised, we do not want to spend much time on the minutiae of the Bill. [An HON. MEMBER: "The what?"] The minutiae; in other words talking about Amendments tabled by hon. Members opposite—if that is easier
    1402
    to understand. There are 74 of them against 38 tabled from this side of the Committee.
    Mr. Nabarro: But the right hon. Member said "minutiæ".
    Mr. Wilson: Yes, I did.
    As I was trying to say before I was somewhat distracted, we are prepared to co-operate and to reserve our comments to the more important parts of the Bill, but if hon. Members opposite want to talk at great length on the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill", as they are fully entitled to do on the Bill, they will find inevitably that we cannot appeal with such confidence to hon. Friends to restrain themselves on points which they feel like making. While not wanting to block anybody who thinks it necessary to speak, I am willing that we should now come to a decision on the Clause and that we on this side of the Committee should vote against it for all the reasons which have been so eloquently urged by my hon. and right hon. Friends.
    9.45 p.m.
    Mr. Amory: I rather agree with the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) that most of the arguments have been deployed. I gave in the Budget debate and in the House on the Second Reading of the Finance Bill the reasons why I felt it advisable to recommend an increase in this duty to bring in £40 million this year, which I felt it necessary to obtain for both budgetary reasons and economic reasons, making as it does some limited impact on consumer spending.
    I should like to make it quite clear that I am not trying to exercise any moral judgment. Some hon. Gentlemen asked whether I was endeavouring to do that. It was certainly not my intention. The reasons are purely fiscal and economic.
    The right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) told us that he started smoking at the age of 13. He looks very well on it, I must say, and I shall continue, I hope, to rely upon numbering him among my patrons for the Tobacco Duty.
    One hon. Member said that my action in recommending an increase in this duty seemed wholly inconsistent with the reduction in the Beer Duty last year.

    1403
    But it is wholly consistent. The main reason, as I made clear to the House at the time last year, and to the Committee, for recommending a reduction in the Beer Duty was that the yield of the duty was falling away alarmingly year by year and it was necessary to do something for the protection of the Revenue. Indeed, Sir Stafford Cripps had attempted the same thing. The action that I took seems to have been successful, and the trend is now moving the other way.
    I do not expect this increase in duty to lead to a reduction in consumption.
    In fact, since the date of the Budget, apart from the increased yield due to the higher price, there has been an increase in the volume of tobacco on which duty has been paid.
    I do not think there is any need for me to say anything more to the Committee and I hope that the Committee will now come to a conclusion on the Clause.
    Question put, That the Clause stand part of the Bill: —
    The Committee divided: Ayes 235, Noes 159.

    Division No. 86.]

    AYES

    [9.47 p.m.

    Agnew, Sir Peter

    Eden, John

    Lambton, Viscount

    Allason, James

    Emery, Peter

    Lancaster, Col. C. G.

    Amory, Rt. Hn. D. Heathooat (Tiv'tn)

    Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn

    Leavey, J. A.

    Ashton, Sir Hubert

    Farr, John

    Leburn, Gilmour

    Atkins, Humphrey

    Finlay, Graeme

    Legge-Bourke, Maj. H.

    Barber, Anthony

    Fisher, Nigel

    Legh, Hon. Peter (Petersfield)

    Barlow, Sir John

    Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

    Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

    Barter, John

    Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)

    Lilley, F. J. P.

    Batsford, Brian

    Freeth, Denzll

    Lindsay, Martin

    Beamish, Col. Tufton

    Gammans, Lady

    Litchfield, Capt. John

    Bell Ronald (S. Bucks.)

    Gardner, Edward

    Longden, Gilbert

    Bennett, Dr.Reginald (Gos & Fhm)

    Gibson-Watt, David

    Loveys, Walter H.

    Bingham, R. M.

    Glover, Sir Douglas

    Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

    Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel

    Glyn, Dr. Alan (Clapham)

    McAdden, Stephen

    Bishop, F. P.

    Glyn, Sir Richard (Dorset, N.)

    MacArthur, Ian

    Black, Sir Cyril

    Goodhart, Philip

    McLaren, Martin

    Bossom, Clive

    Goodhew, Victor

    McLoughlin, Mrs. Patricia

    Bourne-Arton, A.

    Gower, Raymond

    MacLeod, John (Ross & Cromarty)

    Box, Donald

    Grant, Rt. Hon. William (Woodside)

    McMaster, Stanley R.

    Boyle Sir Edward

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

    Maddan, Martin

    Brewis, John

    Green, Alan

    Maginnis, John E.

    Brooman-White, R.

    Gresham Cooke, R.

    Maitland, Cdr. J. W.

    Browne, Percy (Torrington)

    Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.

    Marshall, Douglas

    Bullard, Denys

    Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)

    Marten, Neil

    Burden, F. A.

    Harris, Reader (Heston)

    Mathew, Robert (Honiton)

    Butcher Sir Herbert

    Harrison, Brian (Maldon)

    Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)

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

    Harrison, Col. J.H. (Eye)

    Mawby, Ray

    Campbell, Gordon (Moray & Nairn)

    Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)

    Mills, Stratton

    Carr, Compton (Barons Court)

    Hay, John

    Montgomery, Fergus

    Cary, Sir Robert

    Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

    Morgan, William

    Channon, H. P. G.

    Hendry, Forbes

    Nicholls, Harmar

    Chataway, Christopher

    Hiley, Joseph

    Nicholson, Sir Godfrey

    Chichester-Clark, R.

    Hill, Dr. Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton)

    Noble, Michael

    Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.))

    Hill, Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe)

    Oakshott, Sir Hendrie

    Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)

    Hill, J. E. B. (S. Norfolk)

    Orr-Ewing, C. Ian

    Cleaver, Leonard

    Hobson, John

    Osborn, John (Hallam)

    Cole, Norman

    Hooking, Philip N.

    Osborne, Cyril (Louth)

    Collard, Richard

    Holland, Philip

    Page, A. J. (Harrow, West)

    Cooke, Robert

    Hollingworth, John

    Page, Graham

    Cooper-Key, Sir Neill

    Hopkins, Alan

    Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale)

    Hornby, R. P.

    Partridge, E.

    Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.

    Howard, John (Southampton, Test)

    Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)

    Cordle, John

    Corfield, F. V.

    Hughes-Young, Michael

    Peel, John

    Costain, A. P.

    Hutchison, Michael Clark

    Percival, Ian

    Coulson, J. M.

    Iremonger, T. L.

    Peyton, John

    Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

    Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth

    Courtney, Cdr. Anthony

    Jackson, John

    Pike, Miss Mervyn

    Craddock, Beresford (Spelthorne)

    James, David

    Pilkington, Capt. Richard

    Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.

    Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)

    Pitman, I. J.

    Cunningham, Knox

    Jennings, J. C.

    Pitt, Miss Edith

    Curran, Charles

    Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

    Pott, Percivall

    Currie, G. B. H.

    Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

    Powell, J. Enoch

    Dance, James

    Jones, Rt. Hn. Aubrey (Hall Green)

    Prior, J. M. L.

    d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

    Kerans, Cdr. J. S.

    Profumo, Rt. Hon. John

    Deedes, W. F.

    Kerby, Capt. Henry

    Proudfoot, Wilfred

    de Ferranti, Basil

    Kerr, Sir Hamilton

    Ramsden, James

    Digby, Simon Wingfield

    Kershaw, Anthony

    Rawlinson, Peter

    Doughty, Charles

    Kimball, Marcus

    Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin

    Drayson, G. B.

    Kirk, Peter

    Rees, Hugh

    Duncan, Sir James

    Kitson, Timothy

    Renton, David

    Ridley, Hon. Nicholas

    Stodart, J. A.

    Vane, W. M. F.

    Ridsdale, Julian

    Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm

    Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)

    Roots, William

    Storey, Sir Samuel

    Wakefield, Sir Wavell (St. M'lebone)

    Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard

    Studholme, Sir Henry

    Wall, Patrick

    Royle, Anthony (Richmond, Surrey)

    Summers, sir Spencer (Aylesbury)

    Ward, Rt. Hon. George (Worcester)

    Russell, Ronald

    Sumner, Donald (Orpington)

    Ward, Dame Irene (Tynemouth)

    Sandys, Rt. Hon. Duncan

    Talbot, John E.

    Watts, James

    Scott-Hopkins, James

    Tapsell, Peter

    Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)

    Seymour, Leslie

    Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

    Wise, A. R.

    Shaw, M.

    Teeling, William

    Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

    Shepherd, William

    Temple, John M.

    Wood, Rt. Hon, Richard

    Simon, Sir Jocelyn

    Thomas, Peter (Conway)

    Woodhouse, C. M.

    Skeet, T. H. H.

    Thompson, Richard (Croydon, S.)

    Woodnutt, Mark

    Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'rd & Chiswick)

    Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin

    Woollam, John

    Smithers, Peter

    Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)

    Worsley, Marcus

    Spearman, Sir Alexander

    Tilney, John (Wavertree)

    Yates, William (The Wrekin)

    Speir, Rupert

    Turner, Colin

    Stanley, Hon. Richard

    Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

    Stevens, Geoffrey

    Tweedsmuir, Lady

    Mr. Whitelaw and Mr. Sharples.

    Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)

    van Straubenzee, W. R.

    NOES

    Ainsley, William

    Hill, J. (Midlothian)

    Pentland, Norman

    Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

    Holman, Percy

    Popplewell, Ernest

    Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

    Houghton, Douglas

    Prentice, R. E.

    Awbery, Stan

    Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

    Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

    Bacon, Miss Alice

    Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

    Probert, Arthur

    Baxter, William (Stirlingshire, W.)

    Hunter, A. E.

    Pursey, Cmdr. Harry

    Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.

    Hynd, H. (Accrington)

    Rankin, John

    Bence, Cyril (Dunbartonshire, E.)

    Hynd, John (Attercliffe)

    Reynolds, G. W.

    Benn, Hn. A. Wedgwood (Brist' I, S.E.)

    Irving, Sydney (Dartford)

    Robens, Rt. Hon. Alfred

    Blyton, William

    Janner, Barnett

    Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

    Boardman, H.

    Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas

    Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)

    Bowden, Herbert W. (Leics, S.W.)

    Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)

    Ross, William

    Bowles, Frank

    Johnston, Douglas (Paisley)

    Short, Edward

    Boyden, James

    Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

    Skeffington, Arthur

    Brockway, A. Fenner

    Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

    Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

    Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

    Kelley, Richard

    Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)

    Brown, Thomas (Ince)

    Kenyon, Clifford

    Small, William

    Callaghan, James

    Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

    Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

    Castle, Mrs. Barbara

    King, Dr. Horace

    Sorensen, R. W.

    Clifle, Michael

    Lawson, George

    Soskice, Rt. Hon. sir Frank

    Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

    Lee, Frederick (Newton)

    Spriggs, Leslie

    Cronin, John

    Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)

    Steele, Thomas

    Darling, George

    Loughlin, Charles

    Stewart, Michael (Fulham)

    Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

    Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

    Stones, William

    Davies, Ifor (Gower)

    McKay, John (Wallsend)

    Summerskill, Dr. Rt. Hon. Edith

    Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

    Mackie, John

    Swain, Thomas

    Deer, George

    McLeavy, Frank

    Swingter, Stephen

    de Freitas, Geoffrey

    MacMillan, Malcolm (Western Isles)

    Sylvester, George

    Delargy, Hugh

    Mahon, Simon

    Symonds, J. B.

    Dempsey, James

    Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

    Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

    Diamond, John

    Manuel, A. C.

    Taylor, John (West Lothian)

    Dodds, Norman

    Mapp, Charles

    Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

    Driberg, Tom

    Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.

    Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline)

    Ede, Rt. Hon. Chuter

    Mason, Roy

    Thornton, Ernest

    Edelman, Maurice

    Mayhew, Christopher

    Timmons, John

    Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

    Mellish, R. J.

    Ungoed-Thomas, sir Lynn

    Edwards, Walter (Stepney)

    Millan, Bruce

    Wainwright, Edwin

    Evans, Albert

    Mitchison, G. R.

    Warbey, William

    Fernyhough, E.

    Monslow, Walter

    Watkins, Tudor

    Fletcher, Eric

    Moody, A. S.

    Weitzman, David

    Foot, Dingle

    Morris, John

    Wells, Percy (Faversham)

    Forman, J. C.

    Moyle, Arthur

    Wheeldon, W. E.

    George, Lady Megan Lloyd

    Mulley, Frederick

    White, Mrs. Eirene

    Ginsburg, David

    Nabarro, Gerald

    Whitlock, William

    Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C

    Neal, Harold

    Willey, Frederick

    Gourlay, Harry

    Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)

    Williams, D. J. (Neath)

    Grey, Charles

    Oliver, G. H.

    Williams, Rev. LI. (Abertillery)

    Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

    Oram, A. E.

    Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)

    Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)

    Padley, W. E.

    Winterbottom, R. E.

    Hall, Rt. Hon. Glenvil (Colne Valley)

    Pargiter, G. A.

    Woof, Robert

    Hannan, William

    Parker, John (Dagenham)

    Yates, Victor (Ladywood)

    Hart, Mrs. Judith

    Paton, John

    Hayman, F. H.

    Pavitt, Laurence

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

    Herbison, Miss Margaret

    Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)

    Mr. Howell and Mr. Redhead.

    Clause 6.—(TOBACCO DEALERS' LICENCES.)
    Motion made, and Question proposed. That the Clause stand part of the Bill.
    Mr. A. E. Oram: In his Budget statement, the Chancellor forecast this Clause hen he said that it was his intention to simplify the administration of the tobacco licence duty. That is the simple purpose of the Clause and we ought, therefore, not to take long to deal with it. However, it is worth taking a few minutes to consider the nature of the tobacco dealer's licence and the problem which arises from its administration. I am concerned with the licensing of mobile shops for the sale of tobacco and cigarettes.
    As the law stands, mobile shops cannot be licensed for the sale of tobacco except in exceptional circumstances and then only temporarily. The origin of the tobacco licence goes back to an Excise Measure of 1825, by which the licences were tied to fixed premises. That excludes mobile shops, which have become an important and distinctive method of distribution in more modern days.
    The Customs and Excise has administered the law quite narrowly. It is possible to get a licence for a goods vehicle to sell tobacco only in very special circumstances, where there is a special local need and where it is recognised that before long a permanent local shop will be available. However, that works out anomalously, especially for the Co-operative movement, and there is a particular anomaly to which I call attention.
    It is not necessarily the same trader who will occupy the fixed shop when it comes to be built as the trader who has the licence for the temporary mobile shop. The effect of that is that some co-operative societies, having succeeded in getting a temporary licence for a mobile shop, often find that it is withdrawn when a shop occupied by a private trader takes its place. The Co-operative movement is especially interested in this matter of the need for licences for mobile shops and if this anomaly were rectified there would be applications for licences for as many as 2,000 mobile shops owned by the Cooperative movement and which we believe ought to have licences.
    1408
    10.0 p.m.
    In certain local authority areas, over the years, co-operative societies have often found difficulty in getting shop sites on housing estates owing to the prejudice of the local authority. For that reason they have had to operate mobile shops and it is a handicap to them in the development of their trade if they are not able to sell tobacco and cigarettes. The narrow interpretation put on the law by the Customs and Excise Department almost means that mobile shops operating in rural areas are prevented from selling tobacco and cigarettes to the customers in those areas.
    I stress that the origin of this law goes back to 1825. In those days, the mobile shop had not been thought of. That law has been considerably outdated by the development of this new distributive method. In 1825, the law tied licences to fixed premises. Today, mobile shops are an important distributive method in their own right. I do not want anyone to suggest that this means hawking tobacco and cigarettes. A mobile shop means a specially designed vehicle with standards of equipment and hygiene which are usually well above those of many fixed small shops. These mobile shops operate on a fixed route according to a fixed timetable, stopping at recognised places at certain times, and they can be clearly and easily identified as outlets for the sale of commodities, which ought to include tobacco and cigarettes.
    I stress the ease of identification of a mobile shop. Incidentally, there is a very clear description of a mobile shop for Purchase Tax purposes, so there should be no difficulty of identification. The licence tax was originally and, I maintain, is still meant to be a means of identification. It is not primarily a revenue producer and it certainly was not intended to be, as in the case of liquor licensing, a method of restricting the number of outlets for the sale of tobacco. For all those reasons I believe that a properly equipped mobile shop, operating to a definite programme, ought to receive a licence as readily as a fixed shop receives it.
    As the Economic Secretary probably knows, representations have been made by the Co-operative movement on this matter. I understand that those representations have been turned down. I

    1409
    do not know why the Government have turned down the approaches that have been made by the Co-operative movement. It cannot be that the outlets cannot be identified, because what I have said shows that they can be.
    It ought not to be on restrictive grounds, but I am rather suspicious that it may be. If the Government are using the tobacco licence for the purpose of restricting the number of outlets, that is severely discriminating against the Co-operative movement. It may not be the intention of the Government to discriminate in that way, but as the law is now being administered that is the effect. In any case, the Committee should be told what reasons the Government advance for turning down the suggestion that mobile shops should be licensed.
    In my judgment, Clause 187 of the 1952 Act needs considerably more amendment than is proposed in the Clause, and I hope that the Minister will consider this question again and see whether his Department has not made a mistake in turning down the representations made by the Co-operative movement. If he comes to the conclusion that there has been a mistake, perhaps he will be able to give an assurance that he will move a suitable Amendment on Report.
    Mr. Redhead: I do not wish to detain the Committee long at this hour, especially on a matter which, compared with the subjects dealt with in the previous Clause, is relatively minor. Naturally we applaud the Chancellor for taking the opportunity to tidy up and simplify what must be a somewhat tedious and cumbersome business—the annual collection of a licence duty of only 5s. 3d. This procedure is a survival of the happy days when the licence was 10s. 6d. Some Chancellor, in a generous mood, said, "Let us halve it." To substitute for that method a four-year licence costing £1 is a sensible operation, which should cut down the amount of administration required.
    Nevertheless, I am not clear why the Chancellor should have thought it desirable, at the same time, to abolish what would appear to be a convenient form of combined liquor-tobacco licence in
    1410
    respect of aircraft and ships. While he was carrying out the desirable operation of introducing a four-yearly duty he might have addressed himself more to the anachronisms involved in the application of the licence duty, which, as my hon. Friend has said, was never intended to be a revenue-producing duty; its sole purpose was to ensure the registration of dealers for the purpose of control and safeguarding the Revenue in respect of the major duty—the duty on tobacco itself.
    There is something to be said for the argument that whatever might have been the necessity for rigidity in limiting tobacco dealers' licences to fixed premises originally, in these days the restriction could reasonably and sensibly be relaxed. My hon. Friend has made a legitimate point in saying that in these days, when control is well established, there cannot be any grave risk in extending dealers' licences to mobile shops, subject to proper safeguards.
    It is absurd that a person should be able to order tobacco or cigarettes from a shop which has a licence and have those goods delivered by a van without an offence being committed. It is absurd that a person can go into any one of our big railway stations and buy cigarettes and tobacco from a mobile truck, because the Customs and Excise authorities have got round their own difficulty by registering the station as fixed premises of its own. We can obtain tobacco and cigarettes in a railway train, and it is inconsistent that we cannot do so from a duly safeguarded mobile shop.
    Whatever the difficulties may be, I suggest that they could readily be overcome. Registration of a mobile shop could be in such a form that it was clearly restricted to some fixed premises which had a licence. That would afford the Revenue all the reasonable safeguards that are requisite in a matter of this kind.
    I hope therefore that, if the proposition has already been rejected, the Chancellor will be ready to look at this matter again, assured, as I feel he must be, that there can be no grave risk to the Revenue in this regard. On the contrary, I would regard it as in accordance with modern trends to extend this provision in the way that has been suggested.
    Mr. Barber: This is a small but, I think the hon. Member for Waltham-stow. West (Mr. Redhead) will agree, a useful reform which will be advantageous both to the tobacco trade and to Customs and Excise. I am told that the retail tobacco licence dates from the reign of Charles I, so my hon. Friends can be assured that there is no question of the ambit of the Clause breaking new ground.
    The question that immediately arises is why it should be necessary to license the sale of tobacco at all. The fact is that there is still a certain amount of trafficking in un-Customed and stolen tobacco, and it is also necessary to guard against adulteration. It is therefore obviously advantageous to have a register of legitimate retail outlets, and therefore the licensing system remains an essential part of the system of control.
    The hon. Member for East Ham, South (Mr. Oram) raised the question of mobile shops, and this was also referred to by the hon. Member for Waltham-stow, West. I should like to say, and I hope they will understand this, that I did not have any notice that this aspect was to be raised, and therefore I am not in as good a position to give a full and detailed reply as I might otherwise have been. But, as the hon. Member for East Ham, South knows, this was recently considered first by Customs and Excise and then by the Treasury, and the view was taken that the request which the hon. Gentleman is now making could not be acceded to.
    The hon. Gentleman knows the conclusion we reached, but the arguments against his request are certainly not overwhelming and I realise that circumstances change. I assure him that I will be ready to look at it again. But I ought to point out that it was only recently—although I have not got the dates—that a decision was taken in this matter. It would therefore be wrong and misleading— although I will look into it again—to hold out any great hope of the possibility of anything being done in this Finance Bill.
    If circumstances change and it is thought desirable in the interests of the public that there should be these licences for mobile shops, I hope that as soon as the hon. Gentleman gets any new information he will let me have it. I
    1412
    will be only too ready to look into it again, and, if necessary, to ask him to come and discuss it with me.
    Mr. Mitchison: May I add my plea to those of my hon. Friends? I have seen these mobile shops operating in my constituency, and they are particularly useful in places like new towns, where the distances between one tobacco shop and another are considerable. The Clause already provides for licensing, among other things, a tramcar, of which there are comparatively few survivors. If one can license a tramcar for this purpose, surely one can license one of these perambulating vans.
    May I give the hon. Gentleman one further instance? I live in a village in Scotland where the nearest shop is some distance away, and my hon. Friend the Member for East Ham, South (Mr. Oram) will be glad to know that I am regularly served by a co-op. van. It brings round our ordinary things, and I cannot see any possible objection to it being allowed to bring round tobacco, also. I see no risk of the perils mentioned by the Economic Secretary— adulteration, trafficking, and things of that sort.
    I hope that something will be done about the matter. I hope, also, that the hon. Gentleman will not take it amiss if I say that we must reserve our right to come back to this matter on Report, because, small though it is, it is not unimportant. We trust that it will not be necessary, and that by then the Government will feel able to accede to the request that has been made.
    10.15 p.m.
    Mr. Shepherd: I should like to impress upon my hon. Friend the need to reconsider the decision which was recently made. I do not think it was reached on the grounds of revenue safeguards, but I think it was influenced by a great deal of prejudice. I have been connected with mobile shops and I know that the co-operative society would be the main beneficiary if such a change were made, which generates a certain amount of prejudice. There is a good deal of prejudice against this method of distribution from established traders with fixed shops. But in the days when self-service is taking away all kinds of real service to the public, I do not think we should put an

    1413
    impediment in the way of methods of distribution such as this, when there is no serious ground for refusing this reasonable request.
    A great number of van drivers carry tobacco illicitly and it would be much better that they should be licensed and that there should be proper control over these transactions than that the van driver should have a small pocket in the cab of his vehicle or some other hiding place where he stores the tobacco that he sells. Some firms have experienced great difficulty over this matter and have had to discharge drivers and salesmen who have been illicitly selling tobacco. So, in the interests of tidying up what is in a sense an injustice, and which leads to abuses, I ask my hon. Friend to have another look at the decision which was arrived at recently.
    Mr. Rankin: I hope that the expressions of opinion by hon. Members on both sides of the Committee will encourage the Economic Secretary to go a little further than his somewhat warning answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, West (Mr. Redhead) seemed to indicate. In his concluding sentences the hon. Gentleman appeared to modify a point of view which to us seemed heartening, that he would consider the matter so that we shall have it before us on Report. He seemed to qualify that by saying that he did not think that much could be done.
    Mr. Barber: The point I was making was that this is a matter of importance which arose from requests made before I went to the Treasury, and consequently I am not completely au fait with all the details. I wished to make it clear that, while I shall certainly look at it again, my recollection is that we reached a decision only recently and it would be wrong to hold out great hopes. But I will take note of the opinions which have been expressed.
    Mr. Rankin: Then I was correct. We appreciate the position of the hon. Gentleman and I hope that he will be influenced by what has been said.
    There is a special case for what we are claiming. To the Co-operative movement this is not a minor matter, it is very important. In our great cities there are huge housing schemes under con-
    1414
    struction and, as was said by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison), new shops are put into these areas but sometimes there is a great distance between the shops. In my view, this creates discrimination between certain members of the same cooperative society, because if one member happens to have a telephone in has house he can phone the society, order what tobacco he wants and it will be brought to him in a van. That happens to my hon. and learned Friend and to myself. If an individual has not got a telephone, no mobile shop is permitted to bring to him what a member of the same society can get without any trouble. That is a discrimination. The only way in which it can be put right so that all members of the same society shall be treated in the same way is by allowing the mobile shop to carry these goods for which at present it has no licence.
    It could be fairly argued that a mobile shop is an extension of a fixed shop. It is not a different thing or something new, but merely an extension of the service granted by the fixed shop. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will convey to his right hon. Friend the sentiments which have been expressed in this short debate and that when he thinks it over again before Report the travelling shop will be granted a licence to sell tobacco.
    Mr. James Dempsey: While I respect the caution which the Economic Secretary proposes to exercise in this problem, I was rather disturbed at the lukewarm attitude he displayed towards it when he suggested that, as it had been recently considered, he could hold out little hope that anything could be done. That attitude lacked an appreciation of the origin of this new type of service, the mobile shop, which is not confined to the Co-operative movement. Private enterprise is extending this kind of service in all parts of the country and in my part of the country there has been a tremendous extension of private enterprise in the last few years.
    I think that there is some misunderstanding of the eligibility of this service. Listening to the Economic Secretary, one got the impression that it is an entirely separate business, a business in its own right. If that were so, I could understand the arguments which have been put forward. It is not a rateable service and

    1415
    in some respects it may not be a taxable service, but that leads to a misunderstanding of the service. It operates from a headquarters which is basically fixed, a set of premises, and organisation established by retail distributors already serving the community. This is an extension of another branch of the service which is rated and taxed for local authority and national revenue purposes. The Economic Secretary should try to see the mobile service as a business of that nature.
    What is difficult to comprehend is some of the references made by the Economic Secretary to all sorts of elements which, in his short reply, he said should be considered. He mentioned hygiene, but some of us who have had experience of examining the most up-to-date type of mobile shop are convinced that it is far more hygienic than some of the fixed shops from which tobacco and cigarettes are sold. There is no valid argument about hygiene in that respect. I am talking about the mobile shops which provide a service second-to-none in different parts of the country.
    When he is reviewing the matter, the Economic Secretary should have some regard to those parts of the country which are sparsely populated. I am thinking of a county in my locality which I understand contains the largest Parliamentary constituency in the United Kingdom, which is indicative of the sparse population in the area. It is not possible for many members of the public in such an area to obtain tobacco and cigarettes except when, infrequently, they visit one of the largest villages. For week after week these people rely mainly on service from mobile vans.
    It seems to me unfair that people living in a village or a small croft in some of the remote parts of the country should be prevented from purchasing the type of tobacco and cigarettes they want from mobile vans because the vans are not licensed to supply these goods. It is very unfair, because customers who live in a town have daily access to shops for these commodities. It is wrong that the law of the country should permit such an anomaly, which can be eliminated only by extending this type of service from mobile vans.
    I ask the Economic Secretary and the Government also to consider the very
    1416
    great privilege which we enjoy in this country known as freedom of choice by the consumer. The consumers in this country are entitled to freedom of choice. I belong to a local authority which is controlled by the Labour movement, and we have been very interested in this principle. If I live in an outlying farmsteading I am not able to purchase Co-operative cigarettes and tobacco unless I travel to the nearest town. I have to purchase private enterprise cigarettes and tobacco, which, as a consumer in a free country, I am entitled to refuse. I recognise that the converse is true; I am one of the first to concede that. But surely in the twentieth century we should not be bedevilled by an Act which the Economic Secretary has traced back to the reign of Charles I. Surely legislation needs to be modernised. The right way to modernise it is to extend the tobacco licence to cover mobile trading concerns. We should ensure that all sections of the community have freedom of choice. I would then leave it to the super-salesmen to try to ensure that their commodities are selected by the consumer.
    We have a special problem in Scotland which has been argued time and again —the problem of unemployment. As a result of unemployment in many parts of Scotland, many retail traders are unwilling to build shops and to commit themselves to the capital expenditure necessary. That is because of the reduction in the purchasing power of the consumer following the serious unemployment in parts of Scotland. As a consequence, the general public must have a greater reliance on the mobile van service. In such circumstances, when we are dependent on the mobile van service because of this economic problem, it seems to me that we should have the full range of commodities at our disposal when the mobile van arrives on some of the smaller housing estates or in some of the expanded village development in that part of the United Kingdom.
    10.30 p.m.
    I believe that these are logical reasons why the Economic Secretary should give very sympathetic consideration to my request that we should extend the dealers' licences to mobile shops. I earnestly hope that he will consider all the points

    1417
    which have been raised. I appeal to him to realise that this is a problem of significance in some areas. One hon. Gentleman said that he thought that the Clause was quite a minor affair compared with the previous Clause. It may appear to many right hon. and hon. Gentlemen to be minor, but in some areas it is very important. I hope that the Economic Secretary will not underrate its importance when he arrives at his conclusion, which I trust will be on the lines suggested by right hon. and hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the Committee.
    Mr. Barber: I do not wish to delay the Committee, but I think that it would be helpful if I repeat that I shall be only too happy to consider this aspect of the mobile shop again. However, I should like to point out that the Clause is concerned only with the method of licensing and does not in any way either detract from or extend the premises, or whatever one wishes to call them, which may or may not be licensed. It is for that reason that I say to the Committee that perhaps I may be permitted to look into it.
    Under the present system, a tobacco dealer's licence is not valid for more than one year, and it may expire on a variety of dates. The principal purpose of the Clause is to replace the existing system of one year licences, with differing expiry dates, by licences which will expire uniformly on 31st December in the third calendar year after that in which they are issued. This will be an advantage, both to the trade and to the Revenue, and I commend it to the Committee.
    Mr. Mitchison: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that subsection (2) raises a question which is not the one he stated and is in some ways not so very far from that now put forward?
    Mr. Barber: Yes. I appreciate that subsection (2) raises that question. I shall be very happy to say something about it.
    Mr. Mitchison: Oh.
    Mr. Barber: Then perhaps we may leave it at this stage. The passenger aircraft and passenger vehicles referred to in subsection (2) are already entitled to sell tobacco, and will remain so entitled in the future under the new method.
    Mr. Oram: I agree with what the Economic Secretary said about the purpose of subsection (1), but did he intend to say that this Clause is unsuitable for amendment to meet the purposes mentioned in the debate? Is it his opinion that it would be impossible to amend the Clause to extend licensing to mobile shops?
    Mr. Barber: I would not like to hazard an opinion on that, because I have not considered the possibility of an Amendment to the Clause on those lines. It is something which the hon. Member for East Ham, South (Mr. Oram) and I might perhaps consider and take advice from the Table.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 7.—(Mechanical lighters.)
    Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.
    Mr. Redhead: When in his Budget speech the Chancellor of the Exchequer forecast the production of this Clause, he said that he was
    "Inspired by reforming zeal, and moving on from one bold action to another …".— [Official Report, 4th April, 1960; Vol. 621, c. 52.]
    Those opening words led us to expect great things. Our minds were quickly disillusioned by what followed. Having seen the Clause, I have seldom seen reform obscured in so much verbiage.
    It may well be that the technical phraseology of the Clause is absolutely unavoidable, but I should like the Economic Secretary to convey to the Chancellor the considered view of many hon. Members that when we necessarily have to deal with the mechanics of taxation and tax collection in rather obscure wording like this, we would be greatly helped if some sort of explanatory document framed in simple terms could be issued. That might be an advantage to the Chancellor and to our discussions. Otherwise, with such a Clause as this, there always comes to the suspicious-minded the thought that the wording might hide something very sinister.
    In delving into its purpose, I have not been able to detect anything sinister in the Clause—indeed, it seems to be very largely a question of tidying up some of the administrative difficulties that have been experienced. Apparently the scope of the duty is being somewhat altered, and perhaps we may be told to what extent the scope is being changed by the new definition of mechanical lighter. Presumably, it is not expected to make any appreciable difference to the revenue from this source.
    Judging from the Financial Statement, only a negligible increase under the heading of matches and mechanical lighters will result in the coming year, but if the Economic Secretary will assure us that this is, in substance, no more than an amendment to the administrative procedure to render things easier for the Customs and the traders, we shall be happy to accept the Clause.
    Mr. Barber: The hon. Member for Walthamstow, West (Mr. Redhead) is quite right—the definition of mechanical lighters does extend the scope in one regard. The definition of mechanical lighters is extended to include all portable lighters—and I shall return to that in a moment. The Clause also gives statutory authority to the existing practice of charging duty at the point at which lighters leave the manufacturers' premises. This is a practice that is far more convenient to all concerned.
    The reason why it is necessary to extend the definition is the appearance of a new type of lighter which does not produce either a spark or a flame. This is called, I am told, a torch lighter. It has a dual-purpose battery which either lights an electric bulb, and so becomes a torch, or causes a small element to glow, and thus becomes a lighter. It is outside the existing definition. I am told that it is not, at present, imported in any large quantities, but it is obviously desirable to close the loophole, not only for the protection of the Revenue but from the point of view of our mechanical lighter manufacturers who have to pay duty.
    The hon. Gentleman will have noticed that the operative date of the new definition is 4th August next. That is to enable those who are holding stocks of the new type of lighter to dispose of them without duty in the meantime, and also to enable those who propose, or were proposing, to import or manufacture them to modify their plans if they wish.
    I return now to the change in the duty point, which I have mentioned only briefly. Under the existing law, the duty on lighters manufactured in this country is payable on their being manufactured, but to both the Revenue and the manufacturers this has proved to be extremely inconvenient and administratively expensive. The difficulties are obvious: what happens, for instance, in the case of experimental lighters? Again, the rate of duty may change between manufacture and so on.
    The complications of stock accounting, control and the like have been so great that, under Treasury authority, the duty point has for some time been taken as the time of delivery from the factory and not as the time of manufacture. This

    1421
    Clause proposes statutory authority for this arrangement, which will be of benefit to all concerned.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 8.—(ABOLITION OF DUTIES ON AND LICENCES FOR PLAYING CARDS.)
    Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.
    Mr. Redhead: This is another expression of the Chancellor's great personal reforming zeal, for again he forecast this Clause in words that gave us great hope. He said:
    "Next in the field of Customs and Excise, I propose the abolition, root and branch, of a duty which is hallowed by 249 years' existence."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th April, 1960; Vol. 621, c. 52.]
    Then when he led us on to the question of the remission of the duty on playing cards our high hopes were disappointed. I hope that the Chancellor's reforming zeal, having started so modestly in this respect, will go on to even greater things in subsequent endeavours.
    It is true that this is a very ancient duty, and quite justifiably, I think, the opportunity is being taken to clear up something for which there is no longer any justification, particularly as the right hon. Gentleman pointed out that playing cards are chargeable for Purchase Tax at 25 per cent., although that has been the position for quite a long time and I should have thought that the opportunity might have been taken earlier to remove this rather outdated and, in fact, not particularly remunerative duty.
    In those circumstances, unless any of my hon. Friends feel very keenly about the matter in their anxiety concerning the closing words of the Chancellor, that he hoped this would "not lead to any untoward dissipation", I would recommend my hon. Friends to agree to the Clause standing part of the Bill.
    Mr. Wedgwood Benn: I wish to ask the Economic Secretary one question. For 249 years the ace of spades has had a special marking, and I would be very sorry indeed to see that marking disappear. I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman could tell the Committee whether it would be in
    1422
    order for manufacturers producing playing cards in the future to continue, for historic reasons, to assert on the ace of spades that a 3d. Excise Duty has been paid.
    We in this country hate making changes. We keep the Monarchy long after its political powers have been taken away from it and we keep the Second Chamber long after its powers have been clipped. I would not like to see the ace of spades become an ordinary playing card after so many years. If the Economic Secretary could allow the practice to continue of marking the card in this way, I think it would be in the highest traditions of the British Constitution.
    Mr. Barber: I think it would be proper if I said with all the solemnity at my command that I will bear in mind what the hon. Gentleman has said.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Clause 9 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Second Schedule agreed to.

    Clause 10.—(VEHICLES (EXCISE): HACKNEY CARRIAGES.)
    Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.
    Mr. Benn: We now move on to a new Minister, and, refreshed by his presence, I hope that the Committee will permit me to raise the question of the Vehicle Excise Duty under Clause 10.
    We have had many references to the Chancellor's speech when introducing his Budget, and indeed this change in the Excise Duty for hackney carriages was considered so important that the right hon. Gentleman put it first among all the many reforms which he presented to the Committee on 4th April.
    As I understand it, this is a very minor change. I do not know why the right hon. Gentleman put it first. It provides that a hackney carriage may be a vehicle let for more than three months whereas hitherto it was only for a three-month period or less. A hackney carriage, of course, according to the definition of the 1949 Act, includes not only what we think of as a hackney carriage—a taxicab— but also larger vehicles, and I understand

    1423
    that this provision may apply to the private hire of buses as well as to hackney carriages proper.
    10.45 p.m.
    One exception is made in this case. In the Clause it is provided that this shall not affect vehicles that are being let under a hire-purchase agreement. That is to say, we are speaking now purely and simply about vehicles which are let and remain within the ownership of the man who lets them and are not slowly being transferred to other ownership.
    I must add one other thing. As I understand it, there is to be no change in the duty payable under the Clause, and, therefore, in practice there will not be more than a minor relief for hackney carriage owners. But at the same time this raises a very important piece of transport policy where the Chancellor has great opportunity to influence the development of transport, and I want to draw the attention of the Committee to it very briefly.
    We are discussing the relationship between private cars and hackney carriages and the treatment which each are to receive from the Treasury, and I welcome the presence of the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport to explain this. I wish that the Chancellor had taken the opportunity presented to him by this modification of the law as it relates to hackney carriages to go a great deal further. I propose in a few moments to give my reasons for that.
    It is part of the Opposition's argument that the Government's attitude to transport matters is haphazard in the treatment that they accord to different types, methods and means of transportation. I will give an example to illustrate what I mean. The Ministry of Aviation subsidises airfields in this country to the extent of £10 million a year—it makes that loss—and as a result enables British European Airways to undercut British Railways in the flights to Scotland, which increases the difficulty for British Railways, and this loss falls as a deficit on the Treasury. This seems to us to be one example of bad co-ordination of policy.
    Another example is that there is no co-ordination whatsoever between road building, which falls to the Treasury to finance, and railway modernisation.
    1424
    Those two things, if conducted without relation to one another, may lead to overlapping.
    The Deputy-Chairman (Major Sir William Anstruther-Gray): I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but I find it difficult to relate all this to the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
    Mr. Benn: I am glad that you are waiting for my next point, Sir William, with which I am going on to deal, and that is the relationship between private and public vehicles in cities. As I understand it, this is exactly the subject of the Clause. It is part of my case that the Treasury ought to adopt a far more liberal view towards the Excise duty to be levied upon hackney carriages as compared with that levied upon private cars. It is part of my argument—if it is out of order, then everything that I have to say is out of order—that urban congestion can be solved only by the public resorting more and more to the hire of vehicles and less and less to the ownership of vehicles. That is the argument that I want to address to the Committee.
    Parliament is concerned with the problem of urban congestion in many of its aspects. Efforts are being made to give the Minister power to deal with it. We are all faced with the problem. Everybody recognises that it is one of the great problems of our time. It is part of my argument that the real answer to the problem of urban congestion lies in cheap public transport and that the hire of vehicles for moving about in a city will in the long run offer the only solution to the problem.
    I have been trying to think how one can measure urban congestion in order to get some guide as to the fiscal policy that ought to be pursued by the Chancellor in dealing with these matters. There are, obviously, four elements in urban congestion. They are: the amount of road occupied by vehicles, the length of time which that portion of the road is occupied, the number of passengers carried by the vehicles that occupy the road, and the distance travelled by the passengers in the vehicles that occupy the road.
    I have tried as best I can to confine these different elements within a single unit of measurement, and I want to offer

    1425
    to the Committee a new statistical unit which I believe measures the degree of congestion by different types of vehicles. I hate to impose a formula at this hour of the night upon a Committee which is tired and anxious to go home, but when the Committee sees the use to which this statistic can be put I think it will realise that it has some value.
    The unit of measurement that I suggest is the proper one for urban congestion is the square foot hours of road space occupied per passenger mile travelled. That brings into operation all the elements I have discussed earlier. Since I invented this statistic I shall name it the "unit of block", which seems an appropriate title. I am dealing with a very difficult part of my brief, which I wrote myself—
    The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. John Hay): Would the hon. Gentleman be kind enough to repeat it? We want to get hold of it.
    Mr. Benn: I am serious about this. I say that the only way one can measure urban congestion is by taking the square foot hour of road space occupied per passenger mile travelled. That brings in the amount of road occupied, the time for which it is occupied, the number of passengers carried and the distances for which passengers are carried.
    I give two extreme examples. The first is that of a man who lives in Westminster and has his office in Mayfair, with a large limousine car 6 feet by 12 feet, and who travels into Mayfair with a chauffeur in the morning. The car is left in the streets until he returns in the evening. The units of block in this case are measured as follows: the car is 6 feet by 12 feet, which gives 72 square feet. It is on the road for 9 hours, which, if one multiplies it by 72, is 648 square feet hours of road occupied, and it carries one man 2 miles a day twice— that is, 4 passenger miles. Divide 648 by 4, and the unit of block is 162.
    Next, is a clerk in that man's office, who also lives in Westminster but travels to work by bus. The measurements of the bus are 8 feet by 24 feet. It is on the road for 12 hours. That means 2,304 square feet hours of road space occupied. But, of course, the bus carries, in the course of the day, 40 passengers 120 miles which is 4,800 passenger miles. Divide 2,304 by 4,800 and it will be seen
    1426
    that it amounts to only 0·5 of my units of block. I hope that the Committee will not think that this is a flippant thing to put over at this time of day.
    The difference between the man who travels in the limousine to and from his office, and the man who travels by bus is the difference between 162 units and ·5 of a unit. The other extreme, the man who goes by underground or walks of course occupies no space on the roads.
    The most interesting case is that of the man who goes by taxi, because the taxi, I believe, will turn out to be the answer to the problem of urban congestion. Applying the same formula to that taxi, whose size is 4 feet by 8 feet, which is 32 square feet, and assuming that it is on the road for twelve hours, it occupies 384 square feet hours, carrying two men 240 miles a day or 480 passenger miles. Divide 384 by 480 and the unit of block in this case is only 0·75.
    Let us compare those four cases that I have given. The man who walks or goes by underground occupies no road space; the man who goes by bus occupies half—0·5—of a block; the man who goes by taxi occupies 0·75, or three-quarters, of a block; and the man who goes by limousine occupies 162 blocks on the London roads.
    These figures demonstrate what people recognise to be the fact—though I have never seen it measured before—that the problem of urban congestion proves that taxis and buses are high productivity, low-blockage urban vehicles, whereas private cars are low productivity and high-blockage vehicles. This applies as much whether we have off-street car-parking or not. They still occupy a large part of the urban road area.
    The whole point of my argument is that if it is logical for the Ministry of Transport to make private motoring expensive in the cities—which it is going to be with parking meters and off-street car parks, which, if experience in America provides an example, will soon cost £1 a day in the middle of the city—then it is better to back that up by helping to make public transport cheaper. That is why I should like the Chancellor of the Exchequer to go a great deal further in lifting the Excise duty on hackney carriages. I believe that cheap, plentiful, flexible public transport in a city is the real answer to this problem of congestion.

    1427
    It would be out of order to discuss underground development and I will not attempt it, but it will be in order to discuss buses or taxis. When I sit down and calculate the amount of money which I spend as a motorist in London and I consider the possibility of selling my car and travelling by taxi, I find that there is not all that difference already between the cost of running a private car in a city, even with free parking, as compared with a far greater use of taxis.
    I think that we are moving towards the day when the taxi in the big city will turn out to be the answer to our problem. When we say, as we do, about the big cities that public transport is the answer, we must not be hidebound and rigid and suppose that public transport necessarily means only buses. People nowadays have a higher standard and they want to be moved from where they are to where they want to go without necessarily having to walk to the Underground station and back. A more plentiful provision of cheap taxis might offer a greater solution to the Parliamentary Secretary's problem of urban congestion than he has yet fully recognised.
    I was interested to see that Mr. Khrushchev made this point in the United States and it was his remark which first set me off on my statistical analysis of the problem. Not only is the taxi the answer, but it may well be that a far greater use of the hire car is an answer. Indeed, there is already evidence that the hire-car business— "drive-yourself"—is booming in this country and we are already beginning to have the development of the system started in the United States by which one picks up a car, drives it to where one wants to go, leaves it there and returns by train.
    That helps to get high productivity transport into operation, because what is wrong in this country, which is a small country with few roads and many cars, is that most of the cars at any given time are not in action. Just as we want to get the maximum yield from our roads, so we want to get the maximum yield from our vehicles and the only way in which we can get the maximum yield from our vehicles is by having better
    1428
    provision, both fiscal and otherwise, for hire-car provision, both "drive-yourself" and the taxi service.
    In London, the answer may well be for London Transport to go into the taxi business, perhaps with much smaller vehicles and perhaps in a way different from that which we now have and in some way to cater for the need for individual transport, which exists in the city, without any problem of parking, because the taxi is always on the move. I offer these comments to the Parliamentary Secretary sincerely—it may be that his brief does not cover an answer to them —because the Chancellor of the Exchequer can help a great deal in this regard.
    I altogether exclude hire purchase from my argument. I am not interested, for the purpose of this argument, in the man who is trying to acquire a vehicle for his own purposes, because he does not help to solve the problem and is still a man using a vehicle with a low productivity, but the more we can encourage people to hire vehicles, the better and the sooner we will be able to solve the problem of congestion.
    The Clause appears to go a tiny fraction of the way towards a solution of the problem and makes it a little easier for firms to hire their own buses rather than use public transport. It makes it a little easier for the long-term hirer whereas the provision was previously limited to three months.
    This is the beginning of a campaign which we on this side of the Committee will be waging on future Finance Bills for far greater Government help and consideration for the type of transport which is paid for only when it is used, as against the private motorist who cannot hope, with all the new roads in the world, in future to be able to use the country's big cities to an unlimited extent. If the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, in the goodness of his heart and from the breadth of his knowledge and experience, feels able to address some comments to this argument, I shall very much appreciate it.
    11.0 p.m.
    The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. John Hay): The Committee will have admired the ingenuity with which the hon. Member for Bristol, South-East (Mr. Benn)

    1429
    has been able, on the somewhat flimsy basis of the Clause, to erect a substantial and interesting argument, to which I shall return later.
    First, I want to say a word about the Clause and what it does. Its purpose is to make a change in the vehicle Excise duties payable by certain types of bus. The Clause deletes from the definition of a hackney carriage, contained in Section 27 (1) of the Vehicles (Excise) Act, 1949, a proviso which enables buses and coaches to be licensed at the rate of duty applicable to ordinary private vehicles if they are 1st for a period of three months or more. A vehicle which is let for three months or more is not classified as a hackney carriage, and it becomes liable for duty under Section 6 and the Fifth Schedule of the Act, which apply to all vehicles, including private cars, not covered by any other Section. The rate of duty payable becomes £12 10s. a year instead of the hackney carriage rate, which varies from £12 a year for a vehicle which has between four and 20 seats and £12 plus 10s. for each seat in excess of 20 for vehicles with more than 20 seats.
    This is a provision of considerable antiquity. I understand its origin is in the Customs and Inland Revenue Act, 1888. It has become largely unworkable, because we have found that contracts of this kind can be and frequently are varied after the vehicle excise licence has been issued. Similarly, contracts do not usually stipulate for the use of a particular vehicle, but rather that the hirer will provide vehicles of a particular kind or capacity, and hirers sometimes substitute one vehicle for another. Contracts may also be expressed in terms which do not establish finally whether vehicles are or are not hired for three months or more. The extent of the problem is indicated by the fact that in one case last year a hirer was able to claim a refund of duty amounting to no less than £6,000. In any case, I do not think that the Committee would deny that there is no good reason in principle why a bus let for hire for a period of three months or more should pay a different rate of duty than one let for a shorter period, or not let at all.
    The practical effect of the change is that firms providing transport for public works contractors and others on the basis
    1430
    of long-term contracts which have in the past paid duty at the private car rate will in future pay duty at the rate appropriate to the seating capacity of the vehicle. The smaller buses, with 20 seats or less, will pay duty at a slightly lower rate than at present. For larger buses there is a graduated addition to the flat rate of 10s. for every seat over 20. A 20-seater bus now paying £12 10s. will, in future, pay £12, while a 30-seater paying £12 10s. will in future pay £17. The change will have very little effect on revenue.
    That is the purpose behind the Clause. I now come to the remarks of the hon. Member for Bristol, South-East. The important thing to understand is that vehicle excise licences have never been used in the past for the kind of vehicle control over traffic that he was envisaging. The duties that we are concerned with in the Clause and the duties mentioned in the Vehicles (Excise) Act are intended only to raise revenue. The only exception, if it be an exception, to that general rule has in the past been in the case of hackney carriages, because some years ago it was necessary to stimulate the motor industry in this country, with the useful results we all know. The hackney carriage rate has for some time been lower than the private car rate. That is one of the reasons for this Clause. Basically, our policy has always been that vehicle excise duties are in aid of the revenue and not in aid of the prevention of traffic congestion.
    I must confess that I am not a mathematician. I listened with the greatest interest and only a minor degree of comprehension to the hon. Gentleman's ingenious formula. When he got to his unit of block, I thought he was thinking of some kind of statistical unit we might use in this Committee for describing those hon. Members who from time to time felt it their duty to delay the passage of Government legislation, but the hon. Gentleman made it clear that this was a mathematically designed formula to try to measure congestion on our streets. I am one of those who is always a bit baffled by statistics. I remember the classic phrase, "There are three degrees of lies—lies, damn lies, and statistics". I must read very carefully what the hon. Gentleman said and take the necessary advice from those who know far more about mathematics than I do.
    Mr. Benn: It was very simple.
    Mr. Hay: The hon. Gentleman may have found it so, but I did not. I would not like to give any answer upon whether it is feasible to measure congestion on our streets.
    I think that we must have a sense of proportion. Although the private car is creating very substantial problems in the big towns and cities, we must remember that the private car is not only an outward and visible sign of the increasing prosperity of the people, but is also the end product of a thriving and highly prosperous industry providing employment for a great many people. It may be that in years to come the idea, as suggested by the hon. Gentleman, of making greater use of cheaper and smaller taxis will be adopted in this country, and to that extent the motor vehicle building industry will benefit.
    But I do not believe at the moment that it would be wise or right for the Government to adopt as a policy the artificial restriction of the use of private transport in any part of our country, difficult though the problems are which the indiscriminate use of that transport causes. After all, this is a free democracy and people are entitled to buy cars and to use them. All we ask is that they shall not use them to such an extent and in such a way that they inhibit and prevent the rest of our fellow citizens from making a fair use of their vehicles.
    On that general explanation of the Clause, and not wishing to delay the Committee longer and with appreciaion of the hon. Gentleman for entertaining us and putting inside a rather humorous approach a germ which is of great interest to us all, I hope that the Committee will be prepared to pass the Clause.
    Mr. Benn: I would draw attention to another Section of the Vehicles (Excise) Act, under which some vehicles are totally exempt—such as fire engines, vehicles kept by a local authority, ambulances and road rollers, and it may be that some reduction, or the elimination, of vehicle Excise duty for public transport vehicles may be an incentive to those vehicles to proliferate, and may be to the advantage of the motorist.
    Nothing I said in any way indicated the desirability of prohibiting cars in
    1432
    the middle of cities. It is a question of supply and demand. All I said was that the trouble at the moment is that people are entitled to buy cars, but cannot use them because of blockage in the cities. But I will say no more except to remind the Committee of a cartoon, which appeared in the New Yorker, showing some directors looking out of a window at a big motor manufacturing plant and saying, "It has happened at last: there is a traffic jam from the production line to the parking lot."
    Question put and agreed to.
    Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Clause 11 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 12.—(USE OF MOTOR VEHICLE UNLICENSED DURING COMPULSORY TEST.)
    Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.
    Mr. R. J. Mellish: I understand that this is the last Clause that we are to discuss tonight as it is the last Clause in Part I, and I am sure that hon. Members will not want me to make a long speech because they, as I do, want to go home.
    This is an important Clause. Its title is:
    "Use of motor vehicle unlicensed during compulsory test."
    The Clause refers to compulsory tests, and we believe that it is almost a fictitious Clause because at the moment there is no compulsory test for road vehicles, and we wonder whether we will ever get them. I will be in order if I relate my speech to the whole question of the testing of vehicles which has been discussed before in the House.
    In 1956, we debated the Bill dealing with compulsory testing of vehicles. We were delighted with the Bill and the intentions of the Government at that time. It was on Report that the then Minister of Transport, who is now the Minister of Defence, the right hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Watkinson), said that the House would be interested to know that under the voluntary testing plan that had been established 72 per cent. of the cars tested proved to foe defective. He went on to say that it was important to get the Bill through as quickly as

    1433
    possible so that cars of a certain age and of a certain vintage had this compulsory test.
    We all applauded those remarks and we agreed with them at the time. I want to be fair about this. The Minister said that in his view it would take a long time to prepare the scheme, and pledged himself not to implement it until it could be done properly. We agreed with that and many of us thought that the longest time that would be allowed for implementation would be eighteen months.
    It is four years since compulsory testing was first discussed in the House, but, as far as I can judge, we seem to be as far away from it now as we were then because we have had so many extraordinary and peculiar excuses. In June, 1958, the same Minister of Transport, the right hon. Member for Woking, said that preparations were going well, and promised to introduce a scheme before the end of 1958. Then, in November, 1958, he suddenly came out with the first legal excuse in relation to the Bill. He said that certain legal objections had been raised which could have prevented the smooth working of the scheme and that some small changes would have to be made in the proposals before they could be laid before the House.
    As I understand, those legal objections were small. There was the question of fees for the retesting of vehicles that had failed the test, and a question of regulations about testing car lamps. There is no party point in this, because the Bill received the approval of the whole House and was given a Third Reading. In February, 1959, the right hon. Member for Woking came to the House and said, in effect, "I have done it. Everything is fine. Now you will get the Bill and there will be no further delay. We have, in fact, cleared all the legal difficulties." That is what he said, and we believed it. We poor simpletons believed that we would get a Bill saying that vehicles of a certain age and vintage would be compulsorily tested. Nothing happened. Five months later, in July last year, we were told that the legal difficulties had been cleared up, but that there would have to be a slight delay as the Government had found one or two other small points on which they would
    1434
    have to come before Parliament. We are not quite clear what they were but, again, we were considerate and understanding in our position. We recognised—
    The Deputy-Chairman: Order. I am not clear how the hon. Member is going to relate all the small points to which he is now referring to the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
    11.15 p.m.
    Mr. Mellish: That I can show very easily, Sir William. These are not small points. If you look at Clause 12, you will see that it deals entirely with compulsory tests of vehicles and gives authority to examiners appointed under the Act of 1956 to which I referred. We regard the Clause as completely fictitious because the Act has never been implemented. I am trying to show that under this Clause the points I am making about the Act are quite relevant. I hope that you will allow me to go on, because matters which deal with the question of safety on the roads are very important.
    If I may recapitulate, in 1959 we were told that everything was fine and we would have the scheme. To bring the story a little more up-to-date, on 31st March this year the present Minister of Transport—.this gay young Lochinvar of ours—said he would have to define the performance of brakes. This was something we had not heard of before, but he found out about it. We had told his predecessor four years ago that the question of brakes, which the present Minister now raised, ought to be considered. We said then, and I repeat now, that the standard and performance of brakes, lights, tyres and steering would have to be worked out and written into the regulations. We recognised that that would be a legal and tricky job, so we were not surprised when the present Minister said that brakes were a thing which was being looked at.
    We get very annoyed at the way in which the present Minister of Transport states these things. He is unlike his predecessor. He stated outside the House that only because of legal difficulties the scheme was being held up. It was a fair speech to make. He said that the implementation of the Act was held up because of legal difficulties. My right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss), who is an expert on these matters, unlike

    1435
    me, an amateur, asked a Question. The Minister of Transport replied that he did not make that speech outside, but from the Dispatch Box.
    Mr. Hay indicated dissent.
    Mr. Mellish: I am stating facts. This gravely offended my right hon. Friend and the matter was taken up in the newspapers. There has been a protracted correspondence with the Minister of Transport. I understand that now—perhaps the Joint Parliamentary Secretary will agree—the Minister has admitted that the statement that he made the speech from the Dispatch Box was wrong. We, and I think hon. Members opposite, are getting a little fed up with this sort of thing, because the House of Commons is a great place and Ministers cannot treat us in this way. We do not mind a certain amount of bluff, tout there is a limit to the amount which we can take.
    The Deputy-Chairman: Order. What is perplexing me is how all this is properly related to the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
    Mr. Mellish: Your state of perplexity is coming to an end, Sir William, because I propose to wind up my remarks. All of us want to see the implementation of a Measure which received universal approval at the time when it was before the House. It is to make certain that every vehicle of a certain age is in good order to go on the road. We do not know how many accidents have been involved because of unfit vehicles, and I will not guess.
    I have a great admiration for the ability and sincerity of the Joint Parliamentary Secretary. I ask him to take this matter seriously when he replies. I ask him not to confine his remarks to a narrow, obtuse argument connected with the Clause, but to reply to me and give me a simple answer to my simple question, namely, when shall we get the Bill which was promoted in 1956 and the regulations associated with it? That is all we have been asking for. If the hon. Gentleman will give us a straightforward answer to that, the debate will have been worth while.
    Mr. Hay: I am sorry that the hon. Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish) seems to regard it as his mission in life
    1436
    to do nothing more or less than make remarks about my right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport. The hon. Gentleman frequently makes those remarks without giving my right hon. Friend any notice that he intends to make them. That is quite contrary to the normal customs and habits of the House of Commons. It happened a week or two ago, and it has happened again tonight. I do not propose to enter into any argument with the hon. Gentleman about whether my right hon. Friend made a speech outside, what words he used, and whether he subsequently denied or did not deny making it.
    I shall address my remarks, first, to what the Clause does and then I shall tell the Committee, as I think the Committee is entitled to know, what our intentions are with regard to the implementation of the vehicle testing scheme. I would very much like to go over the history of this matter, as the hon. Gentleman has attempted to do, because there are very conclusive and weighty reasons, as I discovered when I first became involved in this problem, why this scheme has been delayed so long. However, this is not the opportunity, nor is it really the time, to do that.
    I will deal, first, with the Clause. Under Section 15 of the Vehicles (Excise) Act, 1949, it is illegal for an unlicensed motor vehicle to be used on a public road. The Clause is essential for the implementation of the scheme for the compulsory testing of vehicles. One of the essential parts of that scheme, as I think the Committee knows, is that when vehicle testing is in operation any vehicle over ten years old which has not got a valid test certificate in force will not be licensed. It will not be possible to licence it.
    When the scheme is fully in operation, therefore, the grant of a licence permitting a vehicle to be used on public roads will be subject, in the case of 10-year old vehicles, to the production of a valid test certificate, in the first place. In the Finance Act, 1958, provision was made to permit unlicensed vehicles in these circumstances to be used on the roads for the purpose of submitting them for the statutory test, but this did not take account of the fact that the test itself will in many cases require that the vehicle should be driven for a short distance on a public road.

    1437
    To put it more shortly, if one has a vehicle for which one wishes to obtain a test certificate, but which is not licensed, under the existing law the vehicle can be taken to the testing station, but once there the existing law does not cover its testing on the road by the people at the testing station. Therefore, this Clause is introduced to permit an unlicensed vehicle in these circumstances to be so driven by the authorised examiner or inspector appointed under Section 1 of the Road Traffic Act, 1956, or a person acting on behalf of the examiner.
    The Committee is entitled to know when it is likely that these provisions will come into effect. One of our problems—it is the most recent and, in many ways, the most difficult of the problems that we have had to overcome with regard to the testing scheme—has been whether or not the standards of braking performance with which a vehicle must comply under a test should be dealt with by a separate regulation or should be incorporated in the Motor Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations.
    We have now obtained the most authoritative advice that it is possible for the Government to obtain to the effect that these braking standards must be incorporated in the Construction and Use Regulations. Therefore, an Amendment of the Construction and Use Regulations has been drafted, and on 14th April it was circulated for comment to 88 representative organisations. This is in accordance with a statutory obligation imposed upon the Minister of Transport.
    The intention is that we shall hear any objections that there are to the amended version of the regulations. We have received some. I hope that it will be possible to clear these quickly. If they can be overcome, we hope to lay amended Construction and Use Regulations and the Test Regulations in the first half of July.
    The official appointment of the testing stations will then proceed during the latter part of July and during August, and vehicle tests will start in early September. An Order, and a further set of regulations will then be laid which will require that as from 1st November of this year a valid test certificate will have to be in force when the older vehicles are in use on the roads.
    1438
    In view of the long and somewhat chequered history of this scheme, I must make it clear that the programme that I have just outlined makes no allowance for any possible further delays at any of these stages due to the objections that I have already mentioned or some other unexpected factor outside our control. We have had so many false starts—I admit it quite frankly—and every time something fresh has been discovered which had to be overcome before we could begin the scheme, otherwise it would have been an illegal scheme.
    Therefore, in outlining, as I have, to the Committee, the projected programme for the introduction of vehicle testing, I must make the reservation that the dates I have given are subject to any unexpected delays—and I hope to goodness that there will not be many more— suddenly arising as a result of a factor we have not yet discovered. That is the basis of the Clause, and that is the timing we have in mind. With that explanation, I hope that the Committee will agree to pass the Clause.
    Mr. Benn: I should like to mention two points very briefly. First, under existing legislation, a car that is used on polling day does not need to be licensed. I discovered this when I used my own car in the February, 1959, election. The car was not licensed, and I was afraid that I might have invalidated the candidate I assisted, but I was told that it was not necessary for it to be licensed. I therefore understand that, on polling day, the vehicle testing scheme will not be in operation, because if a vehicle does not need to be licensed there is no need to produce a test certificate. Therefore, the risk of going to the polls in all those Conservative cars should be very considerable.
    The second point came to my mind only as I heard the Parliamentary Secretary's explanation, and I make it to reinforce the plea of my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey (Mr. Mellish). We have heard tonight from the hon. Gentleman one of those comforting timetables of future progress. We have had them in the past. We have had them now for four years. The hon. Gentleman and his predecessors, I do not suggest with any desire to mislead, but with the good will of the office he now holds and the optimism that goes with it. promises that it will be only a

    1439
    matter of weeks, or a matter of months.
    As the hon. Gentleman has had the good courtesy to tell us that all this is subject to no further legal snags appearing, my hon. Friend has written into the record—or, to use the American expression, has "read into the record"— all the previous pledges that have been made, and we have from the hon. Gentleman the present pledge, which is as meaningless for the future as previous pledges have been in the past.
    Although I do not blame the hon. Gentleman personally for it, it reveals a laxity in the Ministry of Transport that I find very hard to accept. It is no good saying that if it had been done earlier it would have been illegal. This House makes the laws, and if there are legal difficulties there are two ways of overcoming them. One is to take the best legal advice available and hope to interpret one's own laws favourably. The other is to make the law crystal-clear by amending legislation. Nothing said by the hon. Gentleman tonight has convinced me that it would not have been possible to overcome these legal difficulties earlier, if necessary, by amending the 1956 Road Traffic Act, now consolidated into legislation.
    However, I do not think that it would be appropriate to go into this at any great length now. I will only say that although we are extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the way in which he has presented his case, we are really no nearer the introduction of the scheme than we were before the debate took place. We shall continue to press for Government action, and await with interest the first part of July to see whether the regulations he has mentioned do, in fact, materialise.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Mr. Amory: I think that we have made very fair progress in our work and I am very grateful to the Committee for its co-operation. It seems to me high time that we should all adjourn for a few hours' rest.
    I beg to move, That the Chairman do report Progress and ask leave to sit again.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Committee report Progress; to sit again Tomorrow.

  MENTALLY HANDICAPPED CHILDREN
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. E. Wakefield.]
  11.31 p.m.
  Mr. Compton Carr: I do not apologise in any way for detaining anyone here tonight, and I only wish that I could speak for longer than I am permitted to do. However, if I may be as brief as possible on a subject so important and so well documented, and at the risk of appearing to try to teach my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary to suck eggs, if I may use such an inelegant phrase of so charming a Parliamentary Secretary, I would like to run through the position as it now exists as far as mentally handicapped children are concerned.
  We have no longer idiots, imbeciles and the feeble-minded, but we still have an artificial division between children of one grade of mental handicap and those of another. We have the educationally subnormal, those who come under the education authority, and we have those who are described as ineducable and who come under the health authority.
  Ineducable means only that these children are ineducable in normal schools. It seems to me that although we are doing a great deal for these children there are some things to which we could well pay attention. There are a number of these children. It has been estimated that there is one mentally handicapped child in every street in the country. That means that there are about 80,000 of them, of whom some 22,000 are able to take their part in the community in some way by being helped in an occupation centre. However, only two-thirds of those 22,000 are able to obtain any help at the moment. There is such a shortage of places in the occupation and training centres.
  In the past we have heard about the possibility of exploiting high grade mental defectives, and sometimes one fears that they are kept for too long in residential colonies and so forth. But the fear of those who are concerned with the lower grade mental defectives, the middle grade, is not that they will be exploited but that they will be left in oblivion.

  1441
  That is a fear which is expressed by many parents of such children, because places for them are still hard to find.
  There are three points which I would like to mention. There is the question of teachers. We do not call them teachers, but I feel that they might very well be given that title. They are called supervisors. Despite the fact that they do not come under the Ministry of Education, I think that to call them teachers of the severely subnormal, or something of that nature, would give them greater standing. Something that would give them even greater standing would be a national training scheme.
  I know that at present we have a one-year training scheme under the National Association of Mental Health, but quite often, and I say this without offence to the people who take that diploma, the only qualification needed for entering the service is that they should be between the ages of 20 and 40. As against teachers of the educationally subnormal who have done two years, or perhaps only one year's training, plus one year of educationally subnormal training, supervisors have only one year's training. This bears hardly on the children who, in many cases, really require very much more attention, perseverance, patience and cheerfulness from their teachers.
  There is something much more serious which arises out of these factors, and that is the difference in salary scales between the two types. The woman teacher of E.S.N. children may reach a maximum of about £796 a year—I may be out of date, and if so, I am on the low side—but the maximum which an assistant supervisor can reach, dealing with children very often much more difficult, is £535 a year. We have to do something about that difference of about £250 per year. We still tend to rely on voluntary help in this kind of work, and we must get away from that.
  As for the training of the children themselves, many authorities already do a tremendous amount but, having seen these children, I feel that we could still aim for a higher standard. Our aim is still not set high enough. The higher we force anybody, the more achievement we find possible on the part of people in respect of whom in the past we have decried the possibility of achievement. It is also necessary to be flexible. Many
  1442
  authorities are flexible, but some are not. I think it is possible to do much more in this country on the lines of what is done on the Continent, where defectives are fitted into the work pattern of the neighbourhood. Local crafts are seized upon and the defectives are given instruction in them. It is not always possible here, of course, but on the Continent the Brussels lace industry is one which has taken defectives and given them some ability to succeed in outside life and obtain a pride of achievement.
  There is one type of centre which the Middlesex County Council has, to all intents and purposes "invented". and that is a special care unit for exceptionally disturbed children. It has had great success with upgrading these children. Some have even filtered back under the education authority as educationally subnormal children although they had previously been given up as completely hopeless. Others, although not reaching that state, have been able to go on to a junior occupational training centre, though they were completely and grossly disturbed when they arrived at the original centre.
  I should not like anyone to think that in anything I say I am decrying what has already been done. I am merely asking for more and more. I should like to see us moving far faster into research. Everyone has this problem. I have a copy of the Journal of Mental Deficiency Research for December, 1958, in which there is a paper written by a Russian who makes it clear that no one has gone any further in Russia than they have here. It is rather clumsily put, but he says:
  "… It is quite clear that a primary derangement of any particular link may inevitably lead to disintegration of the whole system, and that genuine analysis of the nature of derangements in this system is possible only if we disclose this primary disorder, as well as the systemic consequences which it entails."
  We have a long way to go towards achieving that analysis of causation.
  As we have seen by announcements in the newspapers recently, help has been given to the work at the Institute of Child Health on chemical deficiencies which themselves cause mental derangement and mental deficiency, and mental deficiency which can be cured, if taken

  1443
  early enough, by correcting the chemical inbalance in the children.
  There is also the exciting work being done on chromosomes as far as mongolism is concerned. This is only something to discover the sources of the disease. I am proud to say that I have a brother who is working in the University of Western Ontario on this very problem, and I know that the work is going on all over the world and that everyone is extremely excited about it.
  There is also the work, which was reported by Dr. Tizard in the British Medical Journal of 2nd April, on residential care of mentally-handicapped children, again showing that there are new factors which can be taken up and new successes which are still available.
  The most exciting thing, which is still a frontier to be crossed, is the work on causes and treatment of so-called autistic —sometimes called schizoid, sometimes psychotic—children, which is almost unknown territory. These children are apparently schizoids who live in a dream world. They seem intelligent, but it is impossible to touch them even with treatment that is nowadays giving success in 75 per cent. of normal adult schizoids. We must pay attention to that factor.
  I would like to say that I have a testimonial to what I have said, that there is no lack of good will but lack of space, lack of ability to do things more quickly. This letter is from a parent who wrote to me and said his six-year-old daughter was awaiting final diagnosis in the Maudsley, but she could not get in because of the long waiting list. It said:
  "It is certainly not lack of understanding or will that we have encountered, but of material facilities."
  I close in the hope that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary will be able to say something in reply which will give added force to the moving words in a leaflet sent by the National Society for Mentally Handicapped Children to parents:
  "You have friends; you are not alone."
  11.42 p.m.
  Mr. Kenneth Robinson: I want to intervene for a minute to support almost everything that has been said by the hon. Member for Barons Court (Mr. Compton Carr) on this ex-
  1444
  tremely important subject, which we discuss all too seldom in this House. It is part of a wider field in which I have been interested for a long time, and, in particular, I would like to support his plea for more research.
  It seems to me that, without pitching one's hopes too high, there are signs of a real break-through if we can throw in all the resources that we have in this country, particularly so far as mongolism and the new chemical processes being investigated at Great Ormond Street, at the Institute of Child Health, are concerned. I also support the hon. Gentleman's plea for better conditions and better salaries for supervisors, who constitute one of the worst-treated categories in mental health service where salaries generally are far too low.
  11.43 p.m.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Edith Pitt): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Barons Court (Mr. Compton Carr) on choosing for his Adjournment debate something which is of tremendous human interest and which commands the sympathy of us all. I hope to show that considerable progress is being made in providing better training in better premises for mentally handicapped children.
  The children we are discussing are those who are unsuitable for education at school, as we now refer to them. Formerly, they were described as "ineducable". There is a wide-ranging provision for the educationally subnormal child within the education system, but when a child is found to be unable to benefit from this provision, he becomes the responsibility of health departments of local authorities and thus of the Ministry of Health.
  My hon. Friend has asked for further progress and higher standards, and has referred to the care of mentally-handicapped children both in training centres for the mentally subnormal run by the local health authorities and in hospitals. I want, first, to say a few words about the training centres, because I gather that that is the subject to which my hon. Friend attaches major importance. Local health authorities have a duty under the Mental Deficiency Acts to provide suitable training or occupation for the mentally handicapped child living in the community.

  1445
  Local health authorities have been required to submit proposals showing how they intend to carry out those services following the amendments made by the Mental Health Act, 1959. Nearly all those proposals have been received and will be approved at the end of the statutory two months' period of objections.
  In recent years, local health authorities have been making great efforts to provide more places for mentally handicapped children. In 1948, there were about 100 centres altering for about 4,000 children. At the end of 1959, there were 293 whole-time centres catering for juniors or mixed age groups and 51 part-time centres, that is, a total of 344 catering for 10,500 children, so there has been an appreciable increase. In 1953, 65 per cent. of all children known to be suitable for training were received in training centres and in 1959 the figure had gone up to 80 per cent. In the financial year 1960-61, local health authorities have submitted 68 schemes for training centres for juniors or juniors and adults mixed.
  A year ago, my right hon. and learned Friend asked all local health authorities to review their mental health services in the light of the Report of the Royal Commission on Mental Health. In a paragraph on priorities, a circular suggested that authorities should keep in the forefront the need for adequate provision for training children up to the age of 16. It was also suggested that the authorities should consider the desirability of providing residential accommodation in hostels for children who could not reasonably be transported to a training centre every day.
  We think that the provision of such hostels will go a long way to provide places for 2,600 children who at the moment are not receiving training. Many of those children live at distances from the centres which make it extremely difficult and against the interests of the child to convey the child every day to and from the centre. The children will be able to stay in the hostels either for the whole term, or from Monday to Friday, returning home at the week-end.
  In addition to the provision of hostels for these children, local health authorities are progressively replacing unsatisfactory rented premises by new buildings. They are also turning part-time centres into
  1446
  full-time centres and bringing into the ambit of the centres those children who previously had only been visited by a home teacher perhaps for a short period every week.
  My hon. Friend asked me about the teaching staff in the training centres. We are very much aware that problems are likely to arise as a result of this rapid expansion which I have already mentioned and the expansion in the provision for the mentally handicapped over the age of 16 who require a somewhat different type of training. Earlier this year, the Standing Mental Health Advisory Committee set up a sub-committee on the training of staff of training centres for the mentally subnormal. That subcommittee is now receiving evidence and has issued a questionnaire to local health authorities and hospitals.
  We hope that the results of that committee's deliberations will help us provide more and better staffs for training centres. As my hon. Friend said, at present the only accepted training course is a course run by the National Association of Mental Health, which lasts only one year, and there is no requirement, even on the staff of centres, to take that course, although we believe that many of them have done so. The staffs of the centres are, of course, paid on scales agreed by the local authorities' National Joint Council, so that pay is a matter for the local authorities. I am hoping that when the report of the sub-committee is available local authorities will be prepared to consider it again.
  I want to say a special word about grossly handicapped children. As my hon. Friend has particularly referred to Middlesex, I would say that what is going on there is going on in other areas, because a number of authorities are developing what are called special care units. They are intended to cater for children of very low intelligence and those who are physically as well as mentally handicapped, or are so emotionally disturbed that they cannot be dealt with in the ordinary small classes of the training centre. Specially adapted rooms and toilet facilities are provided adjoining the centre, and there is a higher staffing ratio. Middlesex has three of these units, and has been doing some excellent work in caring for these very unfortunate children.

  1447
  In addition, they have admitted to these units some children who are probably not severely subnormal, but who are so disturbed and handicapped in addition that they may appear to be of very low intelligence. With a great deal of intensive care they have had some success with these children. We are watching these experiments closely, and we hope that local health authorities everywhere will gradually be able to increase their provision for children of this type.
  Turning to the hospital service, education and training is one of the main objects of mental deficiency hospitals. The aim is to develop to the greatest possible extent all the capabilities of the patients, so as to enable them to live the fullest life they can and to make them as useful citizens as possible. This is true of all patients in these hospitals, and not merely of children. The number of children in mental deficiency hospitals at any one time is comparatively small. The Royal Commission found that at 31st December, 1954, just under 7,000 patients in these hospitals were under the age of 15; that is, 12 per cent. of the total. But a substantial number of each year's admissions are of young people.
  Training may take various forms. Education in the formal sense is not generally appropriate, but there are a few patients who need 3R work—for example, adolescents and adults who have failed to learn at the usual time, for various reasons, but who can make progress in the security of a hospital. Education of this sort is provided in many hospitals for such patients as can benefit from it. It is clearly desirable that a patient who may return to the community should be able to read a little, even if it is only the names of the destinations of buses. The nature of the occupation or training prescribed for an individual patient must depend on his needs and capabilities, and also on the facilities of the hospital.
  Work in the wards and in hospital utility departments—laundry, sewing, room, kitchen—is of considerable value, and can give useful occupation to a large number of patients. Hospitals also offer a wide range of specialised activities in workshops of various sorts,
  1448
  occupational therapy departments, gardens, and so on. In some cases the patients obtain a high degree of skill and produce useful and beautiful work, but it is obvious that there are many who could not undertake the more advanced activities of this kind.
  Training and education does not merely cover this kind of activity, but extends to the whole of the patients' lives in hospital—to recreation and to all their relationships with other patients and with the staff. The patient has to be helped, so far as his abilities allow, to live with his handicap in a community, and this process affects all aspects of his life in hospital. Not all hospitals provide services up to the standard we would like to see. There is a serious shortage of accommodation, and apart from this many hospitals do not have the facilities they would like for providing training and occupation.
  It is perhaps worth citing as an example a hospital which provides a very wide range of occupation and training. In the unit for women there is a school for children, run by a headmistress and three assistants. For the severely subnormal children there are occupational therapy classes where a very wide range of skills is taught. At the unit for men a wide range of skills are taught and many of the workshops are supervised by skilled tradesmen instructors. There is also a school for those who can benefit from it. A similarly wide range of activities, though at a lower level of achievement, is provided at the unit for low-grade men. In addition, there is a training hostel for high-grade adolescent girls, a hostel which provides training in domestic science, and a school for boys aged nine to 16.
  I quote this to show what can be done. The importance of providing such facilities for those patients who can benefit from them is being increasingly clearly recognised. Many improvements have been made through recent new building and upgrading of existing building, and further developments will take place.
  My hon. Friend referred to Dr. Tizard's unit for mentally defective children at the Fountain Hospital. This is a very small unit with a high staffing ratio, which was started with the idea that mentally defective children would

  1449
  benefit from living in something approximating as nearly as possible to a family atmosphere. Their mode of life would be similar to that of normal young children at the same stage of mental development. The unit is run on much the same lines as a small residential nursery and has achieved very satisfactory results.
  This was probably to be expected, for doctors generally would agree that the possibility of individual attention conferred by a high staffing ratio can achieve much for patients of this type. But inevitable limitations on capital programmes, and the difficulties experienced in recruiting staff, means that schemes of this sort, however good the results achieved, can at present have only a limited application.
  My hon. Friend, and the hon. Gentleman the Member for St. Pancras, North (Mr. K. Robinson) both referred to research into this question. A good deal is being done in this field, particularly on the genetic basis of mongolism and in the biochemistry of the body and its relation to subnormality of the mind. The National Health Service is playing its full part in this work.
  We would not wish to interfere with the freedom of universities to develop research in their own way and money is available in the usual way through the universities, the foundations, and the Mental Health Research Fund for studies
  1450
  of this kind. The Medical Research Council is also carrying out studies in genetics and on the psychological and educational problems of the severely subnormal. I hope that I have shown that we are most conscious of this problem. Considerable progress has been made in providing training centres or adequate hospital facilities, but there is much more to be done, we know, and we intend to go on doing it.
  I have always had the greatest admiration for the parents of these children, particularly the mothers. They do a wonderful job in the care that they give the children and the love—it seems to me the extra love—which they lavish on a child which is so unfortunate. The general community has a debt to parents who carry this responsibility, and, in turn, the community should help in providing services which will give relief to the parents concerned. Indeed, the community should provide the services at such an early stage that we may hope that these children will play their part in normal life, limited though it may be, and be prevented from coming under the necessity of going into hospital.
  For that reason, I am particularly glad that we have had an opportunity to discuss this matter tonight, no matter how late the hour.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at one minute to Twelve o'clock.

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  Dartford-Purfleet Tunnel
  Dartford-Purfleet Tunnel
  Stratford-Birmingham Road
  Stratford-Birmingham Road
  Road Accidents, Christmas (Investigation)
  Road Accidents, Christmas (Investigation)
  Road Programme
  Road Programme
  Great North Road, Stanborough (Accidents)
  Great North Road, Stanborough (Accidents)
  The Bull Crossing, Stanborough (Accidents)
  The Bull Crossing, Stanborough (Accidents)
  Great North Road, Hertfordshire (Improvement)
  Great North Road, Hertfordshire (Improvement)
MINISTRY OF DEFENCE
  Nuclear Weapons (France)
  Nuclear Weapons (France)
  LAOS (SOVIET NOTE)
  LAOS (SOVIET NOTE)
  GERMANY (CAPTURED DOCUMENTS)
  GERMANY (CAPTURED DOCUMENTS)
NATIONAL FINANCE
  Income Tax
  Income Tax
  National Insurance Contributions (Tax Relief)
  National Insurance Contributions (Tax Relief)
EMPLOYMENT
  Sunderland
  Sunderland
SCIENTIFIC AND INDUSTRIAL RESEARCH
  Road Accidents, Christmas (Analysis)
  Road Accidents, Christmas (Analysis)
ROYAL NAVY
  Dockyard Workers (Pay)
  Dockyard Workers (Pay)
AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
  Horticultural Marketing Council (Membership)
  Horticultural Marketing Council (Membership)
MINISTRY OF POWER
  Steel Works, Llanwern (Coke-oven Gas)
  Steel Works, Llanwern (Coke-oven Gas)
SCOTLAND
  Hospital Building Programme
  Hospital Building Programme
TRADE AND COMMERCE
  United Kingdom and Common Market Countries (Tariffs)
  United Kingdom and Common Market Countries (Tariffs)

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Southwell

LORD CASEY
The Right Honourable Richard Gardiner Casey, C.H., D.S.O., M.C., having been created Baron Casey, of Berwick in the State of Victoria and Commonwealth of Australia, and of the City of Westminster, for life—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.
The Duke of Northumberland—Took the Oath.

MALARIA ERADICATION
LORD AMULREE: 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 whether they will make a special contribution to the Malaria Eradication Special Account which will be sponsored by the World Health Organisation.]
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, Her Majesty's Government already contribute substantially to the regular budget of the World Health Organisation and other international funds which devote large sums to anti-malaria work. They also contribute to the cost of such work in United Kingdom overseas territories. Her Majesty's Government do not, therefore, feel able to make an additional special contribution to this account.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord for his reply, but I would ask him whether, in view of the fact that the Director of the World Health Organisation has said that it should be possible for malaria to be eradicated from the world by 1970 if this fund is fully subscribed to,
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Her Majesty's Government cannot think again on this point, particularly in view of the fact that Her Majesty's Government has control or is interested in such a large number of countries where malaria is very rife.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, the noble Lord in his question referred to a special contribution to the Malaria Eradication Special Account, and while not attempting, to contradict the views of the noble Lord on what may or may not be possible in this direction technically, the fact is that since the war the United Kingdom has done a great deal in its own dependent territories and by contributing to international funds. It is the Government's view that voluntary extra-budgetary funds, which the noble Lord had in mind, are not a sound way of financing continuing programmes of international organisations which have a regular budget. All activities undertaken by the World Health Organisation should form part of a co-ordinated programme within a regular budget drawn up in accordance with pre-determined priorities. That is the view of Her Majesty's Government on the particular proposal which the noble Lord made today as to how the contribution could be made.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, I should like once more to thank the noble Lord for what he has said. I would ask two more questions of him. Is he not aware that the Governments of the United States and of the Soviet Union are making large contributions to this particular fund? That is the first question. The second question is this. The malarial mosquito is becoming more and more resistant to being killed by what we know at present as D.D.T. and such substances. Therefore, do not Her Majesty's Government think that the question is now becoming extremely urgent. And although I know that they give considerable sums to the W.H.O., could they not make an exception in this case in view of the urgency of the problem now?
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I can only repeat that our contributions are very substantial. The noble Lord has referred to the contributions of Russia. I am not sure whether he was referring in his last supplementary question to Russia's contribution to the

931
Special Account. Russia's contributions to the Special Account are not very large. To the main account, to which we also contribute, they are substantial. We are in fact the third largest contributor after the United States and the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union's contribution to the extra account which the noble Lord has in mind is not very great.
THE EARL OF LUCAN: My Lords, the noble Lord takes his stand on the ground that this is all a matter of the W.H.O. But is he not aware that this work is something additional to the ordinary work of the W.H.O., and that for that purpose the United States and other countries have contributed so that the total expenditure for last year, 1959, was something like 45 million dollars? Would he not also agree that a contribution to this Special Account for eradication is the least that we look for from Her Majesty's Government?
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, in point of fact, as the noble Earl says, the United States have contributed very generously to this extra Special Account. They have contributed three times—five million, three million and three million dollars. The other contributions have not been of any great significance. I should like to point out that, so far as the eradication of malaria is concerned, the record of this country is high in all our own territories. In fact, I could give the noble Earl a list of the British dependent territories where eradication has been complete. The noble Lord, Lord Shepherd, I think is in his place, and I believe he will be able to stand by me and agree as to the great success which has been achieved in Singapore and in Malaya. This has been entirely British initiative and has been completely successful. At the moment, I can say that in Sarawak, in Zanzibar and in many parts of the West Indies eradication is in sight, and eradication programmes have begun in North Borneo and in Trinidad. So we are not sitting still on this question of eradication.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, is it not a fact that the malarial mosquito does not respect territorial boundaries, and that if we are really to maintain the eradication we are achieving in our
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territories we must do all we can to assist eradication in neighbouring territories and in backward countries as well?
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, the noble Lord mentioned my name. Would he not agree with the question which was put by my noble friend: that, in the end, it would be better to spend more money now to bring about an eradication of malaria, because at the present moment it is a continual expenditure without eradication?
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, the point of view of Her Majesty's Government is that this is not best done by a Special Account entered upon without any assurance that it will be fully subscribed, possibly producing a situation where a programme is entered upon which cannot be completed if the necessary contributions from other countries besides ourselves are not produced.
THE EARL OF LUCAN: My Lords, have Her Majesty's Government any ground for saying that this programme has been begun on too big a scale to be completed?
LORD ST. OSWALD: No. I do not think I suggested that. I said that we prefer to enter on, or to cope with, this problem under an accepted budget, a definite budget, and not in a form in which contributions could not be guaranteed.
LORD REA: My Lords, I do not want to carry this matter too far, but can the noble Lord say whether the Government's attitude is that a special contribution to a Special Account would not accelerate eradication of the malarial mosquito, or that it is not worth while?
THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord—I have some experience of this subject—whether it is not a fact that, over the last twenty years, this country has set a most remarkable example in what used to be called Colonial territories; and is it not about time that some of the other countries which have done little or nothing to help themselves should do a little to contribute towards this matter and not rely on the principle:
"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."—
LORD ST. OSWALD: In reply to my noble friend Lord Swinton, may I say that I tried to make the point earlier of the great contribution that we had made towards solving this international problem. In reply to the noble Lord, Lord Rea, I would say that I did not, I hope, give the impression that the Government questioned the feasibility of a plan for eradication. We question only the suitability of his noble friend's approach in the manner of doing it.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether it is not reasonable for my noble friend to put forward his supplementary question about other territories? British interests are involved. We have missionary societies and medical missions, the Baptists, the Presbyterians and the Church Missionary Society, in particular, who in many countries deal with medical research and have done a lot to eradicate malaria in those countries. Do we not want to help them as well as our Colonies?
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I am in absolute agreement that malaria is an international problem. I agree also with my noble friend Lord Swinton, who said that we have made a great contribution towards solving it. All I am saying is that the method proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, is not the method that we think most likely to achieve the complete result which he is aiming at.
LORD WINSTER: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord whether he is aware that, when in Cyprus, I won a cask of wine from the Governor of Sardinia for beating him in a race as to which of us would be the first to eradicate the Anopheles mosquito from our respective islands?
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I was aware that Cyprus was the first place in the British Dominions from which malaria had been eradicated, but I was not aware of the noble Lord's part in that achievement.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, in view of the great interest shown in this subject by Members of your Lordships' House, I wonder whether it would be possible for Her Majesty's Government, or for the noble Lord's right honourable
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friend, to look into this matter again, to see whether, if possible, some change can be made in our contributions?
LORD ST. OSWALD: Certainly Her Majesty's Government are always looking into it. I should not like anything that I have said to imply that they were not, and that they will not continue to look into it. It is a question of the line of approach suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, and at the moment we are not ready to accept it.

BRITAIN AND THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITY
2.58 p.m.
LORD GRANTCHESTER: 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 whether they have received confirmation of the reported unanimous decision of the Foreign Ministers of the European Community that there should be an early resumption of trade talks with this country.]
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (THE EARL OF DUNDEE): My Lords, we have not yet received an official communication from the Ministers of the Six; but we look forward to hearing from them in the near future.
LORD GRANTCHESTER: My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for his reply.

SOMERSET COUNTY COUNCIL BILL
Read 2a, and committed to an Unopposed Bill Committee.
BRIGHTON CORPORATION BILL
Read 2a, and committed to an Unopposed Bill Committee.
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF ENGLAND BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
DOCK WORKERS (PENSIONS) BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and to be printed.
SCOTTISH AMERICAN INVESTMENT ORDER BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a, and (pursuant to the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1936) deemed to have been read 2a and reported from the Committee.

THE YOUTH SERVICE AND THE ALBEMARLE REPORT
3.0 p.m.
LORD PAKENHAM LORD PAKENHAM rose to call attention to the Youth Service, with special reference to the Albemarle Report (Cmnd. 929); and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, once again we have a fine turnout for a debate on the Youth Service. In February of last year we held the first debate on this subject which had ever been held in either House of Parliament. I believe that a score of noble Lords and noble Ladies then took part, and I am glad to think that many of them are to take part again to-day. Her Majesty's Government are strongly represented by the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Hailsham, who I am glad to think will be replying at the end of the day; but the noble Earl, Lord Dundee (who on that occasion, if I may say so, made a most constructive speech which in one or two respects, so far as I can judge, has since affected policy) is not taking part. The noble Lord, Lord Craig-ton, I understand, will deal with Scottish questions. Alas ! I am afraid that I am unable to raise any Scottish questions. I possess two Scottish grandchildren. They are little Tories at the moment, but with children of that age one cannot tell where they are going; and perhaps they will supply me with very acceptable material. So at the moment I am afraid I must leave the noble Lord, Lord Craigton, unharassed by me.
Last year we ranged very widely over the Youth Services and delved to the best of our ability into the psychology
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of contemporary youth. To-day I am not going to deal at any length with psychology or the existing services. On those and other points no one is better qualified to speak than the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood, who has given so many years' service in this field and will follow me. I should remind the House that for every five young people to-day between the ages of 15 and 20 there will be, in 1964, six young people; and the Albemarle Committee reckon that in some New Towns the increase will be five-fold. We note—and we are glad of it—that the youth of the nation to-day are better fed, clothed and educated than any of their predecessors. They certainly have more money to spend. We all knew that before, but the Albemarle Committee have confirmed that. They estimate that, whereas before the war ordinary young persons had only a few shilling to spend after giving something to their parents, to-day they have, on average, about £3 a week.
So far as figures mean anything (and we know that these particular figures are not very satisfactory) young people today commit a good deal more crime—although the Report points out, very rightly, that only 2 per cent. of boys, and about 0·2 per cent. of girls, between the ages of 14 and 21 are in fact convicted in any one year. In my opinion (others may have more profound views) there is no evidence as to whether young people to-day are morally better or worse than any earlier generation. It is certainly highly relevant to discuss the special psychological characteristics of the present young people in deciding the kind of Youth Service that is most appropriate to their needs. I myself am very glad, as I believe others will be, that the Albemarle Report develops what I would call the overwhelming permanent arguments for an adequate Youth Service such as we have not yet possessed; and those permanent arguments would not lose their force if the rate of juvenile delinquency were, for example, halved to-morrow.
For what my opinion is worth, I find the similarities between young people of to-day and those of yesterday much more striking than the dissimilarities; and, after all, the young people of yesterday were more restless and unsettled than it is now the fashion to recall. I myself, for example, have two children who

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walked from Aldermaston to Trafalgar Square the other day, and one who walked a great part of the way from John o'Groats to Land's End; and many other young people did the same. As regards those two walks, only one obvious difference occurs to me. Canon Collins marched at the head of his column throughout. Mr. Butlin's attitude to exercise was reported to be slightly different, for he said:
"When I feel the need for exercise coming over me, I sit down in my armchair till it wears off."
That, of course, is the alternative philosophy, although no doubt both are very much interested in the young.
This craving for extraordinary physical exertion is not confined to 1960. I remember a race when I was an undergraduate run over more than a mile through Christ Church Meadow after dinner by the light of lanterns, when one who was to become a great economist—Sir Roy Harrod—was "pipped on the post" by a Fellow of All Souls—none other than the noble and learned Viscount, Lord Hailsham, who I am sure is capable of repeating the feat this evening. At any rate, while the externals alter the substance of it, I am glad to think, remains unchanged.
To-day, however, in my opening remarks, at any rate, I am concerned only with the Albemarle Report, and the question what do Her Majesty's Government propose to do about that Report? No one can fail to salute the noble Countess, Lady Albemarle, and her colleagues for a Report of the highest quality which will always be a landmark in the history of the Youth Service. I hope I shall not be thought indelicate if I suggest to the talented authors of the Younghusband Report and the Crowther Report, the verbosity of both of which has been commented upon quite a little, that they could learn a good deal from the noble Lady and her colleagues in respect of brevity and general presentation. But I must concentrate on a few salient points.
The Albemarle Report accepts the vehement opinion of nearly all noble Lords who spoke in our debate last year in one vital respect. The Report endorses our scathing criticisms—and those criticisms were expressed without reference to Party—of official policy towards the Youth Service for years past. Those
938
criticisms were expressed by the noble Earl, Lord Feversham, and by other noble Lords in all parts of the House. The House will recall the evidence given by the spokesman of the Ministry of Education to the Select Committee on May 2, 1957, which was quoted in the debate last year and which is certainly true. The Ministry spokesman said in 1957:
"Among the many services which might be further expanded and developed, the Youth Service is one which it has been definite policy for some time now not to advance."
That particular statement is not quoted in the Albemarle Report, but the Committee do not mince their words. They point out that over the twelve years up to and including 1957–58 direct expenditure by the Ministry of Education on the Youth Service had fallen by a quarter, in terms of real money, when the Welfare State and education services in general were being rapidly expanded. Of every £1 spent on education, only about 1d. goes on the Youth Services—1d. out of every £1 of the total educational expenditure of this country. The Report says:
"It is hardly surprising that this lack of encouragement has checked the momentum with which the service was launched and has betrayed the high hopes of those who believed in it."
The Committee explicitly accept the evidence of a large number of witnesses who complained that the powers of the Ministry and local education authorities had not been exercised in accordance with the spirit and intention of Parliament when conferring them. One could hardly put it more plainly. They say:
"We are convinced that the absence of an effective lead has contributed largely to the weaknesses in the existing service."
I do not think I am overstating things if I say that the Committee substantiate up to the hilt the charges that were made from every side of the House last year—the charges that the Youth Service has been scandalously neglected. Se much, my Lords, had to be said, too, this afternoon.
I know that we are all concerned with the future and not with the past. There are in this excellent Report 44 recommendations, of which I can pick out only five for particular mention. Before indicating these five, however, I would remind the House that there are three general conclusions or, if you like, assumptions: the need for a large

939
expansion of the Service globally, the need for some new approaches, and the need for a continuance of the threefold partnership between the State, the local authorities and the voluntary bodies. There is certainly emphatic reaffirmation of the need for that partnership and for the maintenance of the voluntary principle. May I take the five recommendations? First, we can all, surely, approve the 10-year development programme for the Youth Service and the appointment of a Youth Service Development Council to advise the Minister during that period. We can approve, even more emphatically, the demand for a generous and imaginative building programme with special attention to the design of more attractive premises. Third, we can fervently echo the insistence on active steps to increase the number of youth leaders; and we can (and I am sure that on these points I am speaking for the whole House, or virtually the whole House) warmly support the emergency training college, which would offer a one-year course for men and women in youth leadership while the long-term programme for leaders was getting under way.
As regards the long-term programme, I think that many of us will feel that the target of the Committee, the target of 1,300 leaders on the job by 1966, as compared with 700 to-day, is poor-spirited and unenterprising. My own Party—this is not a Party issue—a little while ago called for an immediate trebling of the existing number, which would take us to over 2,000. And although we are all well aware of the difficulty of securing enough teachers not only in this field but in all other fields of education, we are reminded in the Report that in 1958 the teaching profession already numbered over 250,000 in the maintained and assisted schools; and I personally would certainly hope that a very much bigger figure than 1,300 full-time youth leaders will in the end be aimed at.
There is a fourth point of great value in paragraph 307—and I hope that I am not embarrassing him if I suggest that possibly the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, contributed to this finding. This particular paragraph will appeal to all who believe that a national morality which attempts to maintain it
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self without religious belief is forced to live on rapidly dwindling capital. In this paragraph, the Minister is urged to end an injustice which is at present suffered by voluntary bodies with denominational allegiances. The Methodists are mentioned in the Report as having undergone particular hardship. I can certainly say the same of my own, the Roman Catholic, Communion. The Report says:
"The sole criterion should be the value of the social and educational work."
My Lords, whatever our doctrinal beliefs, I should hope that we could all accept that very liberal statement of the position.
There is a fifth recommendation (as I have said, there are 44 altogether, though I am selecting only a few) on which I would ask leave to dwell for a moment or two longer. The Youth Service, we are told in the Report, should be available for all young people aged from 14 to 20 inclusive. Well, without going into the whole history of this question, or the past or present definitions of "The Youth Service", which are, after all, man-made and can be altered by man, and were not in any way delivered from Sinai, one is bound to ask bluntly, "Why stop at 14 on the way down?" I know that several noble Lords intend to deal with the question forcefully. In the eyes of many concerned with the Youth Service, the Committee have shown a distressing failure to acknowledge the value of the work with the under-14s. I expect that the noble Viscount, Lord Monck, the noble Lord, Lord Baden-Powell, and the noble Earl, Lord Buckinghamshire, will have a lot to say about that; and I certainly sympathise with what I imagine is their point of view. I know that this has caused concern and disappointment to many voluntary organisations in this country which are doing such excellent work with the younger age groups. There is a large body of opinion, inside and outside those organisations which feels that 11, for example, would have been a more sensible lower age for the Youth Service. I must leave it to other speakers to develop this point of view. I know that the Boy Scouts' Association along with the Girl Guides and the Boys' Brigade feel strongly about this matter, and I think that other organisations also feel strongly about it.
I myself agree that there is everything to be said for young people taking up Youth Service activities for some years before they leave school, so that they are property armed, morally and socially, before they are called upon to face the difficult transition from school to work. I therefore respectfully beg the Government to say plainly to-day, or on a later occasion, that the training of boys and girls in the voluntary organisations during the years before they leave school is of real and recognised value. And I urge them, as an expression of that belief, to make funds available to assist the national headquarters of the voluntary organisations with their under 14 work, and I urge that local authorities should be stimulated to give much more effective help to the units of those organisations.
So much, my Lords, for the expansions, the quantitative side. What about the qualitative aspect?—what might be called the new approaches. The Report has called for both total expansion and other new approaches. Here, the Report, with all its many virtues, ran into trouble from two quarters. A leading article in The Times Educational Supplement—and perhaps some of your Lordships read with interest that article, and certainly the special section devoted to Youth; there was a whole series of articles in one issue devote to youth—described the Report as"timid and unexciting". It treated It—I am not quoting how—as throwing in its lot with the existing organisations and failing to realise that the future lies with the experimental groups. It could be retorted that there are favourable references in the Report to coffee bars and street football, to skiffle and washboard groups, and to self-programming groups generally; also to the need for more participation and responsibility, and for opportunities of leadership for club members.
It cannot be said, however, that the Report has done much more than make a few friendly gestures in this direction. The Committee themselves say that
"No Report of this kind can hope to lay down programmes of activities or give birth to new ideas."
That seemed a rather poor statement on their considerations, but that is what they actually say. The Report continues:
"New modes of youth work spring up from their roots in the field, and in the future it
942
will be for the Youth Service Development Council to appraise these and make their value known."
That is what the Committee say in their Report. Some of your Lordships, while thinking of new approaches, and of "unclubbable" boys and other difficult cases, may have read with great interest the article in the Daily Telegraph to-day by Mr. Bagnall, but I must leave that aspect of things to the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, and to a number of other speakers. I would myself say, before passing from it, that, when it comes to experiment, I personally cannot draw a sharp line between on the one side the well-tried organisations, many of whom have been conducting all kinds of experiments in the recent rather difficult years, and, on the other, the new organisations, which are still struggling to be born but should be welcomed into the field. There is no reason whatever why both kinds of organisation should not be suitably encouraged.
From the other side, the Report has been attacked, and some sharp things have been said, and may be said to-day—and I am very glad that we have a strong ecclesiastical oratory coming to us to-day—in respect particularly of paragraph 143. That paragraph in the Report concedes:
"Denominational or specifically committed organisations must remain free to give expression to their spiritual ideals in their youth work."
The Committee could hardly have conceded less. But, in general, they consider it better, to use their own words,
"for principles to be seen shining through works than for them to be signalised by some specific spiritual assertion".
It seems to me clear—and I expect it will seem to others—that here the Committee are suffering from an unwarranted moral and religious defeatism. I must leave this aspect to other speakers, and particularly to those from the Bishops' Bench, but I would myself suggest that no one who is frightened of being called a "do-gooder" will be able to do much good to his fellow man. Indeed, the very phrase "do-gooder" is one of the most effective in the Devil's armoury. No doubt the approach must vary between the coffee-bar type of club and the denominational organisation; and no doubt there are many different ways

943
of doing good under those valuable headings suggested by the Committee. Your Lordships will recall their headings: association, training and challenge; and no doubt it is possible to do good in many different ways under each heading.
The inspiration of the Youth Service has, of course, been, and always should be, infinitely varied. The initiative may come from a great leader of men like Sir John Hunt, through the Duke of Edinburgh's Awards; or (as in a case within my knowledge) it may come through the proprietor of a working-class café, who is even now trying to raise £300 or £400 to convert his basement into a meeting place for a small body of wandering young people who have come to rest in his café. In my own village, the initiative has come for many years from a devoted schoolmaster and his wife, and, more recently, from their successors. Next door to us, in the neighbouring village, there is a first-class club which has just come into existence through the labours of a local doctor and of friends he appealed to. He has won the confidence and help (in present circumstances, at any rate, the generous help) of the local authorities and of the Ministry, which I hope will not be dissipated when it is discovered that he has made me president.
But this initiative can take a great many different forms. In some sense or other the whole value of the youth movement has flowed, and I am sure always will flow, from its moral impulse and widespread moral dedication. Without that kind of ultimate moral purpose, its value to the community and its claim on the resources of the community would largely, if not wholly, disappear. On the other hand, as the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, has said and has written elsewhere, we cannot help the young people, and we cannot help the young people to help themselves, unless, to use his expression, we can get them in; so that the need for experiment is unending and continuous.
My Lords, apart from the failure which I have mentioned—namely, to deal with the under-14s—and I suppose that the Committee could argue, though perhaps not very convincingly, that that was outside their terms of reference—their Report suffers in the eyes of many of us
944
from one major defect: I refer to the failure to indicate even an approximate figure of what their plans would cost. I have heard it said that in the minds of more than one member of the Committee an ultimate figure to be reached some years hence might be £18 million or £20 million a year from public funds compared with the present £3 million. Whether that is so or not—that will be some years ahead—one would assume that public expenditure is intended to be much larger than now when everyone—including the Minister Sir David Eccles in his statement on February 3—has agreed that the resources placed at the disposal of the Youth Service are inadequate.
But if we leave out even an approximate figure—and I know that it could not be at all precise—the public and the rest of us are left without even the dimmest idea of the scale of the expansion contemplated. Those fighting for the Service whether inside or outside official quarters are left without their strongest card—a public commitment to some definite target. My great fear is that some years from now when the whole impetus behind this Report has died down we shall find that we are spending perhaps twice as much as now instead of six times as much; that would be 2d. compared with every £1 now spent on education; and of course the total expenditure on education will by that time be very much larger. I fear that when that time is reached the whole thing will not be very much bigger. One will be able to point to some increase at least and there will be a lot of mutual congratulation; but if that comes about this fleeting opportunity of a really major advance in the Youth Service will have been lost for ever or at any rate for many years.
It is time to turn, though there is time to turn only briefly, to the reactions of the Government. We must all congratulate the Minister, Sir David Eccles, on more things than one in this connection, but on one thing most assuredly. On February 3, with the issue of the Report, he announced in Parliament [OFFICIAL REPORT, Commons, Vol. 616, col. 999]:
"We accept in principle all the main recommendations for Government action."
That is talking, one might fairly say; and it is the kind of talking which, in the

945
social services, and certainly the youth services, we do not hear often enough. The Minister went on to say something which was quite natural and inevitable, and which I hope to bear in mind in any comments I make now of a critical nature. He said:
"We have much to discuss with our partners before deciding precisely how to act on the Albemarle recommendations. The necessary discussions will take place urgently."
I am in no way "behind the scenes", but I presume that those discussions are taking place; and I hope they are taking place urgently. Perhaps I should add, if it is not improper to do so, that the Ministry of Education has been greatly strengthened (this, I think, is public knowledge; I see that Lady Albemarle herself alluded to it in a recent speech), both qualitatively and quantitatively, from the point of view we are discussing to-day; and certainly neither the interest of the Minister, according to my information, nor that of those closely concerned with youth in his Department is questioned by well-informed people.
The Government have again done well to announce that an emergency training college for youth leaders will be opened by January 1, 1961, which is an even earlier date than the Committee seemed to think possible. So in that respect, at least, the Government have been moving ahead of the Committee. When, a little while ago, I attended the annual conference of the National Youth Officers, there was a good deal of anxiety and some despondency about the likelihood of obtaining the necessary recruits for this college unless something could be said quickly about their salaries and their prospects. I realise that these points are still under discussion, but I hope that the Ministers will today be able to say something helpful, particularly because of the short time between now and the institution of the college; and I hope that they will be able to allay the pessimism which many well-disposed people feel at the moment.
Taking the whole question of securing the necessary numbers of youth leaders and others to help in the Service, I have a rather ghastly fear that a chance is ebbing away from us—although, of course, it is not yet too late. Last year I suggested here—and it has since been supported in responsible quarters—that not only the Minister of Education but
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the Prime Minister himself should try to indicate to the nation the altogether new significance that was going to be given to the Youth Service in the future. I repeat that suggestion. But if that is impossible—and I do not see why it should be—I hope that not only the Minister, but unattached colleagues, such I as the Lord Privy Seal, who are known for their interest and concern for education, will speak much more often and more emphatically about this great movement for youth.
In particular we want to be told from the highest quarter about the greater public service that can be rendered by young men and women who become full-time or part-time youth leaders, whether under the emergency scheme or under the long-term programme. It is not only the professional youth leaders I am thinking of, for I am told that for every full-time leader there are on the average about 250 unpaid leaders and helpers, and the need for them is going to be even greater if the Service expands. So 1 plead with the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, and his colleagues to let an urgent call go out from the highest quarters to all who will lend a hand and share i the burden and opportunity in any capacity whatever, paid or unpaid.
I was very glad, and said so at the time, when the Minister announced straight away that he proposed to set up the recommended Youth Service Development Council and himself take the chair at the beginning. Like many others connected with the Service, I was disappointed when the names were announced. I could use stronger words and so could others, but I cannot say less than that. I am sure that every member is a blameless citizen, revered in his circle and anxious to help our young people. Collectively, however, they do not carry the weight in the public mind which I and many others would have hoped for. If I prove entirely wrong in this, I hope that I shall be the first to come down to your Lordships' House and apologise; and may I in fact prove entirely mistaken!
I have left to the end my main anxiety, the main worry of most of us. I refer to the financial prospect. It is too early to condemn the Government on this score, because none of us knows—at least I do not—what financial help

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in fact will be forthcoming from Governmental quarters. But the signs are anything but encouraging in this respect. I am a good deal more pessimistic than I was the day after the Report was announced and after Sir David's first statement. All we know for certain is that in the next two years starts, as they are called, will be authorised for building by the local authorities and voluntary organisations up to £3 million—that is to say, £1½ million a year. I gather that even this does not mean that any particular sum is being promised by the Government. It seems to be certain, however, that the general grant will be increased to take into account this sum of £3 million, so that at least half the burden of the £3 million will ultimately be borne by the Government. That appears to be the position. The general disposition among authorities with whom I have been in touch is to regard this figure of £3 million as ridiculously small, compared with what they could spend, and indeed must spend, if the Service is to fulfil the aims of the Albermarle Committee or be in any way adequate.
We may hear more to-day, and I expect that we shall, about the difficulties of authorising a larger commitment at this stage, quite apart from any financial stringency, but I must leave the Government to explain those difficulties. I can only stress the great disappointment, and indeed bewilderment, caused at this stage by this exiguous figure of £3 million. I hope that if it cannot be altered during the two years we are talking about, at least we can have our hopes raised this afternoon with regard to the following period.
But the question of the £3 million and the two years is not the most fundamental anxiety felt by myself and by so many others. Many of your Lordships will be familiar with paragraph 317 of the Report, which deals with expenditure by local education authorities, but if not, I would remind your Lordships of what I think is its burden. It is obvious that the Committee assume that local authorities must be asked to spend a great deal more and, if they are asked to do so, that the Government must be generous in sharing the burden. I do not want to-day to revive the controversy about percentage grants versus bulk grants, which has been
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settled for the time, at least, though I think wrongly. It is fairly obvious from the Report that, taking this one aspect of things alone, it would be found much easier to suggest how incentives could be given to local authorities if the percentage grant were still in force. But, failing the restoration of the percentage grant—and I am not expecting a volte face in that respect—a special grant for the Youth Service would be the next best thing. Failing that, it is clearly essential, if the local authorities are to do what we all now expect of them, that something much more definite should be said than has yet been said about the revision of the general grant for this purpose.
In a circular issued on March 31 the Ministry announced that:
"expenditure on the Youth Service and the need to develop it will be taken into consideration when the amount of general grant for the next period is fixed."
If that is all, it is a very feeble inducement, and I think that it has been felt to be so by the local authorities. The Minister himself, one gathers from a statement which was issued on March 7, accepts the aim of doubling the Youth Service. I think it is a fair interpretation of his words to assume that doubling the Youth Service means doubling the numbers in the Service, and presumably that means much more than doubling the cost, in view of the need for much better buildings, more leaders and so on. I find at the moment a conflict which perhaps will be partially resolved to-day, between this declared purpose of doubling the Youth Service at, I suppose some not very far distant time, and the niggardly indications that we have so far been given as regards finance.
I find a disposition among local authorities to refrain from putting forward the kind of ambitious schemes which the best of them would like to do—not all of them, because there are such things as slack local authorities. And I see a real danger of the whole thing falling between two stools: the local authorities hanging back and blaming the Ministry, and the Ministry blaming the local authorities for lack of enterprise and claiming, like Mr. Khrushchev—indeed both sides, in the end, may say—that their hands are clean and their souls are pure. We shall not have greatly expanded the Youth Service if that

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proves to be the result. They both feel that they have proper excuses.
I beg the Government, therefore, to remove as many anxieties as possible to-day, both with regard to the expenditure expected of local authorities and with regard to Ministry grants to voluntary organisations, which, we are told, but only in a rather vague way, are going to be increased. The extent of the help that the Government are ready to give to the headquarters of voluntary organisations in the immediate future (although this is not the whole story) will certainly be regarded as one of the surest tests of the Government's real intentions towards the future of the Service. In other words, the coming year—indeed, in the next few months—is going to be crucial if the country is going to be persuaded that the Youth Service will really be placed on an altogether higher plane of official attention; unless the country is persuaded of that in the beginning, I am afraid, as I said earlier, that a unique but fleeting opportunity will have disappeared.
My Lords, I do not want to end on anything like a Party note, but it is the duty, not only of the official Opposition, but of all those who care for youth, to make sure that those in the Government and in the official world who mean business by the Youth Service—and I am sure that there are plenty of them—are properly supported and that any who stand in our way should be warned that the shocking story of the past must not be repeated. It is probable that the promotion of a worthy Youth Service will always be the hardest part of the Ministry of Education's duty, if only because we are all anxious—I certainly am—to rely so largely on the voluntary principle in providing this service. Again, those who use it, unlike the children who are compelled to attend school by law, are themselves volunteers, free to avail themselves of it or not as they choose. So I think it will always be the hardest part of the Ministry's duty. I cannot help thinking that this is the reason why this particular duty has been shirked in the past, and is also, I am afraid, the reason why it is more likely than any other part of the work to be shirked in the future.
Those who care for youth—and this, I know, includes the Ministers who speak to-day, and also the Minister of Education and the officials most concerned
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in his Ministry—carry an exceptional responsibility at this time if the fine ideals of the Albermarle Report are to be realised in practice over the next few years. If the Government do nothing very much they will never be forgiven; but if, as I hope, they do intend to bring about a peaceful revolution in the help we are giving to our young people then they will deserve to be blessed unto the third and fourth generation. I beg to move for Papers.
3.41 p.m.
BARONESS ELLIOT OF HARWOOD: My Lords, I am sure we are all indebted to the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, for once again bringing this subject; to our attention, because it is of absorbing interest and great importance at this moment. I should like to add my congratulations to Lady Albemarle and her Committee for their altogether excellent Report. It is highly readable—which is not what all Reports of that kind are—and also brilliantly done and at a moment of great importance in our ideas of education and further education. It is up to date and modern in the way of its outlook. If your Lordships have had the opportunity of reading even one Chapter, Chapter 9, which is well named, "The Youth Service and Society—A New Focus", I think you will realise that, in spite of what the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, said, which is quite true, that young people do not change very much from one generation to another, the conditions under which they grow up and live do change a great deal.
In this Report the authors have stressed, I think rightly, that there is a need for a new look at the influence of industry, for instance, on the lives of the young, both when they are working inside the factories and when they are outside the factories in their leisure time. The Committee recognise, as the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, said, that there is an enormous change in the wage rates of young people. Whereas in 1938 an adolescent earned 26s. or 24s. a week, in 1958 it was £5 12s. or £5 6s. a week. In 1938 young people were largely dependent on their parents and families, but to-day they are largely independent. Back in the 1930's I well remember that young people seldom went away from their homes in the big cities more than once a year, and then on a more or

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less conventional family holiday to the seaside; whereas to-day many of them are possessors of motor cycles and even of motor cars, and they go off at the week-ends and on any opportunity that comes to them. Their holidays are adventurous holidays. They go far afield, they go climbing and they go pony trekking, usually with friends or in club groups; and only occasionally do they go on the old-fashioned family holiday of the past. All these things, and many more, we know from experience; they have been described in the Report, and in the year 1960 they have some bearing, I think, on how we should frame the Youth Service to-day.
I find the Report regards much of this enterprise and new spirit as highly commendable. There are, of course, drawbacks, because only a small proportion of young people, as the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, has said, to-day take part in the activities of adolescent groups, whether it is in further educational classes, leisure time activities or youth orgainsations or clubs of any kind. This, I think, is largely due to the lack of funds either from voluntary or from statutory sources to enable the organisations to make provision for all the young who would like to come in. It is also partially due to lack of interest on the part of local educational authorities, who, as the noble Lord said, have cut down in recent years on the money that used to be spent during the war and even immediately after the war. It is also due to lack of interest from the adult population, the ordinary people like ourselves, who should encourage in every way we can the formation of youth groups and organisations wherever they are needed. I could not help being amused by the noble Lord's description of the activities of the noble Viscount in his early days, when apparently he was engaged in very strenuous sports in the university in which he was then working. We all ought to take more interest in these problems.
The opposite end of this story, which has been described in the Report, is, as we know, the considerable increase in juvenile crime. In paragraphs 58 to 71 the Report gives figures which are really quite serious, although one does not want to take them too seriously, in so far as they affect only a small proportion. But
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the evidence is that convictions of youths aged 17 to 20 for offences in connection with drink had increased five-fold between 1946 and 1956; for crimes of violence, they had trebled; for sexual offences and disorderly conduct they had doubled. In the 14 to 16 age group, convictions for theft and disorder per 100,000 boys have decreased a little, but crimes of violence and sexual offences have risen as in the older age group. Among the girls, although the figures are smaller there has been an increase among the 17 to 20 age group for offences of these kinds, and in the 14 to 16 age group there are 2,000 offences per 100,000 of population, and, according to the Report, 1958 was a peak year, which is most disturbing.
In the old days there was supposed to be a correlation between poverty and crime and it was supposed that when there was no shortage of money there would be no crime. Today this cannot be the reason because, although we have not completely eliminated poverty, the groups we are considering are on the whole richer than at any time and have more of the world's goods at their disposal. Therefore the sociological reasons for this development are not clear and no one would point to a particular reason why delinquency has increased so much. Personally I have a theory that boredom is the worst enemy of the law and I think that we fail often both in education and in leisure-time activities to arouse the interests of the young. I once read in a journal (I cannot quote from it because I cannot remember what it was, although I think it was the Howard League Journal) that the last year at school was the peak year of juvenile crime and as the school leaving age was raised so the crime wave advanced one year. I am not sure if that holds good to-day but educationalists might well consider the last year at school in a critical light because when the young man and young woman—and, in particular, the young man—leaves school and goes into industry, supposedly into the wicked world, crime drops at once. This might be well worth considering in relation to the last year of our educational curriculum.
I think that both arousing and keeping the interest of the young is the biggest antidote to crime, and although I hold,

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like the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, that one does not wish to take a negative view of the Youth Service, there is no doubt that if we could recruit into the Youth Service 2 million young people by 1965—and this is the suggestion of the Minister of Education—the juvenile courts would be considerably emptied. But how can this be achieved? How can this Report be implemented? As the noble Lord has rightly said, these are the vital questions. We are much indebted xo the Minister because he has taken immediate initiative. He has become Chairman of this Committee; be has set up the Development Council and from everything he has said in his speeches I am sure he means business.
But however much the Minister of Education is interested, and however much drive he puts into this, the real people we have to influence are the local education authorities, because it is through them that the Minister has to works I believe that here noble Lords can play a considerable part. Many of your Lordships are chairmen of county councils or of local education authorities, and this question of financial help through the local authorities to the voluntary bodies, and also to those enterprises sponsored by the local education authorities, is extremely important.
The campaign for the Youth Service must be a partnership, as it always has been, between the voluntary and statutory organisations. I would go further and say that it ought to be a partnership between the adults and the young, because unless adults take some interest and give some encouragement to the young, it is very difficult to get premises, to arrange programmes, to get equipment and all the opportunities which make up an attractive modern youth club. One of the things I like particularly in the Albemarle Report is the suggested increase in co-operation between adult organisations, such as the local museum, the local library, the Arts Council exhibitions or, indeed, enlisting the interest, skill and support of adults who can make a contribution to working a youth club from their own knowledge and experience in many walks of life. This would break down the antagonism that is sometimes found between the young and the old, and bring both together in a complementary world.
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The Report stresses three streams of young people, as it were, who have to be catered for by the Youth Service. The top stream, which is much the easiest—they are keen on everything—are the people who go to the "Outward Bound" courses, people who take the Duke of Edinburgh's Awards. Some are being led this year by Sir John Hunt on an expedition to Greenland. About a couple of dozen have been seconded from industry, and are going to have this experience in character training. Industry is playing a great part in training boys and girls by allowing them to go to residential training courses run by different organisations. The one I know best is the National Association of Mixed Clubs and Girls' Clubs. They are running courses from holiday houses in Scotland, England and Wales, and these are enormously successful. They have had seven courses, and 175 young men, active workers in industry, have been trained in these courses. They are in full-time work, and 74 are now qualified as leaders for leisure-time activities in their own groups.
Then there is the middle stream of boys and girls, some of whom are adventurous but most of whom are content to do the ordinary things. For them the expansion of clubs and other organisations, if and when the leaders and money are available, would probably meet their demands. But again I hope we shall not be "stuck", as we sometimes are in conversation, by what is called a lack of leaders or of classes for leaders. In an article in the Scotsman which I have here, dated May 14, there is a description of Alloa's Manhattan Youth Club. It is very interesting indeed. Here is a club run by club members and ordinary people in the community in Alloa, mainly ordinary citizens, who make a great success of it without any professional leaders at all. I do not say that this can always be successful, but it is not impossible, given good will, to provide for teenagers without professional skill in this kind of way. I know that it is going on up and down the country.
The third group to which the Albemarle Report gives some attention is what I would call the most difficult, the anti-social groups. These often produce the gangs and the troubles. Here again, unorthodox methods, new ideas,

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new schemes, the coffee bars, and groups organising their own programmes, to which the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, referred, are helping to deal with this problem. I believe that if there were sufficient money much of this work could be expanded, and this would deal with the third and more difficult stream. But if we are to recruit 2 million young people into the Youth Service by 1965, then the numbers who come in as leaders, both voluntary and trained, will have to be enormously increased.
The plans in the Report which the Minister is taking up at once and is about to implement are excellent, but I confess that I do not think these leaders will be forthcoming unless salaries and conditions of service for the full-time leader compare with those of any other professional group, whether it be teacher, probation officer, or anyone in the social service world. That matter we must put right. I have been interested all my life in trying to get this done, but I have never yet succeeded. So we must be quite sure that such conditions of employment, training and service are approved, in order to lead to a future for the people going into this profession.
If we are going to recruit on this great scale, we must create a climate of opinion not only among educationists but among ordinary people that they really take this policy seriously and mean to make it work. Most of us here know the voluntary organisations and know the work they are doing. I know the mixed clubs and the girls' clubs best, and I know that everywhere, wherever they have an opportunity to develop and have some money, they can do so. They have residential holiday houses to which young workers in industry can go. They have what are called "endeavour courses", bringing out initiative and some experience of physical endurance among boys, and girls, too. They have groups coming from all over the United Kingdom, and also from overseas, to spend week-ends and weeks of training together. All these plans cost money, and all could be doubled if the money were available.
In the words of the Albemarle Report, the general needs of the adolescent can best be met by the general purpose club—and again I quote from the Report:
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"We do think it important to emphasise the value of mixed activities in our kind of society … Clubs and other groups can be a better preparation for life and for marriage if they reflect the mixed pattern of school and family life."
This point of view, I know, is occasionally disputed, but I am convinced, after long years of experience, that this is the best type of club, and it does not prevent one from having separate programmes for boys and girls. It is the overall community that is important—because we live, in fact, in a community which is composed of both sexes. The modern club is a centre for the planning of expeditions, of week-end activities. I know several clubs which go in for forestry activities at week-ends. There are all kinds of popular week-end work done by groups planned in the clubs during the week. The motor bicycle clubs have their own workshops and repair shops, and do their own work. They have canoeing, and so on. There is an enormous amount of activity going on, but it costs money; and money is hard to come by.
I should like to quote to your Lordships a letter that I had only a short time ago from an extremely energetic and excellent club organiser in the North of England. Tremendously encouraged by the Albemarle Report, they set out to double their work. Already their deficit at the bank is now over £1,300; and although they have been told they are going to get extra grant aid, it has not yet appeared; they are working on faith. And then he says:
"This week sees the commencement of an all-out fund-raising effort, with flag days and house-to-house collections. … The work involved in staging this has been terrific, even though a temporary appeals organiser has been appointed. We are feeling the strain of all this, and I can see no future in looking forward to this kind of thing as a yearly event. In fact the Albemarle Report seems to suggest that we shall be responsible for more of this kind of thing rather than less."
That is something which we hope will be taken off the shoulders of at least some of the people working in the field. The Albemarle Report says that the Committee do not think it right for club leaders and organisers to have to raise their own salaries. We must persuade the Central Government to give more money for this work. The noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, has alluded to £3 million, but even that £3 million, in my

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inquiry at the moment, has not yet been allocated in any very large sums. Some of the central organisations who are grant-aided are still waiting to hear what they are going to get to enable them to double their capacity and increase their plans: not a word has been given to them yet; some have been told of very small amounts of money which have been allocated to them. I think we must take this seriously and try to see that money is available for this purpose.
And then there are the local education authorities: I should hope that those of your Lordships who have opportunities would influence some of these education authorities to go into partnership and to help the voluntary organisations. Then of course the last source of money is the voluntary funds. The largest amount of voluntary funds come through the big trusts, the Carnegie Trust, the King George V Jubilee Trust. Here I would like to draw your Lordships' attention to the King George V Jubilee Trust appeal, about which I think many of you have been written to, which has just been launched. If we could persuade all those people in the country who have so generously subscribed to the Refugee appeal to give as much money to the King George V appeal, that would provide us with a great sum of money to help to recruit the 2 million boys and girls whom the Minister hopes to have. I think there is at this moment a great opportunity, as the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, said. Do not let us miss it. It is in fact our own young people to-day on whom responsibilities and the difficulties of the age that we live in, the atomic age, are going to fall in the next ten, fifteen or twenty years, and I think it is vital that Parliament should back up the Minister. We should urge the Minister and the local education authorities that we will all in whatever way we can, support this campaign for the Youth Service in 1960.
4.5 p.m.
LORD BEVERIDGE: My Lords, the Report we are discussing this afternoon is a notable document, as everybody who has looked at it knows. I shall speak of it very briefly, out of all accord with its real importance and interest, for the simple reason that I wish to leave as much time as I can for the fifteen speakers who are down to follow me. May I just say that, for a special reason
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which I shall give when I come to the appropriate point, I welcome particularly the chance of hearing the two right reverend Prelates who are down to speak. In its early chapters this Report presents a rather grim picture of crime and its origins. We used at one time when I was young to think that crime arose largely from poverty, from unemployment and the like. Now, as we all know, we have full employment and material prosperity, leading apparently to more crime than ever before. We used to think that the hope of the world lay in its young people, its young men and women. Now, to quote one sentence only from the Report:
"… the crime problem is very much a youth problem…"
That is in paragraph 65, if any of you has not seen it.
I think there may be some connection between the exceptional new prosperity of earning youth and the tendency to delinquency. I need not repeat the very interesting figures that have been given by the noble Lady who has just sat down and to whom I am personally most grateful for calling attention to them. It is, as she pointed out, clear that young people have a great deal more money to spend than they used to have twenty years ago—perhaps £3 under their own control instead of just a little pocket money. Those with money to spend are to-day subject Ito a great deal of miseducation of growing vigour by vulgar advertisement. May I refer to only one more passage from this Report, which comes in paragraph 117, where the Committee point out, when they are talking of the question of preparing young people for the great adventure of life and marriage:
"In films and advertisements … how little attention is given to the power of mutual respect and of the affectionate sharing of quite undramatic aspirations in promoting courtship, in comparison with the attention given to immediate physical attraction and its accoutrements."
The people who are responsible for the form of our advertisements are often guilty of a great sin against society. The Report shows that they realise and exploit the fact that it is easier to raise the material standards than the spiritual standards of life. It is just on that point that I mean to listen with the greatest attention to what the right reverend

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Prelates who speak may have to suggest to us.
We all realise that the world is in a mess, but let me, in defence of the young, suggest that we, who have reached years of discretion or should have done so—I do not know that we all have—can hardly blame teenagers for the two principal causes of the mess in which the world is: the mess of threatened war and the mess of inflation; but both of them are eminently demoralising to youth. Why should a young man plan for a long and happy life, save, and all the rest of it, if he does not know whether he is going to be killed in war and thinks it likely he will be killed quite soon? Why should he save, if he does not know whether in ten years' time his pound will be worth one pound, 5s. or less? We have a great responsibility, we older people.
Your Lordships will see from what I have said that I do not in any sense adopt a grim view of youth, any more than the Albemarle Committee did. All young people are not prone to crime, any more than all old people are dodderers. Youth are still the hope of the world, and may I suggest that even some dodderers can occasionally recall something of value from their own youth. I personally recall from my youth something that I think is of some relevance to-day and to this debate. My own teenage, like that of certainly many of your Lordships, was spent largely away from home at an ordinary public school, and learning there, by no means from books only—nothing of the sort—responsibility as a member of a society. I remember, as I learned it, coming home on holidays, rejoicing to be with my parents again.
One of the passages which is worth looking at again in this Report is paragraph 191, which points out how some young people do not find themselves until they get away from home for a time. Many of us had the chance of getting away from home for a time. In that way we learned to find ourselves, and came back to find our parents, the most precious things in the world. Cannot we to-day somehow give to those who do not go to residential schools the same kind of chance that we had—both to those working, to those
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in teenage and to those who are at school while living at home? Giving that means doing something for the future utterly different from what has been done hitherto.
We all know from the Report that the Youth Service has touched as a minimum one in three of all young people. We all know—this is in paragraph 23 of the Report—that of the total expenditure from public funds less than £1 in £1,000 has gone to the Youth Service. We want something utterly different from that if we are to exploit the youth who are, I still say, wherever they live, the hope of us and of other countries. I think it probably means, in a word or two, effective youth clubs for all—those at school and those at work, with first-rate premises and first-rate leaders. We all know—we see it in the Report—how dismal are some of the premises in which the Youth Service has to be carried out. The only thing that I know of that is equally dismal is some of the homes in which, to-day, many old people have to live—but that is a different problem, not the one we face to-day. Above all, we must have real leaders. A leader is one who makes common men wish to do uncommon things. For this we want leaders for all the clubs and for the whole campaign. Following the two speakers who have already spoken, I beg your Lordships to devote all your energies and hopes to this end. We must have a leader of the first quality for this great campaign as a whole, and he must have plenty of money and plenty of good young men and women to help him.
4.15 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF STATE, SCOTTISH OFFICE (LORD CRAIGTON): My Lords, in spite of or perhaps because of—the fact that the Albemarle Committee's Report did not deal with Scotland, it may be helpful to noble Lords, and perhaps to the grandchildren of the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, if at this stage, I intervene to indicate briefly the position in Scotland. I think your Lordships will be interested in the position in Scotland, as we are. I believe, just a little further ahead, although only a little further ahead, in the long way we have to go. My noble and learned friend Lord Hailsham will, of course, deal with

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matters concerning England and Wales when he comes to speak.
My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Scotland has accepted the Committee's recommendations in principle, to the same extent as the Minister of Education has accepted them for England and Wales. I am advised that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State has in no way been influenced by the fact that Robbie Burns is quoted twice on one page of the Report.
No Committee corresponding to the Albemarle Committee was appointed in Scotland, because the field of further education, including the Youth Service, had been comprehensively reported on by the Advisory Council on Education in Scotland in 1952, and in subsequent Reports. The most important of these were the conclusions of a conference of statutory and voluntary bodies convened by the Scottish Leadership Training Association in 1957, and a report on the Scottish Youth Service prepared by the Association of Directors of Education in 1958. It was as a result of these two reports that discussions were initiated which resulted in the setting up last year of the Scottish Standing Consultative Council on Youth Service. This body, under the chairmanship of Lord Kilbrandon, anticipated, more or less, the recommendation of the Albemarle Committee with regard to the setting up of a Development Council in England and Wales.
The Kilbrandon Council are representative of all the main statutory and voluntary organisations concerned with the Youth Service. The Secretary of State looks to the Council to consider the situation in Scotland (in the light of the Albemarle and the other Reports) and to recommend action either to him or to the bodies most likely to be able to make such action effective. The Kilbrandon Council are paying particular attention to the need for publicity and for a better-informed knowledge by the public of youth activity. They are considering plans for training, both of full-time and of part-time leaders, and basically (this Ls where we all have to do so much thinking) they have before them the need to indicate clearly to all concerned the shape which the new Youth Service ought to take. My right honourable friend will support the Council in their work in every way he can, and he
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hopes that local authorities and voluntary organisations will do so too.
I should like to draw the attention of your Lordships to paragraph 156 of the Report and to read the last four lines, which say:
"We do not know how the emergencies can be met properly unless there is a strong sense of urgency at the top which can produce the appropriate machinery. We hope that this sense of urgency will find expression in an early circular from the Ministry."
We in Scotland have already done just that. The Secretary of State has this week issued to education authorities and voluntary bodies in Scotland a circular directing attention to the Albemarle Report, and indicating the lines on which he himself is ready to take action. Some of the main points dealt with in the circular are these, and they will answer, I think, some of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham.
Attention is drawn to the serious shortage of trained leaders which is as serious in Scotland as in England and Wales; and I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, that quick and effective action must be taken now. The Kilbrandon Council had already recommended the introduction of a training course to augment the supply of full-time leaders. Such a course is now to be offered, starting in September of this year, at Moray House College of Education, Edinburgh. Financial assistance at the same rates as those in force under the Special Recruitment Scheme for Teachers will be available to these mature students. The circular tells those concerned that the Secretary of State plans to assist the teenager voluntary organisations to an extent about 50 per cent higher than last year. This is only a start, however; the level of this assistance in the future can be better judged when the voluntary bodies concerned have had time to formulate their own proposals for development.
As the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, and others have stressed, Central Government, education authorities, and voluntary bodies must work smoothly together if the Youth Service is to be expanded quickly. The Secretary of State has therefore urged Scottish education authorities to review the present provision they are making for youth service in their areas, both by themselves and by voluntary bodies. It is true that

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with the coming of the general grant the encouragement of a percentage grant is no longer available. But the Albemarle Report and other reports on similar lines in Scotland will surely have their impact on education authorities and upon the public generally; and the need for more money to develop the Youth Service will be taken into consideration when the amount of general grant for the next period is fixed. The other side of the picture, which is sometimes forgotten, is that education authorities no longer have to submit for approval proposals in this sector, and they have discretion as to how they should carry out their functions in this field.
Provision by education authorities is still very uneven in Scotland. Some have their own clubs or units; others prefer to assist voluntary bodies; others do both. The machinery by which they assist the Youth Service varies from county to county also. Some have youth advisory committees or youth councils; others do not. Some employ youth organisers full-time. I am sorry to say that there are certain authorities who employ no staff to assist the Youth Service. These include some fairly small counties, such an Banffshire and Kincardineshire; but even in some quite populous areas there are no staff charged with this responsibility. I believe that West Lothian and Perth and Kinross have none, and that some other areas, like Midlothian, have only one part-time youth service officer. Until there are people charged with the responsibility of organising and helping the Youth Service, it will be difficult to achieve any worthwhile expansion. The noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, gave his support to the recommendation in paragraph 307 of the Report. I should tell him that the giving of grants to national voluntary bodies with denominational allegiances is already Scottish policy.
That is the factual position in Scotland. As is to be expected, our progress and pattern differ from that in England and Wales, but the problems and possibilities are the same in all three countries. The time is due—in fact, it is overdue—when the nation must again concern itself seriously with the development of the Youth Service. Not only has that Service not kept pace with the growing improvement in all other educational facilities, but the impact of the "bulge" will be
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fully felt by 1964. I join issue a little with noble Lords who have said that youth to-day is so much like the youth of yesterday. As I read the Albemarle Report, I believe it has given valuable guidance about the minds and bodies of the youngsters with whom the Youth Service will deal. They will be bigger and more mature than their parents were at their age. Puberty is occurring earlier; and so is marriage. The years of childhood are becoming shorter, and so also the years of childbearing are coming earlier. The employment of mothers outside the home will increasingly affect adolescent life. The trend for girls to move from manual to non-manual work suggests, as the Report says, that:
"girls no less than boys now need further education after leaving school."
Compared with the situation a generation ago, the Youth Service has to face a more serious problem of youthful crime. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood, who said that we used to believe that there was a strong relation between crime and poverty. Poverty has departed, but our hopes seem to have been disappointed. Material and spiritual progress have not marched band in hand. As the Report says:
"Man's deepest needs are not satisfied by a mechanical participation in an economic process … There does not seem to be at the heart of society a courageous and exciting struggle for a particular moral and spiritual life—only a passive neutral commitment to things as they are."
A passive neutral commitment in the minds of the parents as well as the children: there does not seem to be enough for which to strive: bored parents, as well as bored youngsters. In this passive, accepting atmosphere, lawlessness thrives. The grown-ups retreat from responsibility for fear of reprisals. The police feel isolated in their tasks and hurt by lack of public support. The effect on the young who wish to be law-abiding is deadly. We must face the fact that a socially unsupported or spiritually isolated Youth Service cannot succeed.
There is, however, a happier side which, given full encouragement from the Government, can and must prevail. The most important facet of this many-sided problem lies in the training of skilled personnel, both full-time and part-time, as well as voluntary. In this

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the Government, the local authorities and all concerned must play their part. A better wage structure, improved training arrangements, better facilities—all these are to be provided. It will cost more, but it is a bill that we must all be prepared to pay. As the Report tells us, youth themselves will be prepared to pay more for a better service. The Report gives some extremely interesting observations on the way in which the modern adolescent spends his or her money. Obviously, it says, young people are able and willing to spend freely on things which attract their imaginations. The adolescent, like the rest of us, does not value something for nothing.
We must all be concerned with this problem. I should like to speak of something mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood—the ways in which industry can help our youth. In these days when industry is so often asked to give money, this Report suggests other practical ways in which industrial concerns can help. I hope that those responsible for these things will direct the attention of industry to paragraphs 357 and 358, for industry has a vital interest in the healthy use of leisure. I know that in Scotland the Consultative Council are seriously considering appealing to industry to give time off—perhaps a week's leave—to their young workers to enable them to train as youth leaders. This would be a praiseworthy thing to do, in the same way that it is patriotic for firms to give time off for Territorial Army camps.
Finally, what of the great political Parties? What can the Conservative, Unionist, Labour and Liberal Parties do to help—as is suggested in paragraph 204 of the Report? Clearly, it would be wrong for political youth movements to receive State aid nevertheless, there is much they can do. Youth can best speak to youth. The youngsters who are politically minded can provide speakers for other, non-political, youth organisations—speakers for discussions and debates who can perhaps best teach those who will never be politically minded the importance of valuing our democratic institutions. Those who spend their lives on the administration of political Parties may not realise how much experience they have and how much they have to offer the nation.
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For example, we have long known the phenomenon of the constituency youth organisation. It starts with a handful of youngsters; over the next two or three years it grows in strength and activity until there is a strong youth branch; and then, all of a sudden, the leading members get married—often to each other; then the branch fades away and one must start again from scratch. So we have long accepted the situation underlined in paragraph 188 of the Report, which says:
"We must not expect every kind of youth work to be tidily patterned … We should accept, as a proper part of the Service, spontaneous units which may spring up and passionately absorb the energies of their members for two or three years and then fade away as the members go out of them."
In this great work I feel that the political Parties, who understand youth, have a part to play which has perhaps not before been clearly understood. And I can finish as the Report finishes:
"The effort to understand lies at the basis of all virtue; it is surely here that the nation can make a beginning."
4.30 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I am most grateful for the expected assurances in this matter of the noble Lord, Lord Craigton, which come under education, to the effect that Scotland is somewhere ahead of England. Indeed, I am very glad to note that although, through no fault of ours, Scotland did not come within the orbit of the Albemarle Committee, at least they are going to endeavour to do as much, or perhaps better. I am glad to note, however, that the noble Lord did not claim that there was other than a very great deal of work to do in Scotland, because I can assure him that in my own correspondence I have had quite a large number of rather desperate letters from Scotland which indicate that that is the position.
I would join with all those who have spoken in thanking my noble friend Lord Pakenham for introducing this Motion, and for the manner in which he introduced it, and for setting out the whole problems in broad outline, which gave us many leads of considerable importance with which we could deal. Particularly welcome is the feeling that there is no reason at all why all forms of youth organisation, orthodox and unorthodox, the tried and established

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ones and the rather more adventurous ones, should not be supported. I think there should not be any form of competition in respect of funds, but a spirit of emulation.
Like, I suppose, most noble Lords, I was a member of orthodox youth organisations from the earliest time that I can remember until I became a young man; and from that time on until now I have similarly been connected in a different capacity with all kinds of youth organisations, some political, others connected with the church, others with sporting affiliations, and others which have simply been ordinary clubs whose only affiliation has been membership of the Federation of Boys' Clubs. So I fully recognise their importance and realise how we must insist that everything possible is done for them. But I hope that no one will lose sight of the fact that a tremendous change has come over young people and their tastes—not their attributes—their leanings and likings; and it is utterly useless to believe that we can influence the great bulk of young people unless we can get to them and talk to them in language they will listen to and, it is hoped, understand.
I, too, welcome this very great and important Report that we are now discussing. It might perhaps be said that the Youth Service's crying need for money, for premises and for leaders was so obvious that no inquiry was necessary. But it has never, I think, as my noble friend Lord Pakenham said, been set down in such a penetrating, informed and authoritative manner. I think that the Report's greatest virtue is that it is so clearly on the side of youth, as, indeed, any kind of forward-looking society must be. I think that, apart from its invaluable recommendations, paragraph 363 alone makes the whole effort worth while. I think it should be kept framed on the desks and implanted in the hearts of everyone who has the privilege of serving youth—particularly three sentences which I should like to quote. They are:
"What is required, however, above all on the part of the general public is an imaginative appreciation of the changed outlook of young people to-day. … Moral indignation is best kept for what is morally reprehensible, and even then will be ineffective unless it is deeply informed by sympathetic understanding."
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Lastly, there is the sentence which was quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Craigton:
"The effort to understand lies at the basis of all virtue; it is surely here that the nation can make a beginning."
I know that we should all like to feel that we had written that sentence ourselves. I am glad, too, that the Committee felt that they
"met in conditions of unusual urgency and with a sense of working against time;"
because the future of youth is as urgently important as the future of the H-bomb. Peacefully used, nuclear energy can enrich us beyond belief; misused it will destroy us. Equally, my Lords, youth are sufficiently dynamic, given the chance to find themselves, to build a better world; and if they remain lost they will destroy it.
I would ask all those who are considering this subject to accept that there is this change. I do not mean that fundamentally there is any difference in the qualities of our people, but there is this tremendous change in what they seek after. Only a few days ago the Workers' Educational Association published a Report. Ten years ago the Workers' Educational Association published a Report based on the inquiries they made in the Borough of Ilford from 7,000 grammar-school and secondary-school children. Recently they have made another similar Report, and they emphasise the tremendous change in ten years. They say of the secondary-school boy and girl to-day that dancing, "pop" music, T.V. and going out with girls or boys are their principal occupations. And they emphasise how they prefer mixed youth clubs. Their reading has changed. Girls, apparently, do not feast and weep, as they did in my day, over Little Women and Good Wives; they are not enthralled by Susan Coolidge's What Katy Did Next. What they read is, How could Katy choose between Elvis and her Boy Friend? or Do you love me like you kiss me? It would be utter folly if we did not recognise this change in taste and I think quite useless for us—or, at least, for me—even to comment on it.
It is useless, or perhaps I should say a waste of time, in my view, to look for the causes of the present situation. I think we all know what they are and

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I think it is folly to hark back to conditions that obtained in our day. Any of us who have dealt with children can remember the look of utter resignation or boredom, or even pity, that comes over their faces when we say things like, "Ah, my boy! You ought to have experienced so-and-so and so-and-so." We must face the fact that youngsters to-day are more different than any other generation in memory. As the noble Lord said, they are better off financially, and they are more mature physically; but I think (I do not believe the noble Lord said this) they are younger inside than we were. I believe that to be true. But to-day's 14-to-20 age group, who will be mothers and fathers of families only a very few years hence, mostly come from families where parental control is almost a nullity. We must recognise that fact. They have this sense of separate identity and they will not be preached at or told what to do. When it is attempted they just shrug their shoulders and pass us by; and so the gulf widens.
The great majority of them, I believe, need our help. Rather than tea and sympathy in a youth club, they choose the commercial Espresso bar. They find its warmth and noise a world to get lost in, a place where they can go and hide their loneliness—for many of them, despite their hard exterior, are very lonely—and where there is no one to tell them what to do. No one asks questions, and they pay for what they have—they have that feeling of independence. But I believe that many of them are bored and bewildered, rebels without a cause and without a clue, on the road to nowhere.
I believe that the girls are in even greater need of sympathy. Women, of course, have a natural intuitive approach and a great natural fund of sympathy. Their main interest is other people. When directed into the right channels these qualities are of supreme importance to the community. But modern girls are afflicted and harassed with a rash of glossy magazines insistently urging them to put mud-packs on their faces, lacquer on their hair and varnish on their toenails, and to scream in unison at the latest teenage idol. Inevitably, they become devotees to odd fashions. One wears a paper petticoat or red stockings, so everybody does. Their shapes, as well as their values, are distorted. Uplift now
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means a self-imposed deformity, not a moral urge. It is small wonder if, under such a battering, they become self-conscious slaves to the convention that an early marriage is essential because a girl without a ring on her finger must be a very poor thing indeed.
Now I mention these things not as matters for reproach, but simply as facts, and to urge that we accept those facts and start from there. There is so much that is good that we can build upon. Youngsters to-day have such an exceptional capacity for enjoyment. They are so full of the joy of life: so very much alive. And, fortunately, they shed so many of our inhibitions and prejudices, particularly the nasty ones like colour, creed and class prejudice. And they are so very tolerant. When I reproached my eighteen-year-old son for his inability to spell five or six letter words, and I recalled that at the age of ten my generation was required to parse whole sentences correctly, he said he was sorry that my boyhood had been clouded by such trifles when there was so much to enjoy in the world. Then, when I have confessed to him, as I have on several occasions, that I neither like nor under stand the music he plays so constantly he has told me not to worry; he neither liked nor understood the noises which enrapture the Hottentots, but he was in favour of everyone listening to what he liked. I believe that that is really the kind of understanding we have to reach with youth—but in many the gulf is as big as that between us and the Hottentots.
My Lords, there are five million teenagers, and the facilities are few—desperately few. There is not a single modern centre for modern youth in London, or in any great city. The position of the Youth Service in 1960 is in fact comparable with that of the schools service in 1880, and our youth have left it far behind. Our Youth Service at present has neither status nor standards; and, as has been said, its available funds are hopelessly inadequate. With some notable exceptions, few local authorities know the youth needs in their area, or have taken the trouble to find out what they are. The Youth Committee is usually a sub-committee on which there is little competition to serve; and, as a consequence, there are on these subcommittees too many self-satisfied prigs,

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and too few with an understanding of modern youth. In my view, with such a set-up there is a danger that the additional money which is now promised may be spent in too large a degree on enlarging and developing the type of services which attract, as the Report says, only three young people out of ten—and I do not think the importance of that can be over-estimated. If such happens, then a great deal of the money will be wasted, and certainly the main problem will remain unsolved.
Despite what we have heard, there is no directive from the Minister of Education to local authorities on how they should spend a youth allocation; what grants should be made to voluntary bodies; or, indeed, if any grants should be made at all. I welcome very warmly Circular No. 3/60 on buildings; but, of course, that asks only for local authorities' plans as to buildings which can be started between now and 1962. It will give no picture whatever to the Minister or to the country as a whole of the proposals for the development of Youth Services. I would therefore most strongly urge—and I hope that the noble Viscount, when he replies, will deal with this point—that the Minister should require local authorities to submit to him within six months schemes for the development of Youth Services in their area: really, to say just what they intend or would like to do over a given period of years, and to submit those schemes within six months. The noble Viscount will remember that that was the procedure followed under the Mental Health Act by his colleague, the right honourable gentleman, the Minister of Health. When we were discussing that Bill, I personally doubted that there would be much response, but I am glad to admit that I was wholly wrong. Almost every local authority (I think all except twelve) has now submitted a scheme; and in fact some schemes have been implemented. It is a great credit to local authorities that, given the opportunity, they do respond in that way; and I believe that if the Minister were to make that request and were to give that lead, then local authorities would respond in just the same way.
I think it is all the more necessary because the Minister, if I have read his words correctly, and certainly his
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officials, are far more aware than local authorities of the need to employ new methods and new agencies. They know, and are more ready than most local authorities to act in the knowledge, that for seven out of ten youngsters anything with an official stamp is doomed before it starts. They just will not look at it. This is no criticism of the efficiency or of the desirability of those undertakings: it is merely accepting a fact, that they will not look at it. That also applies to the proposed training of youth leaders, which I of course warmly support. But most teenagers will have nothing to do with anyone called a leader.
The youngsters we must start to attract are those who hang around the street corners and the lower type of coffee bar. But if we are to attract them, we have to understand them; and the only people to understand them, or whom they understand, is one of themselves—in other words, that type of youth leader is on the street corners now. By a process of natural selection, they are already leading. In my experience, it is virtually impossible to get anyone with long experience of orthodox clubs to accept this fact. Many of them are wonderful, dedicated people; and yet, despite themselves, they resent and fear the present situation and its influence on the membership of their own organisation.
I have mentioned that I am still connected with many, what I prefer to call, orthodox youth organisations. I am President of a successful boys' club. It has and does everything; from boxing to boot repairing, from chess to canoeing, from fencing to football. The spirit of that club is such that 140 boys maintain eight very successful soccer teams. The club's whole success depends on a remarkable, voluntary, unpaid leader, to whom the club is wife, child and everything else. He and the club are everything they could and should be, and one can only use superlatives in describing his work and his value. We are to be honoured by a visit from His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh, and one evening last week I was invited to the club to review arrangements. To start off, I had to get in a car to follow the route of the Royal arrival. There were boys out as traffic markers, and at one point some of them began running

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in single file on either side of the car—a very charming gesture, I thought. Then, suddenly, my friend the youth leader leaned out of the car and said, "Come on, pick them up; left, right, left right, left, right". It is a highly successful club and it is doing wonderful work, but the number of youngsters who will stand for that sort of direction are a decreasing minority.
It so happens that some other social worker friends of mine are starting a less orthodox youth café project in the same area, of which I am patron, or something or other. My friend, a little apprehensive as to its effect on his club, was inclined to oppose it on the local youth committee until I reassured him, and now there are hopes that it is going to work. But there is exactly that kind of misunderstanding or unease or opposition when youth committees are confronted with requests for financial assistance for unorthodox youth projects. There is a great deal of prejudice to break down.
May I give another example of that prejudice? Recently I was invited to address a youth conference in a wealthy London borough. It was a large and representative gathering. Everyone there was actively connected with youth work in one way or another, and there were a lot of young people. I urged the provision of mixed clubs, open every night, with coffee bars, jive and other recreational facilities. I urged that there should be places exclusively for youth, which they can build or break, where they can do things or do nothing, in which the youngsters themselves would decide the range of their activities and what exactly they would do. All this was lost on one gentleman who, as soon as I had finished, asked, "But which person is to decide the programme of activities, and see they are carried out?" He just did not believe me when I said that my experience showed that whenever young people are brought together in the right atmosphere, treated as adults, and given responsibility, they respond. When I enquired who that gentleman was I found that he was a club leader.
A lady of uncertain age, the uncertainty varying between 70 and 80, said, A single project such as I visualise would cost £100,000. When I proved with figures that it would not cost one-tenth
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of that she said that the place in which we were assembled cost £4,000 a year, and they could not get teenagers to pay that. The place was a semi-basement, gloomy, which looked as if it had not been painted for years. I told her, "I don't blame them. They are not fools. It is a wonder they came there at all." This reply was received with a measure of satisfaction by everyone but the questioner, who I then learned was chairman of the youth committee.
I know that these people are worthy and devoted public servants, doing their best according to their lights; but their very experience and training makes it impossible for them to deal with the situation which now confronts us. I am convinced that it can be effectively handled only by voluntary organisations working with local authorities and carrying out approved schemes. One organisation with which my noble friends, Lord Pakenham and Lord Denning, are connected is "Youth Ventures", which I have mentioned before. We intend to provide throughout the country centres for young people only, comprising coffee bar, dance hall, and work-and-study facilities, and also, where possible, a gymnasium, where they can "let off steam" in the ring. This will help to teach a sense of sportsmanship and settle arguments without the use of knives or coshes. It must be in a central position, with attractive decor, furnishings and equipment, a place belonging to young people to which they will be proud to belong.
The coffee bar will have the latest in juke boxes, a record player for their own records, room for jive and places to sit out. We shall charge commercial prices, because each "Venture" must pay its way. Teenagers can, and will, pay for what they have if it is what they want. The dance hall will include a stage for amateur dance groups and dramatic entertainments provided by the members, and there must be rooms for quiet activities, both individual and collective. Each "Venture" will employ paid catering staff, in charge of a full-time director who, where possible, will be a local ex-teenager. I would emphasise that a director of the right type is as important as the right type of premises. Of course in these appointments we shall co-operate with the local youth committees, but we do not want the normally

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trained youth leader. In many areas the young man we want has already established himself, and where he has not we must secure the support of local young people for our nominee before we open. We must remember that in the sense of loyalty to a club, the word "loyalty" has no meaning to the majority of those we wish to serve. If they enjoy life in our "Venture", they will attend it. If not, they will go somewhere else. It is as simple as that, and no amount of wishful thinking will make it otherwise. That is why I say that we are fully aware that our work only begins when they join, but that it cannot begin until they do.
As I have previously mentioned, we require offers of suitable premises from local authorities, and I am glad to say that a number have been received. The last time I spoke of this. I mentioned that I was going to Leicester. Now I am happy to say that a few days ago we received advice from the Ministry of Education that the scheme had been investigated and approved for the 50 per cent. grant, subject to the usual conditions, which of course we can satisfy. That is a place we shall have to build, and naturally there will be some delay, and at Leicester we are certain to take over temporary premises until a permanent place is built.
I am happy to say that some local authorities have written making offers of new buildings, some of which are approaching completion. The fact that they are new buildings especially built for this purpose shows that they were started long before our idea was launched, and I am very glad to know that these local authorities have reached the conclusion that a voluntary organisation like ours, offering to do the things we intend to do, will have more chance of success with what one of them inaccurately described as "their Teddy boys and girls". This is such a misdescription. It is wrong to pin a label on someone we do not understand and have not taken the trouble to get an understanding with. We have failed dismally to understand the change that has been wrought in our own children and to appreciate to the full the tremendous qualities that are in them.
My noble friend Lord Pakenham spoke about his two children who walked from
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Aldermaston to Trafalgar Square; and my noble friend Lord Taylor had one there, too. I regret to say that my son's feet were so worn out with dancing that he was able to greet them only when they arrived at Trafalgar Square. I should like to read a letter which appeared in the News Chronicle yesterday which I think gives a sample of the new generation:
"I am fifteen. Because I believe in the possibility of a Third World War I have blistered and poisoned my feet marching from Aldermaston to London.
"I read the questions in Friday's News Chronicle put to Mr. K. and the answers. They frightened me.
"Who gave Mr. Khrushchev and Mr. Herter the right to blow up the world?
"I am noisy, uncompromising, and have a lot to learn. But, the way things are going, it looks as if I shall never learn it because I shall probably be annihilated by one side or the other.
"I have friends and I want to keep them; I have a home that I love; I have a future that I would like to think is bright. There are thousands—millions—like me.
"Are a few men who wish to press the button in the name of patriotism and freedom going to take it all away from us?
Bridget Porter, Kirtlington, Oxon."
I should like to comment on the spirit of that letter. If I had a daughter, I should like her to be able to write a letter like this, and I wish I could have written it at the same age. There is wonderful stuff in the "kids" around us to-day: I want to see that they get the chance to show it. I hope, therefore, that these local authorities will come to our organisation and give us a chance of showing that we are right in believing that we can do the job. We shall soon know, because it is likely that we shall open "Ventures" in several towns before the end of the year. The experience thus gained should be of the greatest value to the Minister of Education in determining future plans. That is why I am so anxious that he should insist that local authorities submit their own plans to him not later than six months hence.
If our final efforts succeed, it will set a pattern for the country, and it will then be for the Minister to decide the form of central organisation best fitted to administer it. If this sort of thing does become a national pride and widespread, it would be quite impossible for me to handle it as one of 20 other jobs

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—it would be far too big. But I am firmly convinced that, whatever the final form, a voluntary organisation with some Government financial backing, under proper safeguards, will prove the least costly solution and the one most likely to succeed. Meanwhile, let us keep well in mind that 5 million young people need our help, but will not ask for it; that, while money is needed, we need still more tolerance, imagination, understanding and enthusiasm. I say to those who find it easy to bemoan the rising generation that it is far more useful to give them opportunities for adventure and service. For this the responsibility is not theirs but ours. Britain's whole future, my Lords, depends on the way we discharge that responsibility.
5.2 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF NORWICH: My Lords, I should like to add my thanks to those of other noble Lords to the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, for introducing this second debate on the Youth Service. I am conscious of the fact that I am No. 6 in a list of eighteen speakers, which means only a third of the way down. I noted that I was preceded in coming in at the Peers' Entrance by a young man with a large rucksack, and I could not help wondering whether he had come expecting to camp out for the night. However, I will be as brief as I can.
The thing that strikes me and appeals to me most about this Report is that it is throughout a very humane and personal document. That is summed up in the last sentence of paragraph 363, to which the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, referred, where it says:
"The effort to understand lies at the basis of all virtue; it is surely here that the nation can make a beginning."
I should like to associate myself with other noble Lords in congratulating Lady Albemarle and her Committee on what they have given to us in their Report. I was particularly interested in and impressed by the contents of Chapter 2, the diagnosis of the background in which young people live, and, with this as their basis, the argument adduced for the Youth Service as a permanent service and the indication of the aims which they should possess. The Report argues most particularly for better provision
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from the Youth Service for those who leave school at 15, and the argument proceeds—and with this I wholeheartedly agree—not on the basis of the concern about juvenile delinquency, but rather on the basis that this is something which should be provided as of right.
I believe that the time has come when, as a nation, we can no longer baulk giving adequate provision as of right for certain social and leisure needs of young people who leave school at 15—granted, as the Albemarle Report itself recognises, that there is the liability that it does not really help the character of young people, or for that matter of anybody else, to get into the habit of expecting expensive facilities as a matter of course. "They have too much done for them already", is a remark which in certain circumstances may be fair enough. Yet is it really unreasonable to suggest that certain facilities should be provided as of right? Imagine what the reaction would be if in all universities, public, grammar, and secondary schools and technical colleges it were suddenly decided that all playing fields, all sporting facilities, all premises for clubs, for concerts, for dramatics, for debating societies and even rooms for meetings, lectures, entertainments and the like were to be shut down for reasons of economy. One could imagine the indignation which would be aroused. We know well enough the extent to which these facilities have contributed an invaluable and an integral part to the full life and the development of such young people who enjoy them to-day or who have enjoyed them in the past.
Yet it is this type of provision which, for all the valiant efforts of youth organisations, is to a large extent denied to the majority of those who leave school at 15. A large number of these belong to what are called the "unattached" or the "unclubbable", and these unattractive words are sometimes used in a derogatory sense, as if to suggest that it is for the most part the fault of those who belong to this category. But in actual fact many of them have nowhere to go. There are, of course, coffee bars, dance halls and the like. But, partly because young people are nowadays such a lucrative source of revenue, the facilities offered commercially are not always the most satisfactory; human nature being

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what it is, it is not always the best proprietors who cash in most successfully on a susceptible clientele. Commercial interests, in any event, cater only for a very narrow range of needs.
There is denied to a large number of those who leave school at 15 the kind of provision which is available to their more fortunate contemporaries whose formal education goes on longer. It is a provision to which I believe we should regard them as entitled—and in saying this, I am not suggesting, nor do I think the Report is suggesting, that this should be provided for those who use these provisions free. They need somewhere to go; somewhere where they can meet their friends. They need facilities for activities of different kinds: for sport and recreation, and, I would add, for I do not believe that this is sufficiently stressed or recognised as a need, opportunities for privacy. Youth organisations think very largely in terms of activities, and sometimes perhaps too exclusively. But there is a place for inactivity, for solitude, for getting off on one's own; the opportunity to be by oneself, to think for oneself; a fundamental need of human nature and an absolute essential for the young.
An element in the attraction of expeditions and adventure courses lies, I believe, in this one need that they also meet. Your Lordships are no doubt familiar with the type of experience which, in fiction if not in fact, obtains on passenger liners. No sooner has the passenger escaped to a deck chair with a light novel and a duty-free drink than someone with an eager eye for organisation roots him out to play deck tennis or to rehearse for a concert. If such conditions obtained at your clubs, my Lords, then many of the members would become "unclubbable". I suspect that the same kind of reaction operates in the minds of a good many young people. To this the members of the Albemarle Committee are evidently sensitive, because they plead for an openminded approach; for provision of facilities to which the young themselves should contribute—and that is an important proviso—but for this provision, as they would put it, "without strings"; that is, for an attitude of mind which would say: "We are doing this not because we want to get at you and to improve you, not even
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because we hope this will make you easier to live with, but because you ought to have this and because we like you." I believe that approach to be right. It really amounts to caring for and respecting the individual young person for his or her own sake. This, of course, has always been the basis for the best and the most effective type of youth work.
I am glad to see that the Report is anxious for increased help to be given to the good work done by youth organisations. It wishes to encourage them. It wishes them to facilitate new experiments and new provisions. Society is changing so rapidly that our ideas, or perhaps it would be truer to say the application of our ideas, tend to get out of date almost before we have had time to put them into practice. Many of those responsible for guiding the youth organisations have cause to welcome this Report as giving an added inducement and authority to their promotion of the kind of developments which are called for under modern conditions, and not to lose the pioneer spirit in which so many of those movements originated.
There are certain particular points on which I should like briefly to touch. First, I should like to welcome a point to which the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, referred, namely, the removal of discrimination against grants to denominational religious youth work. This is something which clearly all denominations will greatly welcome. It is, of course, a vital necessity that there should be a sufficiently sensitive regard as to how far State provision is appropriate in respect of any work or activity under Church control. The principle of grant aid, as contemplated in paragraph 307 of the Report, seems to me to pay due regard to this right relationship, namely, to facilitate the Churches' contribution without prejudicing their freedom of control.
This leads me to make certain comments on the contribution of the Church and the nature of that contribution. There is a suspicion that when youth work is carried out under Church auspices there is an ulterior motive that the young are "being got at" and that they really must be protected. There is sometimes justification for this suspicion arising from a misapplied zeal. But I think it needs to be said that the basis

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of a specifically Christian attitude of mind towards young people is a concern for them for their own sakes, all the deeper because they are recognised as persons who have an eternal destiny, and a desire to try to help, understand and develop their best interests and their full personality with that in mind. The plea for open-mindedness can be interpreted as a much more religious one or, I should say, a much more Christian one than it is commonly understood to be, in that it springs out of an attitude of consideration and respect for the real and the best interests of the young person.
The other comment I should like to make about the Church's contribution follows, in the first part, that to which the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, has already alluded. All Churches would be agreed in saying that it is in the last resort unrealistic to separate moral values from spiritual faith and spiritual resources. They would also be united in saying that it is unrealistic to plead for purposeful activities without reference to the final end and purpose of life itself. I mention this only to hint at the concern which the Churches must feel about their own ends and their own contribution. We hope that the provision for the enablement of the removal of this discrimination will also be coupled with an understanding throughout the Youth Service of what in fact the Church's contribution is. Certain of the strongest youth organisations have, of course, a religious basis which is clearly defined.
Some noble Lords have referred to paragraph 143, and I should like to make just one brief comment on that. That is the sentence:
"For many young people to-day the discussion of 'spiritual values' or 'Christian values' chiefly arouses suspicion."
I have great sympathy with the Committee writing that paragraph, and I believe that they have said something most important. It is true to say that it is easy to tack on the phrase "spiritual values" or "Christian values" (of course they are two distinctively different things) almost as a kind of decoration and embroidery. But I believe it only arouses suspicion in those who do not, with integrity and sincerity, attach importance to spiritual values and Christian values themselves. Integrity, sincerity and conviction are still things, I would maintain,
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which the young respect, even though sometimes they may oppose and have a different view.
I should also like to touch briefly upon the question of youth leadership, for upon this the whole future of the Youth Service largely depends. The Report has underlined a point which has long been felt, namely, that full-time professional youth leaders of an adequate quality are likely to be recruited only if there is a prospect of other employment when they get beyond an age at which they can usefully lead young people. Their proposals for facilitating this, and for integrating the Youth Service with the teaching profession in particular, are warmly to be welcomed. There cannot be enough professional whole-time youth leaders if it is a "dead-end" profession. But there is another aspect of the matter of leadership which has been voiced by several noble Lords who have taken part in this debate, namely, the matter of quality. This is a matter which is so difficult to assess, so difficult to attain and so vitally important. You need people who know where they are going—men and women of qualities of Character, conviction and understanding.
But, in addition to this, and in addition also to the welcomed short-term proposals to train more professional youth leaders clearly—and I should like to stress this—there is the continuing and vital need for voluntary helpers. Here let me quote a comment in a parish priest's article on this subject. He said:
"We are still very short of men and women to assist us. In some instances we need one leader to a boy really to help him. Without more staff we shall find it very difficult to cope with the more difficult boys"
Here I am sure the Churches have a duty and a responsible part to play—not so much in just the recruitment of leaders as such, but in encouraging that attitude of mind which recognises that here is a responsibility, a job of work and a contribution of quite inestimable importance, and enormously worth while.
There is one aspect of the needs of young people which deserves, I think, increased emphasis, namely, to claim from young people themselves ways in which they can be of use to their contemporaries and to the community in general. Often one gets the impression that young people possess any amount of energy and ideas and willingness to

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help, but get so little opportunity of doing anything. There are innumerable ways in which their service could be invaluable, and also satisfying to themselves; but it needs to be called upon. One only has to think of the ways in which many girls and boys can help the elderly or the disabled; or there are more exacting and adventurous types of voluntary services, such as a corps of beach patrols for saving life; or, perhaps even more important, lending a helping hand in needed but unspectacular ways.
Although so far it affects only a small and specialised group of young people, I believe that there is value in such a movement as Voluntary Service Overseas, where young people from this country at the age of 18 or 19 devote a year's voluntary service in the underdeveloped parts of the Commonwealth to work which would not be done if they were not there—work such as community development and teaching. This brings them into touch with their contemporaries of other races as friends and partners in a natural way and can produce an understanding of other countries and races which is so desperately needed at the present time. I have perhaps digressed beyond the terms of the Report itself, but all the same, in thinking of the needs of young people in this country and the part they are to play in the future I am sure that their contact with and attitude towards those of other races is a matter of tremendous consequence.
The fact that the Minister announced the immediate provision by the Government of £3 million for this purpose is something for which one cannot feel anything but gratitude.
LORD PAKENHAM: If I may interrupt, I do not think that is quite an accurate account. I do not want to be uncharitable. I think the noble Lord said £3 million, but the Minister said he would authorise £3 million worth of building by the local authorities in two years, and eventually I think the Government would pay perhaps half of that. It is not £3 million down now.
THE LORD BISHOP OF NORWICH: I am grateful to the noble Lord for the correction. I hope that it will not seem ungrateful if one expresses the hope that this announcement is an omen of greater
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things to come. There are 146 local education authorities, and if one were to divide the £3 million, supposing that it were available now, equally between those, and left out of account altogether the help for voluntary youth organisations, it works out at just over £25,000 per authority. And that cannot go far—in fact £3 million is the amount which it is estimated teenagers in this country spend themselves in one day. Perhaps that fact shows as clearly as anything the changed nature and the large scale of the needs and opportunities of young people. This Report calls attention to a responsibility far greater in magnitude than and in some respects different in kind from, what has hitherto been commonly recognised. It is for the Government and nation, Church and people, to show that this is a responsibility which we accept and would wish to honour to the very best of our powers.
5.25 p.m.
THE EARL OF FEVERSHAM: My Lords, I wish to be yet another to support very enthusiastically both the contents of this Report and the comprehensive and penetrating way in which it is written. Lady Albemarle and her Committee deserve, and indeed have received from your Lordships this afternoon, the very highest commendation for the way in which they have explored and fulfilled the task that was laid before them. So I join with your Lordships in loudly acclaiming the great benefits of this Report. May I also say that I should like to associate myself with other noble Lords who have spoken this afternoon in praising most warmly the action taken by the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, in once again initiating this debate and raising the subject at this juncture.
The right reverend Prelate whom I have the privilege to follow has given to your Lordships the benefit of a very profound and very experienced discussion, part of which has dealt with the wider and more far-reaching approaches to youth and the youth service—what the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, called at the beginning of his remarks the permanent aspects. Perhaps I may be permitted to follow on in that trend, but not encroach upon the sphere in which the right reverend Prelate is so particularly qualified to speak, and refer to some of the basic aspects. First of

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all, let me say that in my view the Report is quite admirable in that it stresses the different ways different individuals react to contemporary influences. It does not commit the cardinal sin of making generalisations about the needs of all modern youth, but, as has already been mentioned, it does touch on some of the fundamental aspects and drives in human nature, particularly as they affect youth to-day. The Report generally draws together some of the effects of these contemporary conditions where they impinge one on another, and it draws attention to some of the factors which in my opinion and indeed in the opinion of probation and mental health workers need to be taken into account in considering human needs and behaviour of the young in this age.
The noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, think I am correct in saying, referred at the commencement of his remarks to the remarkable similarity rather than dissimilarity between the youth of today and that of yesterday. Perhaps I may be permitted to develop, as shortly as possible, one or two aspects which I think would controvert that contention. First of all, it has been confirmed here in recent years, and particularly this afternoon in this debate, that monetary security and material welfare are not necessarily a positive panacea for instability or anti-social behaviour. The Albemarle Committee have penetrated much deeper into human needs and nature, and they have shown us once again that there is no single formula for the quest for the good life. The Committee have avoided a tendency which is all too often shown nowadays to ascribe the imperfections of youth to some universal cause or another.
Any one of your Lordships who has studied human nature—and on this subject we all pose as an expert—knows how impossible it is to adapt exhortation or advice on human behaviour to the mass. The Report shows, does it not, how each individual has his own particular problems, problems which require some unique course of adjustment to personality and to circumstances; and between the wide extremes of personality there are, of course, many shades, each needing individual understanding. As we know, and as the Albemarle Committee stress—and I make no apology for saying this truism—the happiness of any
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individual depends upon his ability to maintain a satisfactory relationship with his environment, and this can be achieved only if his basic emotional needs can be satisfied in some degree. The noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood, referred to Chapter 9, headed "The Youth Service and Society—a New Focus." Perhaps 1 may be allowed to quote from the Report a few lines in paragraph 356. It says:
"It is easy to use the word 'adolescence' and in so doing forget that the Youth Service is there to help a large number of different personalities in the process of growing up. Many of these individuals are splendid young people, healthy, self-confident, well balanced; about these we need feel no anxiety. But there are others who find it difficult to come to terms with society, and whose social incapacity can take many forms, from shyness to compulsive exhibitionism and crime. The Youth Service is there to help them, too, but at present this group is found principally amongst the unattached'."
Then the Report goes on, in the same paragraph:
"We are bound, however, to say that in some of these young people the roots of their disorder lie so deep in childhood and environmental factors that if the Youth Service is to reach them it will have to be specially equipped to do so."
The young people that I want to refer to and to concentrate upon are those who have not succeeded too well. Lord Stonham has referred to this group. They are those who have missed the educational ladder—they have not done well, either in class or in games, and in that respect they may have a sense of failure. But, as the right reverend Prelate has said, this is the broad element for which provision must be made. I think the right reverend Prelate, and indeed others of your Lordships' House, would find it true to say that in a modern society, where every convention has been questioned and denied or scrapped, where every tradition has been undermined and where every precept and rule of life has been shown to be relative and conditional upon certain circumstances, every boy of this group, in particular, is faced with innumerable problems of conduct. In rejecting the old conventions, he is called upon to think new ones out for himself; he is so placed that he has to solve every personal problem as best he can. New ideas and vivid new contrasts are forced upon his young and impressionable mind. He lives in a world of adults—

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and to-day, of all days, having read the papers, I choose my words most carefully. For it is not an adult world, it is a world of adults; and to youth, marriage, parenthood, old political faiths, patriotism and loyalty, the old religious beliefs, the old standards of taste in literature and art and manners, are questions that are threatened by new rivals. In all these things these young people, under the force of influences beyond their control, are called upon to make their own judgments and to decide what is good and what is bad.
In this context, in this debate, and on this occasion I do not think it appropriate either to apologise for or to deplore these conditions. But I do wish to emphasise that aspects of the artificial existence of the highly populated, highly organised and competitive community, neither eradicate nor reduce the restless elements associated with such changes. Here perhaps I might just clarify what I mean by an "artificial existence". I say it almost in an anthropological sense, from a long history of development of man. It is only of recent times that man has been herded into concrete buildings, with pavements and all that is summed up by "city lights". This artificiality in the long history of man is, in relation to youth, having, as any student of present-day society knows, most deleterious effects, because you have only to compare rural areas in this or in other countries, not because of the lack of numbers but because of the way of life, where they seem to appreciate at an earlier age the social attributes of modern society.
This Report is quite admirable, for within the confines of its 113 pages it succeeds in emphasising in our minds the appreciation of the background which confronts modern youth. It also recommends practical provisions which have already been discussed, and will continue to be discussed this afternoon, so that the stresses and distractions of contemporary life can more satisfactorily be met. The Report helps us, therefore, to see that many young people are influenced, as the right reverend Prelate said, by the lack of purpose of present-day society.
Many young are frustrated, as the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood, and the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, said, by
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dull and boring work; they are frustrated by a family life which, too often, gives no lead to positive living. Probation officers have found among the young—of course, they come into contact with others and delinquents—that often they have complex feelings of insecurity, a lack of purpose and resentment against adult society, while at the same time they need to be accepted as part of that society. One of the dilemmas as they see it, and indeed as they told the Albemarle Committee, is that young people are encouraged by society to aspire to and to admire, an empty and yet attractive materialistic life, while at the same time there is a moral and spiritual background which leaves them unsatisfied. That, I think, is largely in full alignment with what the right reverend Prelate has just said.
So, in adolescence I would say that there is an effective factor: that these young people are already confused, and are confused further, by the strain brought upon them by the physical and mental changes brought about by the onset of puberty. To quote the Report, it says in paragraph 54:
"It appears certain that puberty is occurring earlier, and that the large majority of young people now reach adolescence, as determined by physical changes, before the age of 15."
So, like other noble Lords, I agree with the view which the Report puts forward in paragraph 56, that with
"the considerable emotional developments … now often … taking place in contexts earlier than those with which they have been habitually associated … experience of comradeship within the right kind of youth club may be of very great value at such a time."
When we stress the cumulative effects on young people of the strains and stresses mentioned in this Report, I think it is surprising that this section of youth is not a much greater problem than it is.
Perhaps I may now be permitted to turn for a moment or two to the ways in which I am assured, by those interested in mental health and the training of youth, that more young people than hitherto have a sense of failure. Whether we are parents or not we all know that young people have their eyes set on a bright and hopeful horizon; and along this line to-day too many become disillusioned and cynical, as the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, said in quoting a letter from a representative

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youth of to-day. So what happens? They attempt to cover up a sense of personal inferiority with a show of ebullient exhibitionism. Sometimes, of course, the first feelings of failure occur at school. That is a feeling which is not strange to me, and perhaps was not strange to other noble Lords who found that their aptitudes for academical studies were not as great as those suggested through the rosy-coloured glasses of parents and schoolmasters.
However that may be, I should like to ask: is this to-day a cause of even further strain? Are we so obsessed with this scientific age that we try to get all children to reach an academic standard that they cannot all possibly achieve? Are some children pushed too far to follow studies which they are simply not equipped to absorb? I was interested to see it stated in Appendix 6 of the Report that at December 31 this year 628,000 children will be 15 years of age; and Appendix 7 shows that, of that number, 207,000 children of 15 will still be at maintained and assisted schools. My presumption is that this remainder—419,000, amounting to two-thirds of the total—have turned their backs on academic learning. They have not passed the 11-plus examination and are not staying on for additional tuition at school, although some will go to technical colleges.
Presumably many of these young people are, considered by many to be failures because they have not passed examinations for which, in fact, they have not been endowed. At the age of 15 they are abruptly thrown out from the highly organised life of school into the outside world, and suddenly they find it necessary to stamp their personality—which they may already consider (and perhaps quite rightly) to be inadequate—on a new environment and among new associates. What happens? Some try to become apprentices and learn a trade, but I am told that in one industry there are eight applicants for every single vacancy. The other seven who are rejected for training in a skilled job have to take unskilled work. In unskilled work there is, of course, a material compensation, because the pay is higher for such jobs. So in this age we see the uncommitted young people to whom I am particularly referring receiving high initial incomes while they are without
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the necessary background and information which seems essential for the conservation of suitable tastes.
The adopted pose of self-assurance so often covers a lack of knowledge and the need to seek advice and, as the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, has said, they are exposed in many ways to commercial exploitation. I am very glad that the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, has referred with great force to this factor—the commercial exploitation of modern youth. Your Lordships may recall that I was able to mention in our previous debate last year that young people between the ages of 15 and 25 number 5 million and in a single year spend £900 million as they wish. The Albemarle Committee wrote to me on this subject and I was very glad that I was able to put them in touch with the research service. I believe your Lordships will agree that the Committee have expanded this very interestingly in paragraphs Nos. 88 to 95. The director from whom the Committee got such valuable information has since told me that many young people ignore the Youth Service because they can find more adventurous, if expensive, things to do. Because too many young people are unable to employ their aptitudes in a social sense, because they have a sense of failure and inadequacy, because they are bombarded by advertising and appeals to uncultivated taste, I would say that the results of teenage frustration and aggression are part of the common context of our everyday life.
From the evidence I have culled from mental health workers, probation officers, sociologists and others—and, indeed, from the evidence produced in this Report—it seems clear that a very large proportion of the youth of this country really do need help. They need help to lead happy and useful lives and to maintain a level of what I would describe as positive mental health—what many of your Lordships would describe as a sense of values, balance and stability. Such help will assist them to relate their own capabilities to the opportunities which modern life offers, and so I fully and wholeheartedly endorse the point made by the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Norwich and others, that society has a duty to provide this help.
My Lords, I have spoken for too long. I was going to mention points that have

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already been raised, about the necessity to retain small groups within clubs. The only comment I wish to make is that by the creation of such groups within the club, the members would be given an opportunity to develop their own activities and interests; and I would say that security and self-confidence is more likely to be realised in the smaller than in the larger club. I hope that Her Majesty's Government and the noble and learned Viscount who is to reply will tell us that it is envisaged that the Government grant will allow a financial contribution to cover these rather nebulous and ill-defined groups within established organisation. One further word concerning money. Much has been said in this debate as to the level of contributions from central Government and local government. Not so much has been said about the old-fashioned principle of giving service, or making some sacrifice: of members of youth clubs themselves providing contributions. I have often been told that young people nowadays are quite prepared to pay for their pleasure; and this Report is full of statistics verifying this fact. I would suggest that the extent of this contribution might well prove to be the judgment on the success or otherwise of a particular club.
In conclusion, may I be permitted to say just one word about parents, who have not so far been mentioned in this debate. Your Lordships may be told, as I am told by people who come in contact with the young who get into trouble, that they usually find that the parents are uninterested in the training or activities of their children. I should like to see more active parent participation in the work of youth clubs, and this is, I feel, a wide field for future investigation by trained youth leaders.
My Lords, I am greatly impressed by so much that is contained in this Report, for it bears out what people have told me over a great many years and what I myself have been trying to say, quite inadequately, for a long time. I feel that, so far as the needs of a healthy and positive mind are concerned, there is not much to add to the general underlying principles enunciated in this Report. So I would say that a great opportunity must not be missed by allowing this Report to remain on shelves. It is, in my opinion, so good that it
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should be read and studied by members of local authorities, not only local education authorities, by teachers, by parents and by anyone who has to do with young people.
My right honourable friend the Minister of Education has so far come up to great expectations in the reception of this Report, and knowing the vigour and activity of the noble Viscount who is going to reply to-day, I feel sure that those expectations as expressed by him will not come as a disappointment to this House. The strength of our provisions for the education and training of young people is only as strong as the chain which joins them. So far, great emphasis and great attention have been given—and quite rightly—to the link which is formed by education. It seems that all your Lordships will agree that one of the weakest links in this chain is that formed by the Youth Services. It is at this point and at this age group that pressure breaks the chain. In one way or another, society pays. Either it pays by suffering acts of anti-social behaviour, or it can pay by providing adequate facilities and skilled leadership. My Lords, human dignity is not, after all, measured by personal success in one small field or another. Human dignity depends on the complete development of all the capabilities with which any individual is endowed, and the Youth Service can help to develop these capabilities if it has the means and the power to do so.
5.53 p.m.
THE EARL OF CRAVEN: My Lords, this is, I think we all agree, not a political Party issue, and for that reason I should very much like to thank my noble friend Lord Pakenham for giving us the opportunity of having this debate. The noble Lord is a grandfather, which I was very pleased to hear him say, and I only hope that when I am a grandfather I shall succeed in looking half as young as he does now.
LORD PAKENHAM: And have more hair.
THE EARL OF CRAVEN: In the interests of brevity, I do not intend to comment on what other noble Lords have said, except that I should like to align myself with the right reverend Prelate, the Lord Bishop of Norwich.

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We are reaping the fruits of gross selfishness. The adult population has for years ignored the needs of youth on three points; (a) they are too selfish to stay married—the Report of the Royal Commission on Marriage and Divorce mentions this; (b) they never care what they read—our Press is discredited all over the world; even the Communists exclaim at our pornographic perversion, which is now an export; and (c) we have not provided a truly Christian system of education—this has resulted in insecurity. Family planning is but another way of saying, "Do not have children" Modern philosophy itself does not face up to life. Our youth is not taught to be satisfied with what life gives. The problem is increased by the vision of things which parents cannot keep up with. To be satisfied does not mean that you are not to strive towards the better; it means that you accept your lot as it presents itself, like a reasoning being.
The actions of humanity have their counter-reaction in others. A divorce produces a deprived child, who, in turn, influences society, and so on. There are, thank God! correcting influences and reactions. Woolly-headedness in legislation has not helped. The police are checkmated: correction is not entertained. The public are being enticed to disrespect. Loss of confidence is in the wind, and the hand of the schoolmaster is denied the power of a salutary, if painful, application.
Our troubles start in the home. Home life must be true life. If it were, there would be little need of the Albemarle Report, a Report, I might acid, which has a place of honour in the forefront of the modern campaign against evil. I hope, as indeed many like me do, that it will be implemented in a manner which will ensure success and not be a costly failure. I hope that the spirit of idleness driving the car of luxury along the highway of plenty will not have a fatal accident. I should hate to see youth in the dock, the family in prison and the Stale in hospital. I should like to see some alteration in law to control the spending power of youth up to the age of, say, twenty. This would, I believe, help all categories of society, and I am absolutely certain that a stop on any kind of credit should be included. There is a wide measure of agreement existing
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among English Christians on social questions. It is vital that we should all realise how very wide this common measure of agreement is. While doctrinal differences remain insuperable, Christians are nevertheless tending to collaborate in the social and international sphere. They can do so much more in the future.
The enemy at the gates is, of course, that view of life in which the unique value and dignity of human personality is implicitly and explicitly denied. We have to be sure that the State will confine its activities to the common welfare and will not encroach upon our personal freedom in a way which is intolerable. There is a danger of the State's taking over too many of the obligations of the parent. State influence can be just as wrong, if misplaced, as parental mistakes. The influence is on an incomparably greater scale. The width of contact and responsibility in the State servant is enormous. Tendencies are always towards association in order to unload personal responsibility. Man's eternal search for Truth is the proof of a Government need to understand that their task is one of guidance and protection, not totalitarianism. Government must not allow the wires to get crossed because of the noise of bureaucracy; but must seek the fundamentals of man's purpose and his dignity before committing legislation.
The rule of law, as such, means little, because laws can be good or bad. The rule of Christian law is the foundation of our law and is a law based on Truth. We may be undermining the principles of this law in our mad scurry after the elusive god of progress. We do not want to rush into tremendous public expenditure until we are certain that we are right. We must make sure that other fields are thoroughly explored and that our thought processes have been tempered and matured by experience.
I hope that the voluntary and denominational bodies will be given the same encouragement in all ways as will be accorded to State-operated systems. I hope that full and adequate consultations will be the guiding principle at all levels, as is indeed suggested in this Report. This is not a duplication; it is a prudence, my Lords. There is no guarantee that the State system will be the best.

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We must remember that in modern legislation the mounting pressures make it a matter of ever-growing difficulty to define exactly the spirit of Parliament. We all know how a word conveys one meaning to one person and an entirely different meaning to the next. Indeed, just as our conceptions of Truth and of right and wrong diverge year by year, it becomes more difficult to qualify the medium of mass understanding.
Peace and justice are the aims of mankind, and they are never attained without sacrifice. The Greeks and the Romans, on the one hand, and the Jews on the other, discovered the answer to an old-world equation which is still bright and new to equip this age of science: the foundations of our nation are in Christianity. The dualism of mind and matter harassed and perplexed the finest minds of the ancient world. To acquire right thinking is to acquire a foundation on which to build. Character is the manuscript of our own constructive effort. There are two people in every one of us: sometimes one conquers, and sometimes the other. What is important is our choice of standards. If these are sound, we tend towards a better choice. How very fallible is humanity !
It is a wonderful conception, full of greatness and dignity, that can say:
"What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty! In form and moving, how express and admirable! in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!"
There is sorrow in the realisation that humanity and virtue are lacking for its fulfilment. Pre-history gave us Neanderthal man, the Java man and the Gibraltar man. Lately we have seen the 19th century economic man, the slave of the machine. We are living with biological man, in the process of discovering psychological man; but even he is dated, and his replacement, bourgeois man, has arrived on the scenes. He is a facsimile of economic man, dressed in dungarees and with a cloth cap. Let us hope that we of the Western culture can by-pass robot man, the monster of the Soviet States.
There is always a danger of the gradual growth of a sort of totalitarian democracy in this country—a system of government which increasingly impinges
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on the liberty of the individual, and squeezes out his freedom and initiative. As Professor Collingwood has said:
"The infinite dignity and worth of the human individual is based on the fact that God loves the human individual, and Christ … died for him. The doctrines concerning human nature on which liberal and democratic practice were based were not empirically derived from research into anthropological and psychological data; they were a matter of faith; and those Christian doctrines were the source from which they derived. Indeed, a much vaunted belief in human equality comes from the same source."
The point I am trying to make is that one part of the task of training youth is to train the adult, with particular reference to the parent—the poor, neglected parent. We hear so little about the parents, yet it is they who produce the children. It must be remembered that what one parent considers to be a necessary preparation for life in society may well have no appeal, and may even be repugnant, to another. There must be no violation of the legitimate rights of a parent. If we do this, we set the State up in opposition to the family. We of the free world believe this to be anathema. The State must protect the family, and this should be the lifeline of all State activity. Legitimate parental authority should be granted every respect by the civil authority. Perhaps your Lordships noticed the significance of the bridal bouquet which Princess Margaret left on the altar after her wedding.
I read with horror that on the night before the marriage ceremony the Oxford undergraduates were showing how progressive they could be. In the Union debate they discussed the motion "That divorce by consent should be made legal." Lord Birkett, with his matchless experience of our law courts, endeavoured to restrain them. He said:
"I still think that the greatest felicity and boon that any man or any woman can ask from this earthly life is a happy marriage, and we ought to see to it that in all legislation, whether trivial or grave, that idea should be preserved."
In spite of that, my Lords, the motion was carried by 174 votes to 165. I should like to add to Lord Birkett's view on marriage the unshakable truth that it is a sacrament instituted for the procreation of children which is automatically violated by a false inception.
Reflecting on past motions carried in the Oxford Union, we might think that

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there is here merely the foolish expression of unthinking immaturity; that in another ten years' time most of the 174 will have changed their minds. The voters may have been unthinking, but it is doubtful if they will have had time to mature before they themselves plunge into marriage "terminable by consent", with a consent rigged, when the time comes, to suit the little difficulties of the present law. If they think this in the fresh green of love, what will be their thoughts in the dry wood of marriage? The only true teaching on marriage is one of purity and unselfishness. Our youth have a right to be taught truth; and in this instance truth is that if you love you respect, and that every act of love is one of dying to self. Youth must prove their love by their respect, and thereby understand its eternal heights and profoundest depths in all their beauty. It is then that youth will discover that love is not just sex, but all of God's creation: it is then that they will understand the meaning of personal discipline.
These ideals work to-day, and where they are practised you find children who are founded in life and understand where they are going; who may fall, but who always get back into the saddle of reason again. Our troubles do not start at the level of youth service; they start in the home at a very early age. Responsibilities are thereafter divided to an ever-increasing degree through school and college, university and workbench, and thence to adult life. This is a recurring cycle—a cycle of mistakes and wrong choice, or good and charitable actions, which either take away from or add to the finished product. I see in this Report a section of noble and high-spirited people, faced with darkness wherein there may appear an occasional star brightly shining for a night, only to be swept away on the winds of wordy indecision, which engulf them on every side. My heart goes out to them, because I suspect, as I am sure they do, that unless we can get people to think of things on high, we shall never give assurance to our youth. Until we can show proof that right law is based on Christian principles, that moral ethos is the fact behind these principles, no amount of social work or social palaces are going
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to have any lasting result. There is nothing wrong with youth to-day which could not be set right by good example from the adults.
There was a time when young people did not question authority, or the social and moral ideals of past generations. This was before the basic fabric of these ideals had been tampered with: the corporate society retained its integrity, and was cemented by truth in the law. These ideals were seen to mould and improve humanity, and they formed the Western conception of civilisation. Teenagers do not reject good teaching, good background, good example in the home. Or if they do, the rejection is usually temporary, and they return to the fold when their fingers have been burned and their reason stimulated. I am sure that to-day it is wrong to have both parents out at work when there are children in the family. Of course, there are exceptions. It may be that there is little harm in part-time work for a woman; but, on the whole, I am convinced that mothers should be on the spot when their children are there; they should make home feel like home and should not be too tired to take an interest.
Much could be done to educate parents on the TV and through the Press on matters governing reading and personal discipline. One of the curses of this age is the filth and the rubbish which is pumped into young heads through the medium of the "gutter Press". If the duty of Government is to protect, then we should do as many other countries do and restrict the printing of matter destructive to the home and the family, such as details about divorce. We should make the Press get permission before they are allowed to print, except in cases of criminal justice governing adults. We should control firmly the publication of indecent photographs and articles. Above all, we should control all these things in book form.
What greater falsification of the truth is there than the contemptible plea for printing The Decameron and Lolita? Indeed, there are things of art which should be forbidden on grounds of perversion and indecency. We are only a short step away from the groves of Aphrodite and Apollo, of free love, Which was a mockery of marriage and

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purity in the ancient world. Have we really sunk so low that we make endless excuses for our desires, that we choose to make perversion our goal in the bid to salve our own consciences? In this field the real enemies are those prepared to print anything so long as it will help to increase their bank balance, the cynics who make capital out of perversion. Control these enemies of society and you will protect the family and save the country many millions of pounds.
The vocational outlook of the youth worker is going to be hard enough to encourage. It is certainly going to be expensive because, unless the vocation is present, the salary will be the governing factor. If we are to have first-rate recruits, it will be our task to see that the youth worker does not consider himself as the replacement of family life. Self-sacrifice, which is the skeleton of character, must not be lacking.
Let me expound to your Lordships the classical expression of law (I am sure that the noble and learned Viscount who sits on the Woolsack will forgive me for this) to be found in the great work of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Summa Theologica. St. Thomas carefully distinguishes between four kinds of law—first, the Eternal Law, by which God rules the Universe; secondly, the Natural Law, which is "the rational creature's participation in the Eternal Law"; thirdly, the Divine Law, which is the Law of God contained in the Old and New Testaments; and fourthly, the Human Law, which is a dictate of practical reason emanating from the ruler who governs a perfect community. The great English lawyer of the thirteenth century, Bracton, expressed this view with perfect clarity when he said that:
"The Government ought not to be subject to man, but to God and the law, for the law makes the Government."
It follows that if Divine authority and its laws are set aside, the civil power usurps those absolute and irresponsible rights which belong to the Creator alone. Thus voted into the privilege of omnipotence, it treats the State, or the general body of the citizens, as the end to which all human actions must turn and the rule by which all legal and moral questions must be judged. It will
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allow of no appeal to the dictates of natural reason or of the Christian conscience.
The true purpose of education, as the very word implies (and I hope the noble Viscount who is going to reply for the Government will correct my Latin), is educare, to nourish, and not educere, to draw out, that false view which supposes that man is naturally good and needs only proper mental and physical instruction in order to achieve perfection. From here we may proceed to ask: who possesses prior rights in this matter of education—the State or the family? Surely the answer is hardly in any doubt. As the duty on the part of the parents continues up to the time when the child is in a position to provide for itself, this same inviolable parental right of education also endures.
Paragraph 145, on page 39 of the Report, deals with the question of mass communication. I predict that the demotically classless society will evolve into an even more horrible sense of separation between the haves and the have-nots. Speech is not so easily pinned to an unsubtle barrenness. I believe that, along with the Crowther Report, this Report will add its own vocabularly to our language. In conclusion, I should like to say how much I agree with the idea expressed by several speakers, that we should allow industrial enterprises to enter into this work, and even more in sending children abroad, so that they can broaden their outlooks and gain some release from their emotions in exploration and explanation.
6.18 p.m.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I must apologise to your Lordships for the fact that I had to leave the Chamber on Parliamentary business during the course of two or three speeches. I wish that I could have been here to hear them all. We have been having a good debate on a very good Report. I do not want to paint the lily or say anything more than, "Thank you very much" to the authors of the Report. The problem of youth in this day and generation of ours requires a great deal of careful consideration, to see how far we can correct the trends which youth as a whole seem to be following and which are so clearly set out in the Albemarle Report. I have

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been grateful to the Report, because it reveals in a summarised form the great amount of volutary help which is given in this country to the youth services by the main organisations, such as the Association of Boys' Clubs, the Boy Scouts and the Young Men's Christian Association, quite apart from local efforts. There must be a great deal of money subscribed by business men and industry in support of this voluntary organisation, of which we must not forget to take notice.
I have been interested in the youth movement for the last forty years from a particular angle. That angle has been somewhat scattered but nevertheless continuous effort to use the auxiliary organisations of the Co-operative consumers' movement for instruction and training. In this country the Co-operative retail movement spends about £500,000 a year on education, spread over rather a wide range. Some of it might be described by noble Lords opposite as mere propaganda, but even propaganda can be educative. We also have set classes and our own Co-operative College, which gives diplomas and certificates on subjects which help students in their occupation in the Co-operative Movement.
I gather from the memorandum submitted to The Albemarle Committee on behalf of the Co-operative Union Education Committee that they are not too well satisfied with the extraordinary variation in the way grants from statutory bodies are made in support of this work. I do not propose to look at that in detail this afternoon, but only to request that the evidence, where it has not always been supported by witnesses before the Albemarle Committee, should nevertheless be studied. I do not expect the Minister of Education or the Minister for Scotland to study all the evidence page by page, but certainly it ought to be examined in their Departments to see what requires to be done in arranging that in any extension of the statutory grants, either from the Ministry of Education or from local educational authorities, there is a fair distribution among those who already spend so much of voluntary funds in order to assist the general cause.
One thing struck me in reading the recommendations of the Albemarle
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Report. Whilst sympathising in general with the idea that we certainly want more helpers, more full-time organisers and the like, and thinking of all the efforts that have to be made in all the areas, I think you will have to be careful in what you do in your final decisions lest you should have a system arise which will be popularly criticised as being "more harness than horse". If you cannot get a great many people behind this movement who would be prepared to put more personal endeavour into it to get more out in results, the multitude of organisational machines will not assist very much. That kind of thing can be overdone. I daresay that I shall not be very popular in arguing that from these particular Benches, but, from my own long experience in demo cratic institutions and in a large demo cratically-controlled business movement, I have found that the one thing you have to guard against is putting too much of your effort into an organisational machine and not getting the result at the other end: as I say, more harness than horse. I think that is important.
The other thing I am concerned about is this. When I watch programmes on the televison such as Sunday Break, I am appalled at the extent to which programmes can be made to lower their sights in order to try to get over the problem which is pictured in paragraph 143 of the Albemarle Report. To have to lower one's idea about the Lord's Day and how to deal with youth on the Lord's Day by having a sort of club with part jazz, part ballad and pant dance, or that kind of programme, in the course of which you get the special favour of having a minister or a missionary of some sort present who can conduct on the television individual conversations with the members of the club is not, I think, a very good way of dealing with the matter.
I suppose that that is the kind of problem that the Albemarle Committee had in mind when they said at the beginning of paragraph 143 that they hoped they would not be misunderstood in the way in which they would project the problem. On the other hand, I must say that as I read on in the paragraph I thought that they are a little hard upon those who feel as both the last two speakers I have listened to feel about

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Christian values and spiritual outlook. I ought not perhaps to dwell on the words "spiritual values" in the way in which it is dealt with in this paragraph, but I must say that, so far as I can see from my limited education and reading (although I try to make my reading as extensive as possible), without religious values running through the history of the world as a sort of golden thread I do not know what the result would have been among mankind at large.
There is something also quite outside what is called Christian values and that is the influence of religion at large in the history of the world. That is also not without importance. I have never had the advantage of being a classical scholar, so I cannot say anything about the great classical examples of that. But when I read this little Book, which was presented to me by my vicar where I was brought up in the Church of England, on the last day of November, 1903—it has always been with me, even in my wickedest days; it is always something to come back to—there I see what I was taught in a Board school, the twelfth chapter of Ecclesiastes:
"Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the days draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them."
It was because I was taught that by heart in a Board school, and in an approved syllabus, agreed by all denominations, that I happened to read the rest of the Book. And so I come back to the Eleventh Chapter:
"Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth, and let thy heart cheer thee … but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment."
These are the sort of values in the end which have to be brought into dealing with the present problem of youth, because, as the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood, said, times are changing so much in every way. Youth changes with the times, and very much so. But there is one thing I remember reading that Disraeli said in one of his books:
"Nature is more powerful than education."
I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Craven, as to the value of education, but in dealing with the sort of great youth problem we have to-day we have to make sure that we are using other measures
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besides formal education in order to counteract the, temptations of nature as they come to youth in a growing availability of leisure, which in the youth of our day was, of necessity, if we were going to get on at all, applied to extensive evening study. We have a curious sort of dichotomy between the things that we put forward in regard to the education of our youth, and we do not perhaps take quite enough note of what is going on. I heard of a very good headmistress of a grammar school (I will not mention her name) who said at the Speech Day not more than twelve months ago that things had changed so much in her lifetime; that in her young days the young women teenagers were fighting hard for more and more educational opportunity, and for more and more openings into the professional and other services of the country, both secular and religious, and that they never could get quite far enough with it. But now, she said, the tendency is, with the different position they are in, to stay at school longer but to marry much earlier.
At the same time, alongside that, you get the problem of how you are possibly going to fill the programme that the Government may have for expanding educational opportunity and provision. What is the great handicap? It is getting the number of teachers you require. What then?—and the same headmistress told a story on that. She said that one of her old girls came back to her only a few months before and said: "My little boy is going to the council school, because I believe in the State system of education. But it is really terrible, the conditions there—55 in a class; and how can that little boy be properly taught?" The headmistress said, "I looked at her straight in the eyes and said, 'Mary, you were at our school, were you not?' The answer was, 'Yes'. I said, 'You went away to college from this school to be trained as a teacher?', and again the answer was 'Yes'. I asked 'How long were you a teacher?' and the answer was 'Twelve months'."
That is the sort of thing that is going on with the growing youth movement. "Longer at school," said Lady Elliot of Harwood, "and earlier marriage". When they get into the marriage sphere then, because you must keep up with the Joneses (sometimes of necessity, of course, but very often for the other

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reason) the tendency is for the wife to leave home before she has anything like finished the complete job of bringing up her family. The money comes in, and there is more to spend. There is more for the children to spend as they grow up, and the situation is deteriorating rather than improving. It is not that the kind of youth movement we have by which we are trying to check these tendencies is based on wrong ideas altogether. I can see no great change in the age of those who work to try to improve the quality of our youth.
I was brought up in a working-class home. I went to a Board school, and then I went to work at the age of 13. The only education I have has had to be gained since by other methods. When I look back on that, I can see that there were people then who had sufficient of the grace of God to give their money and their spare time to see that people like myself did not get into too much mischief early on. I praise God for the Society of Friends—although then I was a boy member of a church choir—who started what was called the Adult School Movement. We went to Sunday School at half past eight on Sunday mornings, and we not only did Bible study but were provided for every night in the week if we wanted to go. That is one of the things which makes me nervous about the youth movement to-day. It was a great temptation in my youth to go to the club provided to play billiards, snooker, table tennis and the like, rather than to go on to the technical classes, without which one could not make any progress, having left school at the age of 13. There are two sides to this problem which have to be watched very closely and carefully if we are going to make the right use of leisure.
I praise God for the people who were behind the youth movements in those days. As a result of this dubiety in paragraph 143, I do not want to see anything which detracts from the religious inspiration of people who enter into the work of the youth movement, or into the work of character building that ought to emerge from their work. I listened with great interest and delight to the speech of the noble Earl, Lord Craven. I could not follow him in his delvings into ancient lore and the like, because I am not qualified to do so. But when he spoke about character, I
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understood him. If we thought of the youth movement to-day as something which would conform just to the short statement, "that character is the conscience of the nation"—and how much we need a nation with a real conscience at the present time—then I should be "with you" all the way. That is really what is needed at the present time.
It is no use denying the fact that the way in which some things are done might lead to some of those disadvantages referred to in paragraph 143. But they would not be leading in that direction if, as has been suggested by the last two speakers, our parenthood to-day was what it ought to be. In nearly all these modern arguments it seems that something is always coming up for which we ought to make special allowances. Of course, we have passed through an extraordinary period of history. We have to-day the product of two world war generations one on top of the other. The actual state of the Church—when I say, "Church" I mean the Church at large in the country—has been, with only very short interruptions, what the Church describes as "arrested progress" in the last forty years. We must make all the allowances we possibly can for youth, but where are we failing in dealing with parenthood? When I hear arguments about changing the parents' attitude and getting them to look after their children, I say: how are you going to do it? Do you think you can do it by a lot of machinery and careful examination week by week, by interrogation, question and answer, of parents like that?
I do not see any way of finally changing the attitude and conduct, the aims and objectives of parenthood, unless you can get the men and women concerned in each household interested in the things that really matter: interested enough to lead the right life; interested enough to follow the Lord; interested enough to do what my mother used to insist upon, even though my father died when I was a baby, which was for me to be able to recite at her knee the Ten Commandments. I sometimes get hold of youngsters from school and ask them questions. They are not always taught to be able to recite every one of the Ten Commandments. No wonder the juvenile courts are filled if the children are not first taught to understand what is the basis of our law, and what they

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will be doing if they break this, that or the other law. There is something radically wrong in the present time with the way in which we deal with this matter. We are somewhat ashamed. Paragraph 143 practically apologises for people who really want to go out and use the Gospel truth for changing the situation.
I know that learned people in the past have cast doubts upon this, that and the other. I have often quoted Emerson writing something like this:
"What is the hardest task in the world? It is to think. I would put myself in an attitude to look an abstract truth in the eye and I cannot. I blench and I withdraw on this side and that, and I seem to know what he meant who said, 'No man can see God face to face and live'."
That has thrown a great deal of doubt upon some of the things that we have believed in our Christian or other religious beliefs. What I can say is this. I can find nothing else in the world which really makes it possible for the youth, or the sinning parent, to find a new outlook and a new basis for the future outside a religion which opens the way for him or her to God, and which enables him or her to make a new start and to find redemption, forgiveness and confidence in turning into the right way. I want all these recommendations in the Report to stand. I want them to be carried out, so far as possible, but I want them to be carried out with common sense. I want them to be used to the largest possible extent by the voluntary organisations and the voluntary worker, because in the long run, whether it is in this particular sphere or in any other, the final way to get the truth over to youth and parents is the witness of the individual.
6.40 p.m.
VISCOUNT MONCK: My Lords, I should like to offer my humble congratulations and gratitude to Lady Albemarle and her Committee for having produced this Report. They have not by a wave of a magic wand solved all our difficulties, all our future problems; and nobody with any idea of the youth service ever thought they would. But they have, I think, done three things. They have delved very deeply into the past, the present and the future of the Youth Service. They have (to continue
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the conjuror's metaphor) produced a certain number of rabbits out of the hat, some of which look as though they are worth breeding from. And thirdly, and not least, they have firmly focused the spotlight of the general public on the Youth Service; and I think it is up to us to see that the spotlight does not come off.
We cannot all be expected to like everything in the Report. I personally do not much like the coffee-bar idea in paragraph 186, or the two to three-year "ephemeral units" referred to in paragraph 188. I think they would be "here to-day and gone to-morrow", and nothing would develop from them, as past experience shows. One point I should like to stress (I do not think it has been mentioned very much to-day) is that there are four paragraphs recommending increased physical activity. To-day a lot of the work carried out after leaving school is sedentary. It does not give the young Person enough exercise to keep him healthy and well, apart from wanting to keep his high spirits down now and again. When the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, to whom we are indebted for introducing this debate, and I were at school together (he was far above me: he was rather on a par with the noble Viscount who is going to reply) we used to hear a phrase, mens sana in corpore sano. I think that possibly to-day, with the sedentary occupations of these young boys, we ought to see a little bit more of the corpus sanum, which would in turn produce more of the mens sana.
But what it all boils down to is that the basis of a good and flourishing Youth Service depends on the same three essentials as were required 25 years ago—men, money and materials. By men, of course, we mean leaders and helpers, both paid and voluntary; and by materials we mean buildings. It has been my impression that ever since the debate which the noble Lord inaugurated last year, since when there has been much talk about the Youth Service, almost all the stress has been on leaders. That was up to a short time ago. Just recently, however, as we have heard, Circular 360 came out; and, frankly, I think my right honourable friend the Minister put his finger on something which is worth following up.

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We all know that in the long run leaders, both paid and voluntary, will be the deciding factor; but it is going to be a long-term policy. You have got to offer them terms of service; you have got to train a great number of them. Thirdly, of course, you will not get all you want unless they have decent buildings in which to carry out their activities. My right honourable friend saw that, and he saw obviously that buildings could be begun—it was merely a question of £ s. d. So he issued Circular 360. Thereupon in my county we in the voluntary organisations were summoned by our director of education, who is a most enlightened and energetic gentleman, and told that he was going to press very hard for money from the £3 million for local authority buildings, and suggested that we in the voluntary organisations should also put in as many schemes as we could to obtain the 50 per cent. grant from the Ministry. We therefore "got cracking", and the investigations we made had some astounding results.
In a very short space of time we found quite a large number of our clubs in which through expenditure, not excessive but sufficient, it would be possible considerably to increase the number of members. Pursuing it still further, we found from past history that if we improved the buildings we were very likely to get an increase in members. There is a large Club in the south of Hampshire which was opened by Royalty in 1935. I mention the fact that it was opened by Royalty only because it shows that it was a club of some substance. The years went by; the building became inadequate for its use; it was not the type of building that attracted the youth of to-day. In September last, when this club was down to 43 members, the management committee decided there was only one thing to do and that was to rebuild a completely new club. That club was officially opened last month, and instead of the 43 members that it had in September last it now has 180 members, which is its maximum capacity, and a waiting list of over 80. That is one illustration of what can be done by producing a building which is really worthy of the Youth Service.
I have already mentioned that the mere fact of having better buildings helps
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to recruit leaders. The second advantage, of course—though I know money is important these days; we all know—is that there is no time lag; there is no training; there is no searching for personnel. It needs money, and therefore, perhaps I might, through the noble Viscount who is to reply for the Government, send back a message to the Minister to say that in my opinion I think we could expand very considerably in boys' clubs along present lines so long as (my right honourable friend will forgive me) there are more shekels from Eccles.
There is one other request I want to make and that is this. In Circular 360 the £3 million mentioned is, of course, for local authority building. Mention was also made, and a reminder was given, of the 50 per cent. grant which voluntary organisations can get from the Ministry for building projects. I am wondering whether the noble Viscount would consider passing on a suggestion to this effect. The point is that the smaller the sum required, the more difficult it generally is to raise it, because it has to be raised in a smaller community. I wonder whether it would be considered that, instead of the maximum grant being 50 per cent. for any sum, it should be 50 per cent. for £10,000 or over, 60 per cent. dawn to £5,000 and 75 per cent. below £5,000. That, I am perfectly certain, would be of enormous help.
I was going to refer to paragraph 143, but what I would have said has been said much better by other noble Lords and by the noble Viscount who has just sat down. I think he hit the nail right on the head. We do not want Christianity mentioned. Some of the best clubs that we know of are run by those who profess the Jewish faith, and "Christian" is not a word we want. I do not think "spiritual" is the word we want; but "religious" is the word the noble Viscount used, and I think a basis of, if you like, religious faith is what must be faced up to, because quite frankly, that is one thing in the Report which was shirked.
Now I come to this vexed question of age, or youth as the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, and I call it. I do not really know why the minimum age of the Youth Service was ever raised from 14 to 15. We know the reason—because

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the school age was raised. But that is not an explanation. I think we must look at it as being just a Whitehall waffle. I am delighted to see that the Albemarle Committee has recommended, and I gather it has been accepted, that the age should be reduced to 14. I am afraid my query is that set out in the Report there are six paragraphs which refer to the voluntary organisations as being in the past particularly valuable in pioneering work, and two of those six paragraphs particularly stress that some of the most valuable pioneering work was done with the under-fourteens. If you want the voluntary organisations to go on pioneering, and if your opinion is that some of their most valuable work is done with those under the age of fourteen, then, for Heaven's sake! let us have some of the under-fourteen boys in the Youth Service.
I understand—to take, for instance, the Scouts—that when the lower age was fifteen the number of Scouts in the Youth Service group was very few indeed. I believe that by lowering the age to fourteen about 50,000 are taken in. But if the age were lowered to twelve, you would have a considerable number of Scouts inside the Youth Service. Whatever one says, whatever organisation one stands for or works for, I think there are few who would disagree with the fact that the Scouts were the original, and remain the best, of the pioneers. I should like to see this age limit reduced to twelve, if only for the sake of gathering some of the Scouts into the fold.
But there is a point about boys' clubs as well. I know perfectly well that written evidence was submitted to the Albemarle Committee to the effect that the National Association of Boys' Clubs was not interested in the under-fourteen-year old. That is so; it is on paper. But that was a year ago, and perhaps, more important, events and possibly boys move fast, and it does not matter if something was said one day that was not right. One has to face the situation and work accordingly. The fact remains that in boys' clubs we have a great number of successful junior sections, not least in London. The London Federation of Boys' Clubs has some very successful junior sections of under-fourteen-year olds.
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I know that sometimes it is more blessed to give than to receive, but in regard to the official mind, if you are going to receive you have sometimes to give with the other hand. I would suggest to the noble Viscount that if consideration can be given to lowering the age limit to twelve, as a quid quo pro it would not really matter much if one took away the nineteen- or twenty-year olds as far as the males are concerned. Except in a large club or centre which can be effectively divided, I do not think it is possible or desirable to have your nineteen- and twenty-year olds rubbing along in the same programme with your fifteen-year olds, and far less with your fourteen-year olds. I would rather see the nineteen- and twenty-year olds helping as leaders or helpers in the clubs.
Finally, there is the question of pioneering. I should like to draw your Lordships' attention to one piece of pioneering which my Association, the National Association of Boys' Clubs, inaugurated and which has been extremely successful: this is what we call our adjustment to industry courses. There is a great programme. I was going to read out some of it, but the time is getting late and I will forbear to do so. All I would ask is that if anybody happens to read what I am saying this evening, some support should be given to our area organisations by the local education authorities when these courses are being run. We have many testimonials from firms saying how valuable they are to their sixteen-, seventeen- and eighteen-year old boys. If, as in my county, we can get help and support during these courses from the local education authority, I am sure it would be to the benefit of the working boy in industry.
When I was first bulldozed into the Youth Service twenty-five years ago, I was rather alarmed to find that everybody was quoting Plato. I had heard of him at some time or other. Everybody was quoting Plato, and one did not seem to get anywhere unless, in one's dealings with youth, one knew of and adhered to the precepts of Plato. I am afraid I flared up one day and said that it was about time we had a little less Plato and got more of Herbert Morrison and Winston Churchill. That did not go down at all well. I never liked Plato

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very much after I read his statement that of all the animals the boy is the most unmanageable. That I knew to be a direct untruth, so I did not like Plato any the more. What I am really leading up to is this: that anything that I have said this evening is supposed to apply only to the male sex in clubs. What little experience I have had has been entirely in connection with boys' clubs; that is why I have tried to use the male animal all the time. I am one of those—there are many of my sex—who do not understand the ladies. I love them deeply with all my heart—but that, my Lords, is another matter.
6.58 p.m.
THE EARL OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE: My Lords, compliments! We have paid our compliments, and I add my own, to the Report that we are debating and to the writers of it. But there are one or two other compliments that I think should be paid, first to those who pioneered the various sections of the Youth Service. If I mention one, I mention him only because I had the privilege and pleasure of knowing him, and I hope that it will not be thought that I am forgetting the others. The one I wish to mention is the noble and gallant father of the noble Lord who is following me, whom all in the Scout Movement affectionately remembered, and still remember, as "B. P." Let us also pay our compliments to the youth of to-day who are asking for this Youth Service. As the Albemarle Report says, it is our duty to do what we can to give it to them. It is good that this House recognises the necessity for that by the very fact that we are having this debate, and we are grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, for introducing it.
This Report is, if I may use the expression, "full of meat". There is one piece of "meat" from which I should like to quote. Paragraph 365, under "Priorities", refers to two important features of the recommendations which the Committee have listed. The first, the Committee say,
"… is that they all depend for their success on one cardinal assumption: that the Government intends to make the Youth Service adequate to the needs of young people to-day. This, then, seems to us to command the highest priority of all; if the Youth Service is to be enabled to produce a generous return for the money spent, the Minister must declare it his policy to advance the Service."
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My Lords, I hope that we shall hear that that is being done. We know that it has already been done to some extent, and it is to be hoped that it will be increased. To me it is sad that the introduction of more paid youth workers has been recommended. Obviously that is necessary, but I hope that we shall not have any reduction in the principle of the voluntary youth workers who, I believe, have done so much in the past and will, I hope, do more in the future.
I should like to take up one or two points most of which have been mentioned already. I do so more than anything else to stress them; and I ask to be forgiven by the House if I use scouting as an example on some of my points, because that is the movement with which I was closely connected before the war and where I gained my experience. As has been said, the Report deals with the 14 to 20 age group, and I should like to stress a question that has already been asked: Why keep the lower age at 14? Why not reduce it to, say, 12, or even lower—to the age of 11, the age at which scouts come into the Scout Movement? Can the Minister possibly do this?
Much reference has already been made to paragraph 143 of the Report. I will not quote from it but I would quote from a piece of news reported in The Times newspaper of April 23 on the meeting of the British Council of Churches at Nottingham on April 22. At that meeting the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Peterborough criticised the Albemarle Report, among other things, and said:
"Perhaps the most significant thing is that a Government Committee, on which were many keen, active, practising Christians, should not have found it possible to say more than they did."
I, too, think it is a pity and agree with him. Perhaps I might mention here that the cardinal point of the Scout Movement, about which all its work revolves, is represented by the promise which a scout takes before he becomes a scout. He must first promise to do his best to do his duty to God, and that is emphasised right throughout the movement, from the cubs upwards.
It is good to know that the Minister accepts the recommendations on Chapter 4 and we sincerely hope that, having started to implement those, he will continue to do so. I believe, from

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what I have heard in the debate to-day, that discussions are taking place and will go on. It is said that in this work the Minister and the local authorities are two partners; and they are very important partners. That leads me to Recommendation 9 under this chapter. This recommendation is a good one, but the recommendation which refers to it and which appears on pages 48 and 49 is headed, "The Task of the Fourth Partner". Why the Fourth Partner? Surely we are seeking to do this for youth, and they should be the First Partner. I believe that the recommendation in paragraph 174 that young people should be given more responsibility for programmes and activities is excellent. Again referring to the Scout Movement, in the troop this is done by the Court of Honour which consists of the patrol leaders.
To use another example—an extreme one—of the way in which young people can actively participate, before the war I had the privilege of going down to Godstone to open the headquarters of a group of Godstone scouts who had built their own headquarters with their own hands, under the auspices of a builder who was a scout. They had built it in the shape of a cottage of the type that was already there, and apart from the fact that it looked new at that time, from the outside one could not tell the difference between the new building and the rest of the village. That was a wonderful piece of work and is an extreme example of the kind of thing that we should like to see.
I should, like to give your Lordships one or two examples of what has happened in connection with requests for youth clubs; and I quote, first, from my own experience. At the beginning of the war several of us were sent round the country to do what we could to encourage scouting. I went to a small village in the county of Bedfordshire, where I found a number of boys fooling about in a queue outside a cinema or round a corner looking at something else. We had been given books such as Scouting for Boys to scatter among these young people, and I passed copies to boys in two or three groups there. I told them, "Read this, and if you like the idea of camping and similar activities, find a leader and tell him that you
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want to form a scout troop." They looked at me askance and asked, "What do we want a scout troop for?" But a couple of months later I heard that a troop had been formed. Those boys had found their own leader.
May I quote from a more recent experience? A friend whom I happened to meet when I was in Scotland at the beginning of the year wrote to me the other day giving me examples of clubs which had been formed in the County of Angus. This is what he said:

"1. Request made, and a meeting place provided. The Club to be run by the young people themselves. This petered out (as we thought it might!) and we have restarted it with an adult leader and it goes along well.

2. Request made and premises provided. Club petered out and in this case we have no adult leader.

3. Leader all ready, in fact the young people approached him first, but we are held up (temporarily) for a suitable meeting place."

That is where the recommendation of the Albemarle Report, that much more should be done, comes in.
"I think this goes to show that many young people would welcome (and pay for) some kind of activity. But they do need adult help, and the help must include leaders with the right kind of approach to an understanding of the 'teenager'."
Paragraph 165 deals with the Boy Scouts, and I should like to quote a sentence which has already been mentioned:
"Boys between 10 and 15 were the basis of the success of the Boy Scouts from the very beginning, and remain so."
I cannot entirely agree with that statement. I am quite certain that when there is a good leader, the older scouts can be kept in; and surely the same thing applies to youth clubs. But this leaves the impression that the Boy Scout Movement is a children's movement; and I, for one, cannot accept that. After all, there is the Senior Scout section in the troop, there is the Rover Scout section, and there are even the various branches of the B.P. Guild—of which we have one branch here, in these Houses of Parliament. I am quite certain that good leaders will hold the older boys. I certainly found before the war that that was so; but where the leader was not good the boys of fifteen went away.
That leads me to Chapter 6 of the recommendations on "Staffing and Training." We have already heard

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about the Ministry Circular, No. 360, and I need say no more about that. There is the recommendation that the number of leaders should be raised to 600 by 1966; and to-day we have heard the request that the number should be higher. Let us hope that it will be. I would urge the Minister to press on with this. I am delighted to hear that the college is to start on January 1 next; and I am sure that a one-year course is essential.
As to these courses I feel there is one point that should be made and that is this: I wonder how many of us realise—I certainly experienced this—that the young people are better at picking their leaders than we are ourselves. I am sure that that is the case; I have had experience of it. I have said before that I have a preference for the voluntary worker, but it is obvious that the paid worker is necessary, and we sincerely hope that the paid workers will take part in the courses as well as the voluntary workers. But I feel that this business of the paid worker is a modern trend of which the Prime Minister, when in South Africa, used the term "wind of change".
On Chapter 7 and finance, we have the recommendation of the special grant of 75 per cent. Here I should like to stress that everything should be done to encourage both groups, clubs and the members, to pay their share. I say no more on that, but I think it is highly important. I was delighted to read in recommendation (30), also referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, and others, that denominational grants should no longer constitute an anomaly, whereby some groups do not receive anything and others do. I am sure that they should all take their share, as the right reverend Prelate the Lord Bishop of Norwich stated. There is one point with regard to recommendation (41) which I question—I hope I have not misunderstood it: that is, with regard to raising money. I agree that the leader should be relieved of the work of raising money. But does this also mean that the club and its members should be relieved of it? I think they should do their share in raising the money for their club.
Finally, I repeat that I feel youth should be priority Number One. The leaders and the parents, who have been mentioned at last, and the committees, plus the
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Development Council and the Minister and all other parties should be included, but youth should be Number One. In the Scout movement there is a saying, "Do not forget the 'out' in 'Scouting'." May I transform that into the phrase, "Do not forget 'youth' in the 'Youth Service'"? And do everything to encourage the young people to advertise themselves, both to other young people and to the older people, in order to get the help they need. Above all, I do ask that we should encourage the clubs and the members to be as adventurous as they can.
7.13 p.m.
LORD BADEN-POWELL: My Lords, in common with others of your Lordships who have spoken this afternoon, I, too, should like to add my compliments to the members of the Albemarle Committee for the superb work they have done in compiling this Report. I should also like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, for initiating this afternoon this most interesting debate which has ranged over just about every aspect of the Youth Service as a whole. For various reasons, attention seems to be concentrated very largely upon the insignificant minority of juvenile delinquents. This tends rather to overshadow all the needs of normal, healthy, adventurous youngsters. Modern conditions make it increasingly necessary to assist them in their growing-up process by means of youth organisations of various kinds. Recognition of the Youth Service as a full partner in our educational system is then, to my mind, more than overdue.
I should first like to say a word on behalf of the majority of young people who are ordinary and law-abiding, although always full of life and occasionally mischievous. Such young people form the bulk of the uniformed organisations like the Scouts and Guides, about which we have just heard from my noble friend Lord Buckinghamshire. And these two well-respected movements, founded by my late father in this country and then spread around the world, are still gaining in popularity and public esteem. Naturally, as I have myself been a lifelong member of the Scout movement I am heavily biased in its favour. I would stress that Scout and Guide training is designed to supplement that given by the schools and to support that given

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by the Churches and in the home. It is therefore extremely valuable and merits all the help that can be given. I would ask Her Majesty's Government to give the Scouts and Guides all the support they need; that is, moral support in their appeal for more leaders and adequate financial support for the work of their local and national headquarters.
Such work is not confined to the over-fourteens, as has already been explained, but is largely concerned with a very considerable number under that age. Perhaps it may be of interest to your Lordships if I quoted the latest available census figures of the Boy Scouts' and Girl Guides' Associations, from which it will readily be seen how great a part is played by the under-fourteens in our movements. The Boy Scouts' Association's latest available figures, 1959, are these: Wolf Cubs—that is, the boys under 11, 238,668; Boy Scouts, 11 to 14—that is, including the Air Scouts and Sea Scouts, 208,694; Senior Scouts, including Air Scouts and Sea Scouts—that is, the 15 to 18 years old group, 49,763. Then we have Rover Scouts from 18 to 23, of whom there are 8,069, and of those Rovers 5,521 are under 21. As regards the Girl Guides' Association, the latest available figures, up to 1959, are: Brownies, under 11, 259,145; Girl Guides, 11 to 14, 247,845; and the Rangers, including the Air and Sea Rangers, 15 to 21 years old group, 11,730. These numbers, I understand, constitute approximately one-fifth of the total of the 10 to 14 year olds in this country at the moment.
I would emphasise the difficulties of the leaders of our own and other movements who are in day-to-day contact with the young people and who have unfortunately to spend more time raising the necessary funds than on the actual job of training the young people themselves. I cannot over-emphasise the value of Scout and Guide training, which is universally recognised as training for good citizenship. We start our training at 8 years of age and the most important phase in that training is between 11 and 14. It would, indeed, be a great pity if all these, including the youngsters under 14, were forgotten.
7.19 p.m.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I hope there is nothing unlucky about
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being the thirteenth of your Lordships to offer my congratulations to Lady Albemarle and her Committee for the very concise and readable Report which has concentrated our attention on the Youth Service and enabled us to have what I think has been a very useful debate. We are also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, who introduced it for the second time. Disraeli said:
"The youth of a nation are the trustees of posterity."
I think it has been generally agreed in most nations now that those who wish to take some care for the future of their nation must make proper provision for their youth. That obligation was recognised in this country by the 1944 Education Act, which, for the first time, laid a duty on the local education authorities to provide this Youth Service. However, mainly due to lack of finance, which itself has had a depressing effect on enthusiasm, the Youth Service has not grown as it should have, and the Albemarle Committee Report is most timely. There is, I am sure, plenty of enthusiasm to help young people, and all that is required is a new injection of finance to get it going.
Somewhat naturally, in order to highlight the present situation I think the Albemarle Report tends in some places to paint too black a picture. On the very first page it refers to the Youth Service as "dying on its feet", and "out on a limb"—at least, it quotes evidence that those expressions have been used. I think they are rather extreme expressions, especially when we consider that, later on in the Report, it is acknowledged that the present Service covers one in three young people, which is by no means a negligible figure. I myself am most closely connected with the Y.M.C.A., and our record is certainly not too bad. I think that since the war 78 major new building developments have been completed, 8 are under construction, and 24 more are in the planning stage. We are certainly not "dying on our feet". I would say, rather, that we are living on our wits, and that what we require is some solid, extra financial assistance to aid our wits.
In its essence, the Albemarle Report calls for a new ten-year plan; and, inevitably, the basis for this national drive is to be the local education authorities.

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They cover the whole country; they are susceptible to guidance from the Ministry of Education; and they have the statutory responsibility. But I should like to emphasise that it would be wrong to think that the local education authorities could ever run the Youth Service in the same way as they run the education service. After all, education is accepted as compulsory, whereas in its very essence the Youth Service is voluntary. It has to attract its members to itself, and for that very reason I believe the voluntary organisations have so much to offer. We must look—as, indeed, the Albermarle Report emphasises—for a partnership. The authorities will provide the overall plan and the major part of the finance, and the voluntary organisations will provide the originality and the variety of approach which alone can give the Youth Service an appeal to the many varied types of young people with whose needs it tries to deal. I believe that the whole key to the future of the Service lies in co-operation between the local education authority and the various voluntary societies.
For a few moments I should like to consider the various ways in which those two sides come together and meet. First of all, in the planning stages, the Report suggests that an advisory committee, on which the voluntary organisations are represented, should be available to advise the sub-committee of the education committee. Certainly this goes some way to ensuring co-operation; but, personally, I should prefer, if possible, a rather closer link between the voluntary organisations and the local education authorities—and, indeed, other persons interested in service to youth. I would suggest, if it were possible, that representatives should be co-opted on to the sub-committee itself, rather than forming an advisory committee.
The second sphere in which co-operation is obviously vital is the financial sphere. Local authorities are already providing finance for people attending training courses; towards the salaries of full-time leaders; towards expenditure on training and administration; towards building schemes; and towards the maintenance of buildings and equipment—and many of them are very generous. But, unfortunately, there is the most tremendous variation in the amount of money
1022
that different authorities devote to the Youth Service; and it seems to me that, if we are going to have a national drive, one of the major problems is going to be to "iron out" these differences and to ensure more uniformity throughout the country.
Some very interesting figures appear in Appendix 4 to the Report, giving, for the year 1957–58, the estimated expenditure per head of population for the fifteen to twenty age group. Between the various authorities, this estimated expenditure per head varies from 53s. down to as little as 1s. 6d. In fact, in the West Riding of Yorkshire alone it varies from 51s. down to 3s. I wonder how a national drive can be implemented unless there is some greater uniformity in the way in which local educational authorities act financially.
I cannot help for one moment drawing your Lordships' attention, while I am discussing these particular figures, to the fact that the average for England per head of the population is 15s., whereas in Wales it is 34s.—more than double. I think that the Welsh local education authorities deserve some praise for what they have done. But even so, the fact that a figure may be fairly reasonably high still does not mean that the particular local education authority is giving much money to the voluntary associations in its area. Some of them prefer to do all the work themselves, and not to assist the voluntary societies with finance; and that is another problem which I am sure will have to be considered.
My Lords, if the Albemarle Committee Report is adopted as it stands, there are one or two other ways in which the local education authorities will impinge on the work of the voluntary societies. One is in the training of leaders. Paragraph 276 suggests that those leaders who have completed five years' service to the satisfaction of the local education authority should be recommended to the Minister for recognition by the local education authority. It may be logical in the case of leaders employed by the local education authority, or even where they are fairly heavily subsidised by them, but it does not seem to me right in cases where a leader is employed by a voluntary society and whose salary is in no way supported by the local education

1023
authority. Also, there are area organisers employed by voluntary societies whose areas may cover several local education authority areas; and I think that, in general, there is here a danger of interference by the local education authority with the work of the voluntary organisations.
Equally, in paragraph 278, where the local education authority is given the supervision of the one year's probation which it is intended that a trained leader should do, I should think, again, that there might be some danger of overlapping and annoyance between the two bodies. It would seem to me that voluntary organisations which run their own system of training and supervision, especially where that system of training has been recognised by the Minister, should be given some authority to supervise their own employees and the probation period. No aspect of the Youth Service is more important than the training of leaders, for without them money spent on buildings and equipment is wasted; and I believe that it is vital that the voluntary system which has produced so many natural leaders should not be disturbed.
LORD PAKENHAM: My Lords, I am sure that what the noble Lord says has a great deal of force, but I imagine that he contemplates that supervision must be local or regional. It would not be enough to have supervision by the head office of a voluntary organisation.
LORD ABERDARE: My Lords, I understand that most voluntary organisations have their own systems for supervising leaders at present, and I should have thought that a reputable voluntary organisation could be left to do its own supervision. What I am anxious about is that leaders now working for voluntary organisations, who have a natural flair for organisation but may not be able to pass a specific training course, should be allowed still to be employed by voluntary organisations and still be able to exercise their natural abilities in the service of youth.
Secondly, it suggests in the Report that after the first five years' development period, local education authorities alone should make capital grants to voluntary youth groups. Speaking for the Y.M.C.A., I know that we should very
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much regret the ending of the Minister's grants under the Social and Physical Training Grant Regulations, which have worked very happily and have avoided that lack of uniformity which we fear, if capital grants were to become the exclusive property of local authorities. We hope that before the Minister gives up this power and hands it to the local authorities it will be given the most careful consideration, and that, at any rate, it will not be decided until after the first few years have shown how the local authorities have measured up to their other financial responsibilities.
Finally, I should like to say a few words about the character of the Service itself. I believe that the increased finance that is required is primarily needed to modernise it and bring it up to date, to get away from the conception of the dark, dingy hall with a few table-tennis tables to keep poor boys and girls off the streets, and to provide modern facilities for a modern generation that has money to spend. Membership is voluntary and we must attract members into the clubs. The buildings must be light and bright, and suitable activities must be enjoyed by young men and young girls together, without any segregation of sexes. Like many other noble Lords who have spoken, I believe that the young people themselves should be encouraged to take more part in planning programmes and the running of their clubs, and that we should encourage the many excellent schemes that exist for providing adventure.
If my noble friend Lord Monck will forgive me—he is very hard on Plato—I would, if I may, quote Themistocles:
"The wildest colts make the best horses."
I am sure that this is true, and I believe that the more adventurous of our young people must be given an opportunity of significant achievement, otherwise there is a danger of their finding their adventure in the all too familiar gangs. If I may mention the Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme, I would inform your Lordships that only this morning His Royal Highness was handing out gold awards to those who had won them. May I please blow my Welsh trumpet again and add that of the four boys who gained awards for the Y.M.C.A., three came from Mountain Ash, my home town in South Wales?

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I would echo the words of those who suggested that we must have high standards behind our Youth Service. It seems to me a wrong use of public money to provide dance halls and coffee bars if, in conjunction with them, there are no means of promoting those ethical standards which the Service should seek to impart. On the other hand, I see great advantage in modern clubs providing modern facilities against a background of good fellowship, self-help, co-operation and purpose. We can provide the money and the buildings, but ultimately the future of the whole Service will depend on individuals. It will depend on those who serve the Ministry and the local education authorities. It will depend on employers, parents, teachers and youth leaders. We shall get only the Youth Service we deserve and the Youth Service we are prepared to work for. It can reflect among youth only the standards of our own adult civilisation.
7.36 p.m.
LORD AUCKLAND: My Lords, as this valuable debate draws to its close I unhesitatingly preface my remarks by adding my tribute to Lady Albemarle and her Committee for this valuable Report, produced in such a relatively short time and so easy to read and understand. I know that I speak for all parts of the House when I also pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, for instigating this debate.
Strictly speaking, Scotland is not covered by this Report, but having returned only this morning from my native country, which I visit too rarely nowadays, I should like to say a word or two about Scotland which is not irrelevant to the Report. I have just returned from Speyside, where there is a great deal of rambling, pony-trekking and other outdoor activities, in which not only the local youth but young people from all parts of the country on holiday indulge. During the ten days I was at Speyside together with my wife, I walked a bout 70 miles. This is not a great distance, but walking is an invigorating pastime, one of the finest in which one can indulge. I should like to see a great many more young people rambling and walking. As has been pointed out in the course of the debate, there is a tendency for young people to travel too much on "motor-bikes" or
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in sports cars and "do" a town, while the salubrious pastime of walking is all too little undertaken. The long life of health which our ancestors so often enjoyed was due, I am sure, largely to the fact that they could not rely on mechanised transport. They relied on "Shanks's pony" and were all the better for it.
LORD PAKENHAM: My Lords, I do not want to quibble, but on the average we live longer than our ancestors.
LORD AUCKLAND: My Lords, I should not like to be drawn into a battle of statistics with the noble Lord. But I think that it is true to say that, by and large, our ancestors enjoyed better health. However, that is a point for medical men to discuss, and there is no time to discuss it to-night. The noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood, quoted from an interesting article in The Scotsman of May 14 on Alloa's Manhattan Youth Club. I happen to know Alloa a little. It is an interesting town, the largest town in the smallest county of Scotland. Brewing is one of its main activities, but there is also some lovely countryside round about, and it has this very thriving youth club. In the article is the following passage:
"One point of real significance is that the Manhattan's popularity was soon so overwhelming as to attract the critical notice of respectable citizens who would have preferred to do without the exuberant assemblies of young people en route to the club premises or to hear their loud and unmelodious noises which emerged. The adult committee members had to be strong-minded enough not to be deterred by this criticism and to resist firmly but graciously the quite strong social pressure of those of their acquaintances who would rather have seen the work not done at all."
I detect here, rightly or wrongly, a rather scornful form of jealousy. After all, young people will be noisy. But if they are achieving something which may be valuable to the community, this noise is surely worth while; and it is better that the noise should come from a youth club which has been formed by a band of conscientious people rather than from a public-house. I quote that article in passing because I feel sure that throughout the country in due course many areas will follow Alloa's good example, even if they have not already done so.
As has been said, the problem of youth clubs is not necessarily one of money,

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but is also one of buildings. If there are builders in areas who would devote the time, and perhaps provide the materials, to instruct youngsters to build their clubs, I am sure they would co-operate. After all, money without the materials is ineffective. There are materials to be obtained. One has only to go into the countryside to see that there are often on dumps, rotting away, materials which could be used for building clubs. Possibly they would be of a somewhat Spartan nature, but young people frequently exist better under Spartan conditions. Another point I should like to make regarding young people concerns the Territorial Army and other auxiliary forces and organisations. In the Territorial Army one is not only soldiering: when one goes to camp there are organised sporting activities, such as cricket, or tennis sometimes, plus the normal training. It is extremely healthy, and I myself derived great benefit from it. From a fortnight at camp in a properly organised unit youngsters can derive considerable benefits.
There is one passage in the Report which has not, I think, been quoted—namely, paragraph 359, which urges consideration by adult societies or sports clubs of the idea of giving assistance to youth organisations in such activities as naturalist societies, brass bands and gliding clubs. This seems to me to be an eminently sensible paragraph—indeed, it is the one that caught my eye above all others when I read the Report. I hope that this particular paragraph, if it has not already been adopted by the Government, will be carefully considered. The noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, mentioned young political organisations joining in activities which youth clubs normally perform, and as a past chairman of a young political organisation I entirely agree with him. As I say, rambling is one activity in which my organisation used to indulge. And there were also table tennis and other pastimes. By doing that we used to gather a large organisation of youngsters of both sexes, and a good time was had by all.
Finally the Church has done a great deal. In my area, the 17-plus group—that is, those youngsters between 17 and 25—are a thriving community. They, too, have their outdoor activities, such as
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rambling, and they have dancing; and they combine very valuable religious studies with these healthy activities. In conclusion, I would congratulate the Committee on this Report, and would particularly endorse their emphasis on the importance of the physical and outdoor activities. I hope that the Government will give every aid they can to every aspect of youth clubs and will certainly not neglect this side of it, because the health of the nation is, of course, most important.
7.48 p.m.
BARONESS RAVENSDALE OF KEDLESTON: My Lords, at this late hour I will not detain your attention except for a few moments on what I sense are some of the dangers which perhaps, during a long afternoon's debate, have not been stressed enough in the implementation of this admirable Albemarle Report. I entirely agree with most of the recommendations, and I thank the Government for the quick appraisal of them. I can only say: please God they will be implemented as quickly as possible! I can equally only trust that the local authorities will see how they can support the Report as speedily in the proposals put forward for them.
I sincerely want to see—and I said this previously in my maiden speech—a levelling up, and not a downgrading, of statutory grants, so that the unhappy voluntary clubs may know where they stand year to year and what they may receive. I sense somehow in my bones that it should not be at the whim of the borough council members to give according to their moods when in office. If the voluntary associations are struggling to combat all the evils to-day in the midst of our young people, could we not have an acknowledged sliding scale, according to the borough's status and its wealth? I know what has already been said about block and percentage grants. Equally the borough might look at how much it hauls off us as its borough citizens. It seems to me it should be a point of principle that from the whole wealth of the community a minimum total should anyhow go to Youth Clubs, as, after all, they are part and parcel of the body corporate.
As the noble Lord, Lord Craigton, said to-day, the local councils very often

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do nothing. Some have no youth committee or youth officer, some are mingy with an ill grace, and others give nothing at all. That rates the problem as "How cheap are your youngsters?". I will quote only one or two statistics for your Lordships to see the gross unevenness of distribution. Eastern England has the highest spending rate. One of the best areas is the Isle of Wight. In the Isle of Wight the teenage population is only 4,500, but they have fourteen youth centres entirely maintained by the council, two youth officers, two full-time leaders, and sixteen part-timers. Seven youth organisations on the island are assisted by the council.
But take Dorset as a comparison. With 21,000 teenagers they have no council-maintained centres and only one youth officer. A large number of clubs do get small financial aid. Devon and Cornwall are both without youth centres. Brighton has two youth centres for 11,000 teenagers; Hastings has none, but Eastbourne has two for 3,000 and Bournemouth has nine for 5,900. We know that the London County Council money is concentrated on youth centres, with seventeen maintained by the Council, but they have 250,000 teenagers. That is what I want to get levelled up in some way.
Though I plead for increased State aid, my grave fears lie in the danger—it has been hinted at by one noble Lord—that the local authorities may want to "boss the show" because of increased assistance to us. Do believe me, in all humility before your Lordships, with all your knowledge, when I say that in my long time, over 45 years now, working in youth clubs in the East End of London, I know that an ounce of genuine amateur zeal and the love of young people for themselves may be worth pounds of subsidised officialdom. For that reason I am uneasy about the training college. You cannot professionalise the running of youth and make it institutional. No amount of training courses will turn out voluntary or paid workers to pattern. Their whole outlook and heart must be in it. And high salaries, believe me, are not the be-all and end-all of youth workers; it is only that inner knowledge that must be blended into the training of these extra helpers we want so badly. If this ghastly unease continues for us,
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truly it will be a betrayal of our youth in local and ministerial policy.
Lady Albemarle has done our youngsters a truly great service in showing this up. It has been said often enough this afternoon and evening that we must act quickly and Her Majesty's Government must "cough up" the money. It is a fight against time and the increasing evils that are besetting the young to-day. With the increase of gangsterdom everywhere, we do not want to become a land of young gangsters and factional street brawlers, with the horrors—I am afraid some of them have come from America—which youngsters think amusing to copy and imitate. In this an overall vision must come about for the clubs of the future. I know that the Report only hinted at some of them.
Some of the lines which I think should be dealt with have already been mentioned much more earnestly and seriously, such as getting the parents interested in the clubs to which their sons and daughters go. I stress most earnestly the vital point of getting these clubs going with more self-government. I fear to-day that the dislike of tricky young people—and, my goodness! some of them are tricky—is this. They dislike being pushed around—I do not blame some of them—and drilled into activities for better or worse. I utterly endorse the view that with their high wages, they should pay more for what they get. It is their club. It is not charity, and they must have a share in it.
Equally, if I may say so, it is no good increasing the full-time leaders to 1,300 in 1966 unless they have this new vision of club running, in co-operation with the worthwhile members of those clubs who show talent in that line of administering the clubs with them. Equally, some young people will never be clubbable; they do not want anything of the sort. Therefore,. I plead for the development council to join with all those suggestions such as those which were so much desired by some noble Lords in this Chamber—increasing coffee bars under desirable control. Some youngsters will respond only to a place with no activities where they can lounge or relax, playing cards or darts, and not be hounded into a pattern from 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m., and from 10 p.m. to 11 p.m.

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After all, it has been rammed down our throats. For ages we have known that a vital percentage of our youth never enter clubs—only one in three ever come to them. These various suggestions might be one way of assisting them and not leaving them out in the cold. I am sure the development council is full of schemes on those lines, and this must be looked into. May I say this with all my heart? We must not look at the teenagers like the depressed classes of India or the untouchables. They are a part of our community, and it is shocking to me that we have suddenly discovered youth and that the Government and political Parties have suddenly woken up with a bang to its import.
But everything will fail if you infuriate the teenagers by manipulating and moulding them. They must see, and be made to see, how they can help our age and change our difficult times. The teenager must be made to see how he can serve society, especially while he has this big pay which either can moralise him or demoralise him for all time. The comparison in these high wages today is terrifying; when I look back at those that were earned in Stepney in 1917 it really is paralysing. And teenagers should be made to see that they must spend it on their clubs as well, and not only on gambling, gramophone records, girls, rock 'n' roll, slot machines and the "flicks". There, though, creeps in—it has been said often enough but I must repeat it because I feel it so strongly—the total lack of parental control and parental upbringing in these tragically difficult days. To my great grief, religion has gone out of the home; the total break-up of home life to-day, as I see it, is one of the great tragedies of what is happening to the pattern of our youth.
I did think originally, when I thought of this subject, that I would bring about grave displeasure to many of your Lordships, but so many of the noble Lords before me have broached this important matter that I now have greater courage in my hands. To my mind, the whole youth club status from 14 to 20 is totally wrong, and if I had been a dictator I would never have allocated grants to that age block only. I would take them now at school. I would go lower than the ages that some of your Lordships have mentioned. I would go
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down to 9 years old and let them come on up to 16 or 17 or even, if you like, 18 or 20.
It is interesting to note that the Report of the London County Council, on the Provision of Social and Recreational Facilities, mentions the responsibility of a local education authority for ensuring that social facilities are not confined to any particular age group. The responsibility is as heavy and as important in respect of boys and girls under 15 as it is for young people between the ages of 15 and 21. The London Youth Committee of the L.C.C. and the borough youth committees are charged with advising on the wellbeing of all children and young people between the ages of 5 and 21. My reaction to this is that if you cannot help a child in those malleable school years and cannot make a good citizen of him between those years of 9 to 19 or 20, you will never do anything with him. The lure of all the material, and often alas! worthless, outside entertainments that thrill youth in our Welfare State to-day—which, of course, we cannot and should not be expected to supply in our youth clubs—is debasing all of them, and the fight, to my mind, is quite hopeless in later years.
But there is nothing to stop old members' associations helping clubs like mine for old memories' sake, running things for the upkeep of the club and the football, or whatever it may be. I wish I could see the whole age-grouping for receiving statutory grants entirely chanced and the age limit lowered. Some people say, "If you lower the age group you must train special leaders; that is going to revolutionise the whole thing". I think that that is totally unnecessary. A great many clubs to-day, although it is not in the curriculum, take school children from nine years. My warden and his wife are working on these children before the juniors come in. We are all, in club life, better with juniors or seniors or adolescents. I am better with older girls than younger boys. That should not be a stumbling block if you take the younger age groups in. The storm can be weathered if your heart is in the right place. I am sad you do not nourish at an earlier date, though many clubs like mine do attempt it. We must attempt this new

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plan for youth clubs to drop down to an earlier start.
This country will have an unrivalled opportunity to see what it can make of its young people in the next few years if we do not dilly-dally on the way. After all, we have heard it said that this year 750,000 boys and girls will reach 15 years of age, and in 1962 we get another 929,000. It can be an enrichment, or a frittering, trailing-down, agonising problem where everybody loses courage. It comes back to these school years, to my mind, if it is not to be too late to do anything with them; take them into the clubs earlier.
Lastly, though I know it has not been mentioned very seriously, I think you cannot do anything with these young people, whether in the clubs or homes or schools, without bringing in religion and ethical principles, so that you may have some small chance to trounce and get rid of this lust and passion for money and sex in all the ghastly posters and Press to-day. We know clearly that puberty is occurring earlier. Many reach adolescence before 15. Look at the frightening thing of children of 12 and 13 having illegitimate children all over the country. Hence my plea for earlier club admittance and also a proper psychological study should be made by our doctors as to the why and wherefore of these physical changes in our youth to-day, and whether we can serve them as far up even as 20 years old. Lastly, I would appeal to the Minister and Her Majesty's Government to forget the 14 to 16 years old schedule and consider the earlier, more impressionable, years, thereby building up our youth against the ghastly temptation of the teenage period. The Report offers us dreams and such tremendous hopes. It is not a mechanical participation in an economic process, but a spiritual participation in a humanitarian process for these young people who, after all, are all the children of God.
8.8 p.m.
THE LORD BISHOP OF SOUTHWELL: My Lords, I shall not keep you more than a very short time. My object in speaking at all was only in order to join my colleague in making clear the intimate concern of the Bishops with this debate, which touches our own work so closely, and to thank the noble Lord for introducing it. But as the day
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is not as young as it used to be I shall have to cut out a good deal that I meant to say.
There are some of us getting near the stage at which the problems of adolescence will seem to have been rather elementary compared with what happens to us at the other end, but those problems are real enough and painful enough at the time. It is an uneasy business to grow up. Some people never manage the job at all. As has been pointed out, there are many physical and social factors at work to-day to render it more than usually difficult. At the same time there is very little support forthcoming to-day from an affluent but unconvinced society which acknowledges hardly any non-material values. An egalitarian society which accepts everybody equally on achievement is also a society which rejects people who fail to make the grades it requires. And it does that rather cruelly early in life.
There are many boys and girls with a failure complex, either about the 11-plus or at some much deeper level, debilitated by a sense of guilt, embittered by a feeling of resentment, who are trying to find some significance in life by their curious tribal cults and aggressive behaviour, or to get their own back and take revenge by violent crime. The so-called Teddy Boys are the "status-seekers" in our mainly quantitative society which has hardly any room or status for persons as persons. Among the influences which help people to find some conviction, some meaning in life, some personal fulfilment, I think it is true that, apart from the home and the church, the most potent is the youth club—and how pitifully inadequate is our provision at present!
In my own diocese there are several housing estates in which there is a population of 13,000 adolescents at a time, all dressed up and with almost nowhere to go. Some of them have become juvenile delinquents because they cannot find anything else to do. Though the churches and the local authorities are working together and doing the best they can, we are at present only gnawing at the rind of the problem; and the same is true in the country as a whole. I am sure that no responsible Government in this country will ever propose to organise a nationalised youth movement, and any approach

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that is going to meet the need will have to be, as it is now, pluralistic, experimental, even opportunist and personal. And almost everything depends, it seems to me, on full and trustful co-operation between the statutory and voluntary enterprises in this field, both at the national and local level.
Among voluntary associations the churches have certainly earned their right to be listened to, consulted, and taken into partnership. There are 280,000 boys and girls in organisations sponsored by the Church of England, to which must be added the quite substantial number served by the Roman and Free Churches. That is a high proportion of the whole. We could have done much more, and done it much better, if we had not been so starved for money. The Report and Government statements hold out strong hope of a more generous and constructive approach, and of increased grants in aid to churches and voluntary bodies, for equipment, buildings and so forth. Of course we welcome that with a lively sense of favours to come. But is anything really going to happen?
I do not question—nobody questions—the Minister's intention, or the honourable motives of the Government. But what is going to happen at local authority level? I want to press this question on Her Majesty's Government. Out of every £1 in the Education Estimates one penny so far has been "recklessly" spent on the Youth Service. But already in the local councils there are complaints about the increased cost of education. Already there are rumours in some councils of intentions to cut down, rather than increase, grants-in-aid for youth work. I hope that the Government will make plain that that is not in accordance with national policy, but will also give the local authorities information and guidance as to how much help they can look for from the Treasury, and how they can use local money to maintain and extend the Youth Service. A great deal of planning is held up at the moment for lack of more and fuller information from the top. I am sure that, unless we get much more definition than we have had so far, not very much is going to happen at all.
There is one further point. It is not enough merely to provide for the extension of the organisations and facilities which exist at present. There is a tremen-
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dour need for pioneer experiment. All through history in the field of social service the function of the Church has been to be the pioneer, and there is a great deal of pioneering wanted now. There are thousands of boys and girls who have not been reached, and never will be reached, by existing methods of approach, most of which are far too restrictive. There are exciting new possibilities of experiment among the so-called "Teddy boys", and there are various parishes up and down the country—I could quote four or five in downtown Nottingham—where the local parson has known how to make his contacts; and groups of these boys and girls are now beginning to come to church. But, of course, there are hundreds of thousands who do not, and perhaps never will. But I think that little is going to be done along the conventional and highly respectable lines of past approach. We need creative, imaginative experiment. What I am asking is that grants-in-aid shall be forthcoming for admittedly unproved pioneer experimental work, to make it possible for a club to come into existence without being asked to fill up forms stating the number of members they have and what activities are provided. They have not got the members, and they want to go out and get them; and work of that kind is enormously expensive in equipment and professional salaries.
Finally, neither buildings nor money are the heart of the problem. The heart of the problem is leadership. The vital point on which everything else depends is the recruitment and training of leaders, men and women, for all types of work, both as professionals and as volunteers. I hope that the Minister, in consultation with the clergy and voluntary bodies, will put out a strong call for people who offer themselves for this service, and not least the young people themselves. Because, as a headmaster said to me the other day: "In order to win the trust of a boy you do not want to offer to help him. You want to ask him to help you."
8.23 p.m.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): My Lords, we have had a fairly wide-ranging debate, and references to or quotations from Plato, Ecclesiastes, St. Thomas Aquinas, Bracton, Themistocles, and mens sana in

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corpore sano; and after such a feast I wonder whether we really want a Government reply. If it were not for the necessity of tradition, I suppose the noble Lord would suggest that we could dispense with that. But we have just concluded a debate which forms the last of a series of debates which, whether by design or chance, has covered almost the entire spectrum of education, with the exception of the all-important subject of primary education and perhaps the nursery schools. I cannot help feeling that we have done a great work by taking up this question in so much detail week after week. Nor can I think of any other subject more suitable for a consistent scrutiny of this kind in your Lordships' House.
I will not spend much time complimenting the noble Lord who introduced this Motion. We have known each other too long—
A NOBLE LORD: Too long?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: —but there has been no more consistent or enthusiastic contributor to these debates than the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham; and there are few Peers who are listened to with greater pleasure. To-day has been no exception. The noble Lord, like myself, naturally casts his mind back to the occasion, just over a year ago, when he introduced his Motion on the subject before the Albemarle Committee had reported. I feel that that Report has fulfilled the hope which I ventured to express for it at the end of that debate. I Said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 213, Col. 1081]:
"I cannot close without expressing my own hope that the Report, when it comes, will do much not merely to clear the air but to restore status, coherence, morale, and self-confidence to a Service which has, not without some cause, felt itself neglected over the years. In the last resort it is public opinion which will be the determining factor in securing recognition, by the Government and by the public, both of the Service and its leaders. The Report of the Committee will play an indispensable part in the formation of public opinion."
The various tributes which have been paid in the debate this afternoon to the Report of the Albemarle Committee ensure, I believe, that that hope will be fulfilled and, in fact, guarantee that it has been fulfilled.
I feel it is abundantly plain that in the minds of your Lordships and in the
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intention of my right honourable friend and of the Government the time has come for a great step forward in the history of the Youth Service. I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, for his generous acknowledgment of the prompt action of my right honourable friend iri accepting the Report in principle on the very next day—which I am told is an event without precedent in the history of British government. At any rate, we all accept the aim, prompted partly by the ending of National Service and by the much larger numbers of young people in the relevant age groups, to double the number of those making use of the Service and thus raising it from 1 million to 2 million. This is fundamentally a practical aim, although a great number of theoretical considerations have rightly been canvassed, and the Albemarle Report was intended to be a practical Report, produced, as it was, by the noble Lady and her colleagues in almost record time for a document of its size and weight.
The debate this afternoon has ranged over a number of general topics, and I should like to divide what I have to say into two main groups of observations. First, I would make one or two general reflections of my own, and then relate them to the expressed policy of the Government and to some of the criticisms that have been levelled either at the Government or at the Report during the course of the debate. By the Education Act, 1944, the Youth Service is an integral part of the education service of the country; but there are important differences which cannot be overlooked, which differentiate the Youth Service from the system of formal education which we have been discussing in some of our other debates.
Although it is not a theoretical difference, I will mention first what may be the most important distinction of all: the fact that the Youth Service is incomparably a much younger Service—much younger, that is, in terms of national organisation. I believe it was the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, who referred to the fact that in its present form it was born only 21 years ago, in 1939; and much of that time, as several noble Lords have pointed out, has been years of comparative stagnation. It has not, as formal education has, a century of development

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behind it; and I very much agreed in one sense with what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, in this connection: that in relation to it we are probably somewhere about the place we were in in 1880 in relation to formal education. Unlike the schools, its traditions and assumptions have not yet built themselves up by experience into a coherent body of expertise. I would even say that we have not yet clearly made up our minds as to what, in a democracy, a Youth Service is for; for whom it is to cater; how it is to be financed; what it has to aim at; and in what sense precisely it is education. Secondly, I would say that, although it is an integral part of the Youth Service as it is, there is a sense in which the instructional element is a by-product, just as the Service itself is voluntary.
As I think the right reverend Prelate who has just addressed the House said, in rather different words, it would of course be much easier if we lived under a dictatorship. Hitler had what some people might have considered an admirable Youth Service—that is, if one assumes, to begin with, that it is the function of the State to inculcate spiritual values and that the Youth Service should be used for this purpose, and if one also disregards the fact that the spiritual values inculcated were utterly abhorrent to our own. But is it only the fact that they were abhorrent to our own that makes the model the unsuitable model it is? Like the right reverend Prelate, I would think not.
To begin with, spiritual values are things which in the first place religious communities in this country like to feel they themselves have the duty to inculcate; and a State whose citizens are divided among many and often, to some extent, mutually adverse religious denominations cannot easily, or without reflection, decide in what way they are to hand over public money to religious organisations; especially as any good religious movement must contain, of necessity, a proselytising element much more than is nowadays the case with a school. Moreover—and I say this with the greatest of delicacy towards those who have taken a slightly different view—I would say that spiritual values are often taught better by not being rammed
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down people's throats. The young are suspicious of propaganda. In my opinion they are rightly so. And I do not think that those young people who, like myself, are also very easily bored by propaganda, even when not actively disliking it, ought merely for that reason to be deprived of the use of the Youth Service. I would have said, obviously not.
But if not, then we come to something very like the present organisation, based on a partnership between Government, local authority and voluntary bodies, not dependent entirely on public funds for finance, and discovering to some extent its peculiar philosophy and ethos as it goes along. This probably makes, I would agree, for rather slower development than a nice tidy social service entirely financed out of public funds. Yet in the long run it may produce something more serviceable and suitable for a free society. It was for that reason that, although I listened with immense respect to those numerous noble Lords and right reverend Prelates, and to the noble Baroness, Lady Ravensdale of Kedleston—whose speech I so much enjoyed—when they criticised paragraph 143 of the Report, and although I accepted many of their arguments and assumptions, I thought on the whole that the Report had steered effectively its delicate course between the benefits of the purposeful and committed organisations, whose value they recognised, and the hard fact that many young people would be suspicious of approaches made directly and expressly on denominational and even on spiritual values.
I say that because I am one of those who feel very strongly on two basic matters. Those who belong to the committed organisations, and those who have spoken for them this afternoon, have justified themselves. In the first place, no impartial person listening to your Lordships' debate would fail to realise that, of those who spoke with experience of youth movements and organisations of one sort and another, by far the greater number of those who thus spoke were, in fact, themselves active Christians or believers in some religious creed.
LORD PAKENHAM: Hear, hear!
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: Whatever can be said against those of us who have religious faith in this country, whatever

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theoretical objections can be brought against our metaphysics by the so-called scientific humanists, it is the Christians who do the work. This is a fact which cannot in the least be denied, and it has been exemplified this afternoon. It is one of the reasons why, in public life, in the great political Parties, there are a higher proportion of religious people than there are in the population at large; and it is one of the reasons why, when we get a particularly important and valuable kind of social work which yields very little reward and recognition, in practice we find the Christians and religious people doing it. Whether this be a justification or guarantee of the validity of our metaphysics or not, it is an observable fact.
The second thing is that I am personally deeply convinced that those who have spoken in this sense are exactly right in claiming, as they do, as their fundamental premise, that you cannot found a successful national community except upon the rock of individual character; and by that I mean, above all things, firm adherence to those primary virtues of integrity, courage, self-restraint in sexual and other matters, temperance and love of one's fellow man. And I believe, as a fact, that it is true that these things cannot be cultivated, except in the most remarkable cases, of which there are a few, probably known to all of us, without a direct and conscious approach to the deep wells of Grace and religious inspiration.
But, for all that, my Lords, I would say that in approaching the problem of a social service of this kind the Report was right in steering the course which I have mentioned; and, in a sense, the various social benefits which come from the practice of the virtues, and from the acquisition of a religious philosophy of life, come precisely from them, in relation to a service of this kind, because in one sense they are by-products.
The object of the Service is very largely recreation. And it would be quite wrong, and quite foreign to the whole philosophy of the thing, to regard the recreation as a sort of sugar coating to a pill of spiritual indoctrination which it was thereby hoped the young people would swallow. It may sound odd for a Minister to defend, and even advocate,
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that a State should spend money on fun, fun of the young, who already have so much money to spend themselves—nearly £1,000 million a year, as I think my noble friend, Lord Feversham, said; and on the whole I think it is odd. But it remains true. Make the Youth Service attractive enough, and hope that the young people will be queuing up to join it and very largely finance it out of their own earnings. Of course that means making it a good deal more attractive than it is now in many respects; and it also means giving the movement a management which has no flavour of authoritarianism in its character.
It also means, I think, sometimes, a little less conscious indoctrination than many people would like to see. But in the end I would say that that approach would yield dividends, even on the purely spiritual plane. It is, after all, impossible to run societies effectively and not for profit without developing precisely those qualities, associated with a sense of social responsibility, which the theologians call virtues, and which the good label with somewhat formidable and unattractive names such as integrity, courage, temperance and self-restraint.
My Lords, there is not one way only of developing the Youth Service, but several—and here I come to a somewhat formidable criticism which has been formulated from a good many quarters during the course of the debate: that, in dealing with the Youth Service, we should begin at an age earlier than the recommended 14. One noble Lord (I think it was my noble friend Lord Monck) suggested that we should end earlier, and that we should go down in the age scale either to 12 or, I think the noble Lady said, to an even earlier age. I think there is a good deal in this attitude of mind; and it is certainly true, I think, that inside the Ministry of Education the Division of the Ministry concerned with the various voluntary organisations is in fact organised in that way, as one body. I would myself think that, on the whole, it was more rational to look at the complete spectrum of youth and recreation from the earliest years up to full adult life as a single whole, to be examined in relation to a single set of criteria. But I think we have inevitably, in the present context, to face the issue of priority.

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That is to some extent a tribute—although perhaps it is a tribute which noble Lords will appreciate less than some others which have been paid—to the success of movements such as the Scouts and Guides, which were spoken of with knowledge both by the noble Lord, Lord Baden-Powell, and by my noble friend Lord Buckinghamshire, that they are so much better organised (and, indeed, to some extent, better endowed) than some of the services for the group which we have been discussing particularly this afternoon, the 14s to 20s. I would say that the urgent priority at the moment is to develop the services for the 14s to 20s, not because they stand out sub specie œternitatis, as more important than the earlier groups, but probably because they are less well organised as matters stand. I think, therefore, that it is inevitable, for one reason or another, although I would not in the least claim any ultimate truth behind the arbitrary categorisation of the Youth Service as limited to either 14 or 15, that to some extent my right honourable friend should concentrate in his present plans upon this particular range of people.
Now the speeches have ranged over a great number of the individual proposals. I was glad that the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, and other speakers, endorsed the proposal for a national college for the training of youth leaders, although I understood that my noble friend Lady Ravensdale of Kedleston had some hesitations about the matter. It will be known that the college is being set up in Leicester, and that it is hoped to start the first course with one-year full-time students next January. A governing body is being constituted now. The post has been advertised, and a principal will be appointed soon. It is hoped to have 90 students, men and women, in the first year, and 140 a year thereafter for four more years. The setting up of this college for five years on full Exchequer grant is perhaps the best indication of the Government's seriousness about the Youth Service.
The aim, as the noble Lord has told us, is to increase the number of full-time leaders from 700 now to 1,300 in five years' time; and there is no intention that the college courses should be substandard. Other full-time courses will continue at Westhill Training College and Swansea University College, and a number
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of three-year teacher training colleges will include youth leadership in their courses. I think we can say without qualification that we endorse the emphasis which has been laid by so many noble Lords upon the prime necessity for quality in youth leadership as a condition of the advance and success of the Service.
Secondly, the noble Lord, and I think my noble friend Lady Elliot of Harwood and some other speakers, raised legitimate questions about the youth leaders' salaries and qualifications. My Lords, the right settlement of these questions, we should agree, is important for the future of the Service. Informal discussions between the officers of the Ministry, local authority associations, youth leader associations, and voluntary interests, are almost complete, and formal meetings should be possible soon so that negotiations can begin. We regard it as important that youth leaders should have professional standing and dignity. It is equally necessary to ensure that most of them will be able to transfer without difficulty to other professions—including not only teaching, but also other kinds of social service—after a period in the Youth Service.
LORD PAKENHAM: May I ask the noble Viscount one question? I do not know whether it is one to which it is fair to expect an answer this evening, but it is going to be difficult, particularly for these one-year people, to be guaranteed work in teaching, because they will not be qualified as teachers. The difficulty will be to get them started, it seems to me.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: That is obviously correct, unless, of course, they happen to be graduates. But it is obviously a matter that we must consider, among other problems. I should perhaps add that the Government have every hope that suitable negotiating machinery will be set up very soon, so that appropriate scales of salary and conditions of service may be worked out which will be acceptable and will ensure the result which the Albemarle Committee rightly regard as essential.
My Lords, great stress has rightly been put upon buildings. This is one of the things which I think, in many ways, needs changing most. I entirely agree with the noble Lords who have said

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(I forget which noble Lords in particular; I think it was my noble friend Lord Aberdare who laid most stress upon it) that a good building, in keeping with modern days and standards, is, after leadership, the surest guarantee that one can have of adequate membership. The Government have announced, as a beginning, a £3 million programme of starts for the period 1960–62. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, and I think my noble friend Lord Monck, criticised this figure as inadequate, and I should be the first to agree that it was arbitrary in character. But no one knew, and no one yet knows, the real strength of the pent-up demand, and what, given all other commitments, can genuinely be started in the first period.
Requests from local authorities and voluntary organisations for the inclusion of projects in the programme are now being sifted and assessed. The programme will not be allocated wholly to those who have always placed importance on the Youth Service and are quick off the mark, to the detriment of those who ought to do most and are slow to start. A firmer estimate of the needs will be available later; but, at the outset, there had to be some kind of figure. In a sense, it was a "shot in the dark", and in that sense I would not say that £3 million was at all unreasonable. After all, it is £3 million of starts on the ground, and it does take time for local education authorities to get projects through all the committee stages, planned, and started.
I also attach a good deal of importance to my right honourable friend's decision to help with research into the best and most economic planning of buildings for the Youth Service by, among other things, putting the Ministry's Architects and Building Branch in charge of a particular project. They hope to bring out a general bulletin on Youth Service building within about a year, and another one about the actual project about a year later. Buildings for dual purpose, where Youth Service needs can sensibly be combined with other uses, will be encouraged—for example, youth club wings attached to secondary schools or community centres. Moreover, club buildings can sometimes be used for other purposes—for instance, by old people's associations in the afternoons. The typical Youth Service centre, which
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is in many cases an integral part of a secondary school building or situated on the site, may have a hall of about 2,500 square feet; a common room, with canteen or coffee bar, of some 1,000 square feet or more; one or two large rooms for activities, such as crafts and dressmaking; one or two small rooms for discussion groups and the use of tape recorders; a small office for the people running the club; a kitchen, and the usual cloakroom facilities. All in all, it may provide about 7,000 square feet of space and provide in as flexible a way as possible for the changing tastes of a membership of from 150 to 200 young people. Other clubs have special features when a permanent need becomes evident—for instance, there may be a large open covered space where motor-cycles may be repaired and tinkered with.
I come to the various aspects of the question of finance. I doubt whether the noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, was entirely just to the noble Lady in the criticism which he launched against the Report that it did not put a particular figure on the cost of its proposals. I cannot see how this could be done. The noble Lord will be aware that the noble Lady considered this with care and gave her reasons in the Report for not doing so. The Committee said (page 96):
"We have not the materials from which to frame an answer to this question. We have not recommended a single standard pattern for all Youth Service activities to be adopted in all areas and achieved by a fixed date. Instead we have suggested the broad lines on which we believe that the Service can appropriately be developed, recognising that much must be left to local initiative and that there must be room for experiment.
"The cost of the Youth Service in future years will, therefore, depend on the decisions to be taken by the various bodies concerned with its development, and above all on the vigour with which the nation responds to the new concepts outlined in our Report.
"In our opinion, the cost of the Service needs to be judged by two criteria:

(1) the benefits which it may be expected to bring to the nation as a whole; and

(2) the cost of the other comparable social services for which the nation has made itself responsible, in particular the standards and scale of the provision made for those remaining in full-time education after the age of 15".

More money will be available this year for capital grants to local voluntary organisations. The Ministry grant is

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normally 50 per cent. of the total cost, although this figure may be reduced, so that not more than 75 per cent. of the total cost is met by grant when the Ministry grant is combined with the local authority grant; but special cases—for example, clubs in new towns or in some new housing estates—will be looked at on their merits. Increased grants for headquarters and training expenses are now being given to the national voluntary organisations already in receipt of grant, and for the first time to some others. There is some criticism because in some cases the actual amounts are less than the recipients were expecting. However, although more money is available, the amount is limited, and the Minister expects increased Government aid to be at least matched by increased amounts of voluntary effort.
I was a little doubtful about the noble Lord's criticism of the Youth Service Development Council. The Council meets under the chairmanship of my right honourable friend and has now held two meetings. Some local education authorities and voluntary interests still view it with suspicion, suspecting the composition and purpose of the Council. The noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, criticised it for not carrying enough weight. But after a long period of inactivity, the Service is in need of new thought, and the members of the Council have been chosen not for their organisational affiliations but for their knowledge of young people to-day. The old and valued links between the Ministry and the local education authorities and between the Ministry and the voluntary organisations will remain as strong as ever, but the Development Council fills a different need. If I may, I should like to quote a sentence or two from the announcement of the membership of the Council.
"The Government has now provided the means whereby the Youth Service can be expanded. In partnership with the Ministry, the local education authorities and the voluntary organisations will be busy achieving practical results with the resources now provided. All need to profit by the advice and continued fresh thinking of a group of knowledgeable and experienced individuals who can watch and encourage developments over the whole field, who can think about general trends, assess the worth of the experiments that are being undertaken and communicate the results to others. It is chiefly for this purposo that the new Council has been brought into being.
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"At present approximately one million young people use the facilities of the Youth Service. The aim is to attract two million young people between the ages of 14 and 20 into using and enjoying the many and varied facilities that come under the umbrella of the Service. But as it is not intended to try to impose the Service on any young people—there would be failure if this were tried—a better understanding of their leisure-time needs and the practical ways in which they can be helped must be sought. This in turns means changing some aspects of the Youth Service and adding new elements to it, and the Development Council, with their combined wisdom and common sense, and understanding of young people, will be a great help in this task.
"The Council will be asked to consider the general plan of development, to make a broad assessment of the extent to which policy is being implemented and the effectiveness of this policy, to suggest new lines worth pursuing and to identify gaps in the programme of work."
The Council have already begun their task. My right honourable friend has told me that he has been most impressed at the two meetings so far by the wisdom and enthusiasm which they have shown for their work, and he is satisfied that the new body will perform a most valuable function. They have already advised my right honourable friend on some applications for grants for experiments and special purposes, of which several noble Lords have stressed the need; have set up a sub-committee on publicity and information; and have discussed the form of the proposed Ministry building project. As their work becomes better known, my right honourable friend feels sure that the council will be better appreciated. More than half the members have close experience of the Youth Service or are still working in it.
The noble Lord, Lord Pakenham, also raised the question of grant. It is only natural that my right honourable friend should be urged by many people to make a special percentage grant for the Youth Service. This, as the noble Lord frankly admitted, would, of course, be contrary to the Government's general grant policy. The main reason advanced by the critics is the need to have a weapon for dealing with laggard and recalcitrant local education authorities. But in our system of education I think that there is bound to be some unevenness of development. The Government must rely to some extent on its leadership and on persuasion. The main financial safeguard for the Youth

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Service is that, as announced in Circular 3/60 on the building programme,
"expenditure on the Youth Service, and the need to develop it, will be taken into consideration when the amount of general grant for the next period is fixed."
I must, of course, emphasise, from my own small knowledge of the Ministry, that there are more means besides a percentage grant of inducing local education authorities to follow the general policy of development which a Ministry may have in mind.
There were some recommendations which wore not accepted. For instance, it was not accepted that local authorities should include their proposals for the Youth Service directly in their development plan. But they will be asked to consider fully and urgently how best to expand their own Youth Service, even though the formal plans of development will not be formally revised. Several noble Lords have quite rightly and properly emphasised the advantageous effects of a healthy Youth Service on juvenile delinquency, but I think there was a little wisdom in some of the cautionary remarks we heard from my noble friends. We do not want the theory to get abroad, either that the youth of this country is composed entirely of young criminals—that is not true—or that the Youth Service is designed specially as a reclamation service. It is, in fact, as one noble Lord said—I think it was my noble friend Lord Baden-Powell—that the Youth Service is an ordinary part of the social services of the country, designed for ordinary and normal young men and women, and it would be disastrous if the idea got abroad that it was not designed precisely for that. If in fact it has a by-product, as it very likely may, in the reduction of juvenile delinquency, that is well in accordance with all our desires and in accordance with the Government's intention.
My right honourable friend recognises the importance of voluntary effort, and he has more than once stated that he will regard the present activities on the part of the Government as a failure if they are not matched by equal effort on the voluntary side. This point has been stressed by several speakers in the debate, and notably by the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood. The Standing Conference of National Voluntary
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Youth Organisations is aware of this and agrees with my right honourable friend's attitude; and I am happy to say that, according to all the information in my possession, the relations between that body and the Ministry are extremely good. So are the relations between many local standing conferences and their local education authorities. A few local education authorities would do well to do more to encourage and consult with the voluntary partners in their own particular area, and it is, by a like token, up to the voluntary representatives in each area to make every effort to co-operate with the local education authority.
Here I should like to endorse what my noble friend Lady Elliot of Harwood said about the appeal on behalf of the voluntary bodies. The outstanding effort on the voluntary side this year is, of course, the national appeal launched by the Duke of Gloucester last month for money for King George's Jubilee Trust funds. The Trust makes a most valuable contribution on the voluntary side, and the Government offer every encouragement and applause to its work.
The Government's acceptance of the main recommendations of the Report that we have been discussing was a unique event, and people may in consequence have been led to expect miracles in a short period. But it must, of necessity, take some time to establish a solid basis for advance after many years of comparative neglect, and the fact that the Minister has not yet made many formal announcements does not mean in any way that the Youth Service is being let down or that he is not fully behind the work that is being done. A great deal of preparatory work is going on, much of which has been discussed this afternoon, and my right honourable friend will make announcements and issue more circulars in the very near future. I can only assure the House that the Government fully intend to prime the pump properly (if I may use one of the most painful clichés of contemporary usage) for the advance of the Youth Service in the next few years, and we are all determined that each step in the advance shall be a real one.
9.5 p.m.
LORD PAKENHAM: My Lords, the noble Viscount has given us a full and

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fair reply, and I certainly do not wish to continue the argument at this hour, which is late by any standards, including our own. I would, of course, thank him sincerely, not only for what he was good enough to say about me but for the whole tenor of his remarks, and I should like to join in those thanks, as I know we all should, the noble Lord, Lord Craigton. The next time we have a debate of this kind—though I hope we shall not have to wait until my grandchildren are grown up—we will give him something to answer for Scotland, which I know he will deal with most effectively. I would, as I initiated this debate, thank also all who have taken part in it; and perhaps those who are not actually with us will allow me to take their thanks for granted. I indicated in my earlier remarks, I think, that we expected great things from the noble Baroness, Lady Elliot of Harwood, from the noble Earl, Lord Feversham, from the noble Lord, Lord Monck, and from the right reverend Prelates, and all those pleasures were in fact forthcoming. I should also like to thank those whom I did not mention at that time—namely, the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, the noble Earl, Lord Buckinghamshire, the noble Lord, Lord Auckland, and my noble Leader, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough.
I feel that the debate has revealed an exceptional knowledge and profound interest in this question among all your Lordships, and certainly I feel much honoured at having been allowed to set it going. I must not, I suppose, pick and choose, but I do not think I have been so much moved in this House for a long time as I was by the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Ravensdale of Kedleston, whose speech will be long remembered by me and, I am sure, by many others. I am glad that the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, made reference to the fact that certain noble Lords and noble Ladies have given what one might call a lifetime—but I have never liked that expression, because it suggests that life is drawing to a close: I will say half a lifetime—to these subjects. That came out clearly in many speeches, and most notably of all, perhaps, in the speech of the noble Baroness.
I will not continue the argument on the administration side with the noble Viscount.
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I thought that in the nature of things it was going to be difficult for him to add much to our financial information this evening. I know that, in the circumstances, he did everything in his power. He said that all these matters are still under discussion. I felt that there was one note, which was struck most strongly of all by the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, supported in the best possible way by the noble Baroness and by the noble Earl, Lord Feversham—the religious note. Of course, there is no one better qualified to respond to that, as he did indeed, than the noble Viscount.
May I close with the kindness of the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, in calling your Lordships' attention to one of his favourite passages from the Book of Isaiah. Incidentally, it was a pleasure to me when the noble Earl, Lord Craven, was speaking, and began to quote St. Thomas Aquinas, that he met with much approval from the noble Viscount, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough. I felt that this evening the denominational bonds were snapped, and that we were all one in the Christian effort. I should like to read these words which I think sum up the spirit of the whole debate, and which have been called to my attention by the noble Viscount:
"Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall:
"But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint".
I feel that those most profound thoughts are the thoughts in the minds of the whole House this afternoon, and I beg leave, with many thanks to all who have taken part, to withdraw this Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

BALA TO TRAWSFYNYDD HIGHWAYS (LIVERPOOL CORPORATION CONTRIBUTION) BILL
Reported, without amendment.

UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL BILL [H.L.]
Reported, with Amendments.
House adjourned at eleven minutes past nine o'clock