Sitting of 18 April 1961

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

NEW WRIT (BRISTOL, SOUTH-EAST)
Motion made, and Question proposed.
That Mr. Speaker do issue his Warrant to the Clerk of the Crown to make out a new Writ for the electing of a Member to serve in this present Parliament for the Borough Constituency of Bristol, South-East, in the room of Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn, esquire (commonly called the honourable Anthony Neil Wedgwood Benn), who by Resolution of this House on 13th April. 1961, ceased to be a Member.—[Mr. Bowden.]
The Attorney-General (Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller): We do not wish to oppose the Motion, for it is obviously right that a Writ for a by-election in Bristol, South-East should issue, but we cannot accept that Mr. Wedgwood Benn ceased to be a Member of this House by Resolution on 13th April. That is not right. The House then recognised that he had ceased to be a Member on the death of his father on 17th November, 1960.
I do not think that we should engage in any controversy or debate upon that. It may be that the wording of the Motion was intended to cover that, but I thought it was well to make it quite clear. I gather that you, Mr. Speaker, have to rule whether a Motion is in order and not on the accuracy of a statement it contains. In saying what I have, I trust that I shall not be thought to be challenging any Ruling of yours. I repeat that we agree that a new Writ should issue.
Mr. Hugh Gaitskell: Since the Attorney-General has said that he does not propose to oppose the Motion, I will be very brief indeed. I will simply say that we take the view, and the words of the Motion are drawn accordingly, that the decision of the
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House on 13th April was the important decision here and until the House of Commons had decided on this matter we could not possibly have moved to issue the Writ.
Mr. Emrys Hughes: On a point of order. I should like to have your guidance on this point, Mr. Speaker. In the event of the Motion being defeated, what would be the position of Mr. Wedgwood Benn?
Mr. Speaker: I will not rule on a hypothetical situation. The Motion has not been defeated yet.
Mr. Hector Hughes: On a point of order. The Motion and the reaction of the Attorney-General to it has eaten into Question Time. Can you, Mr. Speaker, see your way to extend Question Time by ten minutes at the other end?
Mr. Speaker: The hon. and learned Gentleman is not strictly accurate. Under the rules, Question Time does not begin until a quarter to.
Question put and agreed to.

PETITION

  Legitimacy
  Mr. Godman Irvine: Mr. Speaker, I beg leave to present on behalf of my constituent, Clifford Francis Winterson, the following Petition. The Prayer reads in these terms:
  Wherefore your Petitioner prays that the common law of Great Britain and Northern Ireland may be so altered or amended that each and every baby born naturally of his or her own two parents in Great Britain or Northern Ireland shall be deemed to be the legal as well as the natural child of those two parents and shall be faithfully and truthfully legally registered by declaration of both father and mother with their full and proper Christian names and surnames, their ages and their full and proper places of domicile, with any further information necessary to fully identify the child with each of its own two parents so that the child may be known and recognised from birth with the surname of its father according to established custom and may be shown to be entitled to care and maintenance from its father and from its mother.
  Wherefore your Petitioner humbly prays that justice shall be done, and your Petitioner, as in duty bound, will ever pray, etc.
  To lie upon the Table.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  SCOTLAND

    State Management Districts (Assets)
    Mr. Ridleyasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what is the total net value of the capital assets of the Scottish State Management Districts.
    The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. R. Brooman-White): The latest book value of the fixed assets of the Scottish State Management Districts, as shown in the Annual Report of the State Management Districts for the year ended 31st March, 1960, is £222,211.
    Mr. Ridley: According to the Civil Estimates, the Scottish State Management Districts expect to make a profit of only £6,210. This, on a quick calculation, represents only 3 per cent. Does my hon. Friend feel that this is a fair return on the taxpayers' capital in these Districts, and would not he agree to selling them back to interests which could make a better return on these assets?
    Mr. Brooman-White: I think that on the general policy I cannot add anything to what my right hon. Friend said in an Adjournment debate in reply to the hon. Member for Ross and Cromarty (Mr. John MacLeod) in March of last year.
    Mr. John MacLeod: Is it not extraordinary that a Conservative Government Should tolerate these districts long after the original object of making State Management Districts has passed? Is it not an insult to these local authorities that they should be treated differently from other local authorities in Scotland?
    Mr. Brooman-White: That is a much wider question, and I do not think that I should add to what was said in the Adjournment debate.
    Mr. T. Fraser: Will the hon. Gentleman give an assurance that there will be no further sell-out to the brewers as in the case of the new towns?
    Hon. Members: Answer.
    Mr. Brooman-White: Again, this Question is a narrow one, but on general policy it would be quite wrong to add by question and answer to the statements made in the Adjournment debate.

    Industrial and Trading Estates
    Mr. Hector Hughesasked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many tax-free industrial and trading estates he has instituted in Scotland; where they are situated; what is the extent of each; and what results have been achieved during each of the last ten years in attracting to the relevant areas industry and employment.
    Mr. Brooman-White: None, Sir.
    Mr. Hughes: Does the Joint Under-Secretary realise that under the administration of the present Secretary of State for Scotland, one striking feature is the unfair and unequal distribution of industry and employment in Scotland to the neglect of the North and particularly the North-East? Will he pay attention to the idea in my Question with a view to rectifying that situation?
    Mr. Brooman-White: The hon. and learned Gentleman will be aware of the very extensive measures which have been taken to attract new industries to Scotland, and will join in the general hope Chat they will continue to be successful.

    Vale of Leven Hospital
    Mr. Steeleasked the Secretary of State for Scotland on what date work commenced on the Vale of Leven Hospital; when it was completed; when the hospital was opened for use; and if satisfactory arrangements for outpatients have now been completed.
    The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. John Maclay): The main building work was begun in April, 1952, and the hospital was opened for use in December, 1955. The Regional Hospital Board is aware that the present accommodation for out-patients is not completely satisfactory, and intends to provide improved facilities as soon as prior demands on its resources allow.
    Mr. Steele: Would the Secretary of State agree that this hospital was planned under the Labour Government, and was built under the Civil Defence Vote and not under the National Health Service at

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    all? In view of this, was it not rather sharp practice that the Tory Party, in a political broadcast recently, claimed this as the only hospital that had been built under a Tory Government over the past ten years?
    Mr. Maclay: I should have to study the full implications of the hon. Member's timing and everything else before basing comment on such an interesting statement.

    Messrs. MacBrayne (Contract)
    Mr. Willisasked the Secretary of State for Scotland when he expects to complete his consideration of the new contract with Messrs. MacBrayne under the provisions of the Highlands and Islands Shipping Services Act, 1960.
    The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Gilmour Lebnrn): Negotiations are in progress with the company, but I cannot, at present, say when they will be completed.
    Mr. Willis: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that certain difficulties are arising in some directions as a result of uncertainty about the future of this contract, and could he say when anything definite is likely to be known?
    Mr. Leburn: I should be very grateful if the hon. Member will bring these difficulties to my notice. I would hope, if agreement is reached with the company, to be able to bring the matter before Parliament before the end of the year.
    Mr. Willis: Cannot the Joint Under-Secretary say when he is likely to reach this agreement, and how long it will be before we know what has happened?
    Mr. Leburn: If agreement is reached with the company, I hope to bring the undertaking before Parliament, as I have explained, before the end of the year, when the present arrangement expires.
    Mr. Rankin: Which year?

    Teachers (Threatened Strike)
    Mr. Hector Hughesasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he has yet considered the letter, dated 7th April, 1961, from Mr. Alexander Stewart, written on behalf of the Educational Institute of Scotland and of 3,500 school teachers and sent to him by the
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    hon. and learned Member for Aberdeen, North, intimating that in certain circumstances those school teachers will institute a one-week strike; and what action he will take to improve the conditions of Scottish school teachers.
    Mr. G. M. Thomsonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will make a statement on the latest position regarding the impending strike of Scottish teachers.
    Mr. Maclay: The Glasgow teachers have threatened to strike unless, by 1st May, any suggestion of introducing non-graduate men teachers is abandoned and an increase in salaries acceptable to the profession has been negotiated.
    I have already given an assurance that I will, if possible before the end of May, communicate to all the educational bodies concerned, for further discussion with them, any major proposals that may result from the consultations now going on. It would be wrong, however, to expect me to abandon discussion of any question of importance to the future of Scottish education before there has been time for a full expression of views and for adequate consideration.
    Recommendations for new salary scales have reached me from the National Joint Council. They include a uniform percentage increase for all grades, which does not seem to be the best way of meeting the real needs of the situation. They also represent an increase of 18 per cent. on the cost of salaries fixed fifteen months ago and this is beyond what the Government can accept. However, I fully recognise that improved salaries are desirable, and I have informed the Council that, while I cannot give effect to the proposals submitted, I intend as soon as possible to put suggestions before them for their views.
    I am sure that it will be realised that on neither of these questions would a precipitate decision be proper and I profoundly hope that the Glasgow teachers will not persist in strike action and thus prejudge two issues both of which require careful and objective consideration in the interests of Scottish education.
    Mr. Hughes: Does the Secretary of State realise that this has been delayed far too long, that the teachers of Scotland have done noble work to

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    enable Britain to compete with her international rivals in this scientific age, and that he is frustrating Scotland and the children of Scotland from taking their proper part in competition with their foreign rivals? Will he rectify this situation at once?
    Mr. Maclay: I have made it clear that I am moving as fast as I possibly can on matters of great importance to the future of the whole of Scottish education, and I have the utmost desire, as I am sure the hon. and learned Gentleman has, that we should get the best possible working conditions, consistent with what is practicable, for the teaching profession.
    Mr. Thomson: Is the Secretary of State aware that his reply on the salaries aspect of this question will be considered disastrous, and that he ought to have shown his spirit of good will and conciliation by accepting the recommendations of the National Joint Council without qualification and with the same speed as was shown by the Government in the case of the recommendations about police pay?
    Mr. Maclay: I have noted what the hon. Member has said. If he will study my Answer, he will see that we are working as fast as we can on a very difficult and complex problem. I want to make it absolutely clear that the Government have been by no means unsympathetic on the question of teachers' salaries. In the last five years there have been four increases, with the result that average earnings have risen by practically half—49 per cent.—since the beginning of 1956. We are approaching this problem in the same spirit as we approached past ones.
    Mr. MacArthur: Can my right hon. Friend say when he received the recommendations of the National Joint Council? Is he aware of the widespread feeling which there is in Scotland that the threat of a strike in this noble profession is doing great harm to the honour in which the teachers are held, and is acting as a remarkably bad example to the children under their care?
    Hon. Members: Is it?
    Mr. Maclay: In answer to the first part of that supplementary question, I received the recommendations, I think,
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    on Monday a week ago. I can give my hon. Friend the exact date, but I have not got it before me. On the second part of his supplementary question, I do not want to make any comments on the threatened strike except to say that I profoundly hope that it will not take place.
    Mr. T. Fraser: Is the Secretary of State aware that the matter which is of the greatest concern to teachers in Scotland is the suggestion that non-graduate males may be recruited for the teaching of general subjects? Why on earth is he unable to give an emphatic reply to the teachers that he has no intention of introducing this alteration? Has he seriously considered opening the door to non-graduate teachers in Scotland?
    Mr. Maclay: I tried to make it clear in my original reply and in a previous debate in the House that this is a matter which requires the most careful consideration. There are a large number of bodies involved in consultations on it, and I do not feel that I should agree to stop all discussions until we know what are the views of all concerned.

    Teachers (Technical Subjects)
    Mr. G. M. Thomsonasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will ensure, in the forthcoming training regulations at present under consideration, that there is thorough reconsideration of that section of the regulations dealing with the teachers of technical subjects in secondary schools.
    Mr. Maclay: Yes, Sir. This is one of the many questions which are being considered in the review of the Regulations.
    Mr. Thomson: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for the promise implied in his reply. Will he bear in mind, however, that, apart from the important question of dilution, there are other important considerations involved in the regulations at present under consideration? Will he remember that, since the First World War, there has not been any substantial change in the regulations affecting teachers of technical subjects? Will he ensure that in the new regulations there is a revolutionary change of attitude towards this important subject in our secondary schools?
    Mr. Maclay: I entirely agree with what the hon. Gentleman says about the

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    great importance of getting the regulations carefully examined. I assure him that all the considerations which he has put forward will be borne in mind.
    Mr. Lawson: I am sure that many hon. Members will look with great favour on any measure which raises the status of technical education. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we regard the technical teachers as having held an inferior status for far too long? We think that this is quite wrong.
    Mr. Maclay: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that public expression of view.

    Education Service, Dunoon
    Mr. Manuelasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what estimate he has made of the additional school accommodation and additional number of teachers which will be necessary in the Dunoon area, arising from the large number of American naval forces and their families now to be resident in the area.
    Mr. Brooman-White: I understand from Argyllshire Education Authority that three or four additional primary classrooms and about six additional teachers will be required.
    Mr. Manuel: The hon. Gentleman will know that there is a shortage of school accommodation in Scotland and an acute shortage of teachers. Does not he think that representations should be made to the American authorities pointing out that, as this is a purely American base, they ought to provide the accommodation and the teachers? Can he say what cost will fall on the local rates levied by Argyll County Council as a result of the provision to which he has referred?
    Mr. Brooman-White: To date, we have received no representations from the local authority about this matter. The cost will range from about £10,000 a year, provided most of the children are fitted into existing schools, up to possibly £30,000 a year if the children are concentrated in one place and additional accommodation has to be provided.
    Mr. Woodburn: Will the hon. Gentleman assure the Americans that, so long as these sailors are within the boundaries of Scotland, they and their children will receive the best Scottish hospitality as is our tradition?
    Mr. Brooman-White: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that expression of view. I am sure that it is the wish of everyone in Scotland that our reputation for hospitality should not be tarnished.
    Mr. Manuel: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the question of hospitality does not arise? What I am concerned about is the matter which was discussed in the Argyll County Council Education Committee, namely, the possibility of added cost falling on the rates. The introduction of the question of hospitality is a red herring and something that we all despise.
    Mr. Brooman-White: We have to date received no representations from the local authority on this subject.

    Housing Facilities, Dunoon
    Mr. Manuelasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what estimate he has made of the additional housing facilities which will be required in the Dunoon area, arising from the basing of a large number of American naval ratings and their families in that area.
    Mr. Maclay: No additional housing facilities are likely to be required. Those American naval personnel who may wish to take up residence ashore with their families make their own arrangements to secure furnished accommodation. The remainder—and they comprise the substantial majority—will, of course, be accommodated afloat on the depot ship "Proteus".
    Mr. Manuel: While we are delighted that the families will receive all the hospitality and accommodation in the Dunoon area that is necessary, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he is aware that this is a popular and attractive tourist centre? If the existing accommodation will be needed for another 400 families, then a necessary lung for people living in Glasgow who need a cheap holiday not far from their homes will be impinged on. I think that some regard should be paid to that point.
    Mr. Maclay: The hon. Gentleman may not realise that this matter was discussed with the local authorities, who are satisfied that the demand will be marginal in relation to the total accommodation available in the holiday towns within reasonable proximity of the Holy Loch.

    Fire Brigades (Recruitment)
    Mr. Millanasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he is satisfied with the present level of recruitment to the fire service in Scotland; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Brooman-White: I understand that there is no serious recruiting problem in Soottish fire brigades at the present time.
    Mr. Millan: We are glad to hear that. Nevertheless, will the hon. Gentleman bear in mind that there is considerable dissatisfaction among fire service employees, and, indeed, among other public service employees, about their present rates of pay? In view of the very great importance of maintaining a proper standard of recruitment in the fire service, will he bear that very much in mind when proposals are put to the Secretary of State for Scotland and to the Home Secretary for an inquiry into fire service pay and conditions?
    Mr. Brooman-White: We will bear that matter in mind, but the hon. Gentleman will realise that the question of pay is a matter for decision by the National Joint Council for the local authorities fire brigades.

    Victoria Hospital, Kirkcaldy
    Mr. Gourlayasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what progress has been made in the provision of the second extension to the Victoria Hospital, Kirkcaldy.
    Mr. Maclay: The sketch plans for this project have been completed and are at present with my Department for approval.
    Mr. Gourlay: Does the right hon. Gentleman remember that he said in December, 1959, that work on this extension would be started in 1961? Is he aware that there is a tremendous shortage of geriatric beds in the Kirkcaldy district? Will he, therefore, do his utmost to ensure that work on this extension is started this year and that it is completed with all possible speed?
    Mr. Maclay: I sometimes hesitate to remember what I said in 1959, but I realise that at that time I gave a date for starting which was six months earlier than is likely to be achieved. I am
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    advised that there is a good chance that, by adopting revised methods for contracting, the finishing date will not be later than I have already forecast.

    Clearways
    Mr. Stodartasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he pro poses to designate any stretches of main roads in Scotland as clearways.
    Mr. Brooman-White: Yes, Sir. My right hon. Friend is now consulting the local authorities concerned about the possibility of making part of the Edinburgh-Glasgow trunk road a clearway.
    Mr. Stodart: Is my hon. Friend aware that that reply will win widespread approval from many motorists in Scotland? Is he also aware that, when clearways were first introduced in England and Wales, the accident rate was reduced by 9 per cent.? Will he, therefore, push on with the creation of clearways on other roads in Scotland?
    Mr. Brooman-White: The local authorities have power to impose restrictions of the clearway type on classified roads. We are considering the possibility of having clearways on other trunk roads in Scotland. However, my hon. Friend must realise that where there is much development beside a road this means of keeping traffic moving is not suitable.

    Exchequer Equalisation Grant
    Mr. Rossasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what effect he estimates will result in respect of the distribution of the Exchequer equalisation grant from the revaluation of property in Scotland.
    Mr. Maclay: I hope to be able to issue first estimates of the equalisation grant for 1961–62 to local authorities by the middle of May. I am afraid that I cannot make any statement meanwhile.
    Mr. Ross: Surely the Secretary of State should be in a position to make an interim assessment of how local authorities will be affected. He will appreciate that this is an important matter from the point of view of municipal treasurers.
    Mr. Maclay: I realise the importance of it. I have studied the matter, but I think that we must await the figures to which I have referred.

    Revaluation
    Mr. Rossasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what steps he is taking to clarify public understanding about the origins and effect of, and responsibility for, revaluation.
    Mr. Maclay: I think that it is generally understood that the revaluation has been carried out in pursuance of the Valuation and Rating (Scotland) Act, 1956, with the object of placing rateable values on a uniform basis throughout Scotland. Advice to ratepayers on their personal position has been given in the Press, in B.B.C. programmes, by leaflets issued by some local authorities and in Ministerial speeches.
    Mr. Ross: Surely the right hon. Gentleman appreciates that the receipt of these revaluation notices in Scotland has led to doubt, disgruntlement and even despair, much of it due to misunderstanding? This has been visited on the heads of local authorities which have nothing to do with it. As this is a Parliamentary matter for which the right hon. Gentleman has direct responsibility, will not he take it upon himself to resolve all these doubts and assure the people of Scotland that this is not something that is due to the whims of the local authorities?
    Mr. Maclay: I was under the firm impression that all these bricks were landing on my head.
    Mr. S. Silverman: The right hon. Gentleman drops them.
    Mr. Grimond: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that this is a very unfortunate moment for this extremely steep increase in the valuation of shipyards? It has fallen on an industry which is very depressed. I agree that the Government must take responsibility for the timing of this step which will affect the industry severely.
    Mr. Maclay: The timing of revaluation was determined by an Act which was passed several years ago. It is being done as quickly as possible, in view of the difficulties. I am aware of certain problems, but I think that we must await the final outcome before we can form a view of the matter.
    Mr. T. Fraser: Is the Secretary of State aware that much of the good work
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    done by some local authorities in publishing these leaflets has been undone by the Ministerial speeches to which he has referred? Will he take a leaf out of the book of the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance who is always sending us leaflets and booklets explaining the provisions of the National Insurance Acts which are also available to the public? Will he undertake responsibility for publishing a leaflet which will be distributed in large numbers to all local authorities in Scotland so that the whole of Scotland might receive responsible and reliable information from the right quarter?
    Mr. Maclay: Some time ago I discussed with local authorities the possibility of their sending these leaflets to the public, which would have been the right way to do it. In some cases they have done so, but not in as many cases as I had hoped. I will consider what the hon. Gentleman has said.

    Convicted Persons (Legal Aid)
    Mr. Rankinasked the Secretary of State for Scotland what arrangements exist for bringing a convicted person serving a prison sentence into contact with members of the legal profession who would be willing to act for him without payment in a case where there may be reason to suppose that a miscarriage of justice has occurred.
    Mr. Brooman-White: A prisoner, whose right of appeal has been exhausted and who believes that facts which have subsequently come to light reveal a miscarriage of justice, may submit these facts to my right hon. Friend so that he may consider whether these are grounds for recommending the exercise of the Royal Prerogative or for referring the case to the High Court. If such prisoner desires a solicitor to prepare his case he may peitition my right hon. Friend who may permit an approach to the solicitor who previously acted in the case or to the local agent for the poor.
    Mr. Rankin: That is simply evading the Question. The hon. Member knows that, because correspondence has taken place between the Secretary of State and myself on this matter. I hope that it is permissible to say this: in view of that correspondence, will the right hon. Gentleman agree to create a panel of

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    those members of the legal profession who are willing to take up these cases and to make that panel as widely known as possible for the benefit of relatives and others? Will he do that, in view of the fact that wrongful conviction and wrongful imprisonment still take place, despite all the appeals and reviews? Will the right hon. Gentleman consider that point?
    Mr. Brooman-White: It would be considered. The correspondence to which the hon. Member referred related to the present arrangements for the representation of people of inadequate means. That is the point with which I dealt in the reply.
    Mr. Rankin: It has nothing to do with that.

    Local Authorities, Holy Loch Area (Expenditure)
    Mr. Emrys Hughesasked the Secretary of State for Scotland if he will give an estimate of the financial expenditure likely to be incurred by the local authorities, particularly in respect of police, education and housing, in the neighbourhood of the Holy Loch as a result of the Polaris base being established there.
    Mr. Brooman-White: The likely additional expenditure is: police, nil; education, between £10,000 and £30,000 a year depending on whether additional accommodation is needed; and housing, nil.
    Mr. Hughes: Can the Minister give any reason why the local authorities in this area should be penalised as a result of this new activity in their area? Does he not think that it should be a national charge? Is he aware of the statement made recently by the captain of the "Proteus" that billions of dollars were being saved by the base being there? Does he not think that it would be reasonable to claim some of the billions of dollars for the expenditure which is involved for the local authorities?
    Mr. Brooman-White: If the local authority feels that it has special difficulties over this matter it can make representations to us. To date, we have received no such representations.
    Mr. Mason: To complete the picture, will not the Minister also inform the House, apart from the defence benefits
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    of the base, of the commercial and economic benefits to the area? We ought to know that before we reach a conclusion.
    Mr. Rankin: In order fully to complete the picture, will the hon. Member also consider the danger created by the fact that it has been recently revealed that this weapon is still not fully tested?
    Mr. G. Thomas: On a point of order. Are we to understand, Mr. Speaker, that you are opening the floodgates in order that we may all join in?
    Mr. Speaker: I like to hear South Wales about every topic, but the last supplementary question was out of order.

    Crofters Commission
    Mr. Willisasked the Secretary of State for Scotland how many members of the Crofters Commission and how many assessors have had practical crofting experience.
    Mr. Leburn: One member of the Commission is a crofter and at least 48 of the 66 assessors are, or have been, crofters.
    Mr. Willis: Is the hon. Member aware that there is a widespread feeling in the crofting areas that the Commission and the assessors are not sufficiently close to and sufficiently acquainted with the conditions to do the job which he expects them to do?
    Mr. Leburn: I know that the hon. Member has views about this, but my right hon. Friend has carefully complied with the statutory requirements in making his appointments.

    Police, Dunoon
    Mr. Rankinasked the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he will call for a report from the local authority with regard to the need for additional police in the Dunoon district arising from the basing of the "Proteus" and other United States vessels in the Holy Loch.
    Mr. Brooman-White: No, Sir. But, if the police authority applies for an increase in establishment, my right hon. Friend will consider its application sympathetically.
    Mr. Rankin: Is not the hon. Member aware that extra police have been drafted

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    into the Dunoon area? From where did the application for these extra police come? How much of the cost of maintaining these police will fall on the local rates? Does the hon. Gentleman realise that that is an important question, because of the complaints about high rates in Scotland?
    Mr. Brooman-White: As I indicated in reply to a previous Question, additional expenditure on the police is nil. It is for the police authority in the first place to consider whether the extra duties falling on the police require additional strength. To date no application has been made for additional assistance.

  NATIONAL FINANCE

    Rural Industries Bureau
    Mr. Awberyasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is aware that basket manufacturers in Bristol were not invited by the Rural Industries Bureau to submit a tender for a contract on behalf of the Government and that the contract has now been placed abroad; and, in view of the fact that the Bureau receives a grant of public money, if he will take steps to ensure that in future cases all manufacturers are given an opportunity to tender.
    The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Sir Edward Boyle): The hon. Gentleman may be under some misapprehension. While it is true that the Rural Industries Bureau received an annual grant from the Development Fund, it does not play any part in the placing of Government contracts.
    Mr. Awbery: But if the Bureau receives a grant from the Government, is it not desirable that every person connected with the industry should be consulted before a contract is sent abroad?
    Sir E. Boyle: The hon. Member may be under some misapprehension as to what the Rural Industries Bureau does. The Bureau gives advice to craftsmen and small firms employing fewer than twenty skilled persons in rural areas. It plays no part in the placing of Government contracts.
    Mr. Awbery: The Bureau invited applications for contracts from various people in Bristol and let some of them, but apparently this contract was not
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    accepted and was given to someone on the Continent by the Bureau.
    Sir E. Boyle: If necessary we can pursue this by correspondence. My information is that Bristol is not in an area served by the Bureau but that recently, in response to an inquiry from a Bristol firm, the Bureau offered to give such help as it could give, because it had some experience of the basket-making trade. The firm was seeking a contract then being let by the War Office, to whom the firm were referred by the Bureau. That is my information, but if the hon. Member wishes to pursue this matter by correspondence I will take account of what he says.

    Income Tax Office, Spennymoor
    Mr. Greyasked the Secretary to the Treasury if he will establish an Income Tax office at Spennymoor.
    Sir E. Boyle: No. The present arrangements appear to be satisfactory.
    Mr. Grey: Has the hon. Member given consideration to the fact that the population in Spennymoor and the surrounding district is large enough to justify a tax office as long as tax offices exist? Does he not realise that if there are tax problems to talk over, people in Spennymoor must travel to Bishop Auckland, which is a considerable distance? In view of this, and also in view of the fact that the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance thinks it worth while to have an office there, why should we not have a tax office?
    Sir E. Boyle: I am told that the average tax office in an area such as this deals with 35,000 to 40,000 taxpayers. In Spennymoor there are about 12,000 taxpayers. Any tax office there would be very small indeed compared with the average of the country. I have no evidence of hardship or delay resulting from the present arrangements, but if the hon. Member knows of any such case I shall be glad to look into it, if he sends me the details.

  TRADE AND COMMERCE

    Eggs (Import from Poland)
    Mr. Turtonasked the President of the Board of Trade what is the current weekly rate of import of eggs from Poland.
    The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. F. J. Erroll): I regret that weekly figures are not available. Imports of eggs in shell from Poland in February, 1961, the latest month for which figures are available, were 2·4 million dozen.
    Mr. Turton: Is my right hon. Friend aware that these figures show a 400 per cent. increase over the level of the previous year, and that the indications are that the present level is even higher? As it appears that the anti-dumping legislation at present on the Statute Book is not satisfactory to deal with this problem, will he ask his right hon. Friend to introduce legislation to deal with this and similar problems?
    Mr. Erroll: We have no evidence to show that these imports have had a significant effect on the price of home-produced eggs and we do not see that there is any need yet to take any action, but of course we shall be glad to hear whatever is said to us.
    Mr. Ridsdale: How much of the increase in the importation has been caused by the restrictive policy of the Six in not allowing imports into the Common Market?
    Mr. Erroll: We are not yet fully aware why the increase has taken place, and there is not sufficient evidence to show whether it is a continuing trend or only a temporary phenomenon.
    Mr. Turton: Surely my right hon. Friend is aware that the producers' price has fallen by 6d. per dozen as a result of the imports of Polish and Rumanian eggs?
    Mr. Erroll: Matters relating to the home price of eggs are for my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture.

    Factory, Stockton-on-Tees
    Mr. Chetwyndasked the President of the Board of Trade what inquiries have been made concerning the tenancy of an empty Board of Trade factory at Stockton-on-Tees since 7th March, 1961.
    Mr. Erroll: One firm has made an inquiry about this factory since 7th March.
    Mr. Chetwynd: As this factory has been standing idle for some months, and looks like standing idle for many months ahead, will the right hon. Gentleman
    958
    consider, as a last resource, selling it if he cannot lease it?
    Mr. Erroll: I should have to look into that suggestion. We are trying to find a tenant as vigorously as we can.

    Danish Beef and Veal (Import Duty)
    Mr. Darlingasked the President of the Board of Trade if, in view of the need for continuing imports of disease-free meat, preferably from Commonwealth and European Free Trade Area countries, he will reconsider the import duty on Danish beef and veal in order to bring it into line with the reduction of duty on Danish bacon.
    Mr. Erroll: No, Sir.
    Mr. Darling: In view of the fact that we have to import beef and veal from abroad, would not the right hon. Gentleman agree that this tariff is not in keeping with the spirit and the intention of the European Free Trade Association? Would not he bear in mind that this beef is not subject to foot-and-mouth disease, since the Danes give guarantees against it, and that nobody is benefiting from this tariff, while the consumers are not getting the meat at the price at which they could get it?
    Mr. Erroll: We have no evidence to show that the present tariff is any obstacle to the import of this beef and veal. Bacon was covered by a special arrangement between Britain and Denmark under the E.F.T.A. Agreement, and we do not think it appropriate to extend that arrangement to other agricultural products.
    Mr. Bullard: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that the best way of getting disease-free supplies of beef and veal is to produce them at home? As the Danes are not traditional suppliers of beef and veal to this country in any quantity, will not he take action on those lines?
    Mr. Erroll: I will take note of what my hon. Friend has said.

  SCIENCE

    Hydrological Research (Committee)
    Mr. de Freitasasked the Parliamentary Secretary for Science if he will create an organisation to conduct basic

    959
    research into the problems of conservation and long-term utilisation of water supplies.
    The Parliamentary Secretary for Science (Mr. Denzil Freeth): The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research has set up a Committee on Hydrological Research. I will circulate the terms of reference and membership in the OFFICIAL REPORT. The Committee has already held its first meeting.
    Mr. de Freitas: In view of the long record of lack of imagination and enterprise by the Ministries of Agriculture and Local Government in this matter, can the hon. Member assure us that neither of these Departments will be allowed to interfere with what is a basic research project?
    Mr. Freeth: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the Ministers in charge of those Departments are co-operating fully, as are a large number of other bodies which, as he will see from the OFFICIAL REPORT, are represented on this Committee.
    Sir H. Legge-Bourke: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that a committee of the Central Advisory Water Committee is already going into a good deal of this matter? Will he ensure that the new Committee will work closely with it?
    Mr. Freeth: The aim of this new Committee, I can assure my hon. Friend, is not to duplicate any work already being done, and it is beginning by surveying and assessing what current research is being carried on in order to see where the gaps are.
    The following are the details:
    TERMS OF REFERENCE

    1. to survey and assess current research relevant to water conservation in the United Kingdom;

    2. to identify needs for further reseach;

    3. to allocate priorities;

    4. to determine where research should be done and to co-ordinate the work as necessary;

    5. to report from time to time on the progress made.

    Membership of the Committee on Hydrological Research
    B. K. Blount, Esq., C.B., D.Phil. Nat., F.R.I.C, (Chairman), H.Q., D.S.I.R.

    E. C. Childs. Esq., Sc.D., Ph.D., Unit of Soil Physics (Agricultural Research Council).

    960

    H. L. Penman, Esq., M.Sc., Ph.D., F.Inst. P., Rothamsted Experimental Station (Agricultural Research Council).

    E. A. G. Johnson, Esq., C.B.E., B.Sc., M.I.C.E., M.I.W.E., Ministry of Agriculture. Fisheries and Food.

    J. K. Wilson, Esq., M.I.C.E., A.M.I.Struct.E., A.R.I.C.S., A.M.I.W.E., Department of Agriculture for Scotland.

    J. G. Munro. Esq., B.Sc., A.M.I.C.E., A.M.I.W.E., Department of Health for Scotland.

    R. F. Wood, Esq., B.A., B.Sc. (For)., Forestry Commission Research Station.

    C. H. Spens. Esq., M.I.C.E., Ministry of Housing and Local Government.

    A. G. Boulton, Esq., M.A., M.I.C.E., Surface Water Survey (Ministry of Housing and Local Government).

    P. J. Meade, Esq., O.B.E., B.Sc., A.R.C.S., Meteorological Office.

    E. B. Worthington, Esq., M.A., Ph.D., Nature Conservancy.

    Professor M. V. Laurie, O.B.E., M.A., Dip. For., Department of Forestry, University of Oxford.

    P. O. Wolf, Esq., B.Sc., A.M.I.C.E., Department of Civil Engineering, Imperial College, University of London.

    N. A. F. Rowntree, Esq., B.Sc., M.I.C.E., Institution of Water Engineers.

    M. Nixon, Esq., M.B.E., T.D., B.Sc., M.I.C.E., A.M.I. Mech. E., River Boards Association.

    R. G. Allen, Esq., Ph.D., F. Inst. P., Water Research Association.

    S. Buchan, Esq., Ph.D., Geological Survey and Museum (D.S.I.R.).

    F. H. Allen, Esq., M.A., M.A.I., M.I.C.E., Hydraulics Research Station (D.S.I.R.).

    B. A. Southgate, Esq., C.B.E., D.Sc., F.R.I.C., F.Inst. S.P., Water Pollution Research Laboratory (D.S.I.R.).

  MINISTRY OF WORKS

    Ancient Monuments
    Mr. Fletcherasked the Minister of Works what plans he has prepared for promoting the attractions and amenities during the summer season for visitors to ancient monuments within the care of his Department.
    The Minister of Works (Lord John Hope): The Departmental Committee, under the Chairmanship of my hon. Friend, the Parliamentary Secretary, has already done a great deal by providing new or improved facilities, new publications, and publicity. Further schemes are in hand, for operation this summer and thereafter. An exhibition of publications about ancient monuments and other tourist attractions is to be mounted in conjunction with Her Majesty's Stationery Office at Charing Cross Underground Station in July.
    Mr. Fletcher: Will the Minister bear in mind the specific recommendation of the Select Committee that provision for refreshment should be made at many more of these monuments?
    Lord John Hope: Yes, indeed.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT

    Domestic Refuse (Composting)
    Mrs. Butlerasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs, how many local authorities compost dustbin refuse and sludge; and what action he is taking to encourage local authorities to introduce local schemes either individually or in co-operation with neighbouring authorities.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Sir Keith Joseph): One local authority composts domestic refuse with sewage sludge, and my right hon. Friend has given loan sanction for a scheme put forward by another local authority for composting refuse alone.
    In answer to the second part of the Question, more information is needed about the economics of the process before any general guidance to local authorities can be given, but my right hon. Friend is always ready to discuss proposals if it appears that the local disposal system is a suitable one for the introduction of composting plant.
    Mrs. Butler: Does the hon. Gentleman appreciate that the composting of refuse and sludge could be said to be the modern equivalent of Mr. Gladstone's candle ends in terms of saving public money, and that it is also increasingly in demand as an organic soil conditioner? In view of this double function, would not he at least inform local authorities of the possibilities of this very desirable activity?
    Sir K. Joseph: We are seeking evidence and will watch carefully the experiments now in progress. There are considerable problems involved here, however. The bulk of the refuse still has to be disposed of normally, and a use has to be found for the product of which the hon. Lady speaks.

    Flood Damage, Hull (Financial Assistance)
    Commander Purseyasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs if he will state the public authority or private funds to which the household victims of the recent flooding in Hull should apply for financial assistance to make good the damage and expense which they incurred to their goods and chattels.
    Sir K. Joseph: This was a case of flooding from the sea, not the same as the recent flooding from torrential rains which, in the exceptional circumstances, the Government decided should be assisted from Exchequer funds. My right hon. Friend cannot accept the implication in the Question that, apart from insurance which householders themselves provide, there must be some fund to which they can automatically turn for assistance, regardless of their other means. However, he understands that in this case a local flood relief fund, which was established some years ago, will assist.
    Commander Pursey: Last year, after the rain floods, householders flooded out for the first time received help from Government sources. Will the hon. Gentleman therefore consider granting compensation from Government funds to those Hull householders who are regularly flooded out at every exceptionally high tide because wharf owners will not improve deficient wharfs? Insurance companies will not provide cover for these householders.
    Sir K. Joseph: These are matters in which the local authority may be able to help in some way. In any case, a local relief fund is being used in this instance.
    Mr. Paget: Will the hon. Gentleman tell us why the Government are suddenly drawing this distinction between fresh water and salt water? A few years ago, when we had the formidable floods owing to the breaking of the sea wall at Canvey Island, the Government accepted responsibility for that exceptional disaster.
    Sir K. Joseph: The Government have to consider each situation on its merits.
    Mr. M. Stewart: Does not this emphasise the desirability of what we on this side of the House have often urged—the existence of a national fund to help the victims of disaster, without the drawing of these nice distinctions between one kind of disaster and another? If people's homes are flooded, then it is little consolation to them to be told that it has been done with salt water instead of fresh water.
    Sir K. Joseph: My right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said that this question is being reviewed by the Government. He promised a report to the House after the work as a result of the floods is finished.
    Mr. Gaitskell: Why are the merits of flooding from rain water so much greater, in the eyes of the Government, than flooding by salt water? The hon. Gentleman must explain the Government's view of this. A categorical statement that the Government will help with rain water but not with sea water is ridiculous.
    Sir K. Joseph: We have to take into account the predictability of occurrences. If rain is torrential, or the sea rises as it does only once in a century, then citizens cannot be expected to guard against it by their own insurance or other protection. But where a person chooses to live by the sea and where, as the hon. and gallant Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Commander Pursey) has indicated, a certain amount of flooding occurs regularly, citizens must be taken to accept the risk.
    Mr. Speaker: Mr. Stonehouse.
    Commander Pursey: These people are being flooded out regularly.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. We must move on from Hull to Barotseland.

  BAROTSELAND

    Paramount Chief (Discussions)
    Mr. Stonehouseasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what are the results of his discussions with the Paramount Chief of Barotseland.
    The Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Hugh Fraser): The discussions have made satisfactory progress
    964
    but will not be concluded until later this afternoon.
    Mr. Stonehouse: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether his right hon. Friend, in his approach to the problems of Barotseland, is being influenced by the same ideals which have influenced him so far in his admirable handling of the problem of the Kabaka of Buganda—ensuring that, in any conflict between democratic representative institutions and a tribal feudal monarchy, democracy shall prevail?
    Mr. Fraser: The hon. Gentleman would do better to await the communiqué which will be issued later. Our relationship with the Barotse is a treaty relationship, and that will be preserved.
    Sir J. Duncan: Is my hon. Friend aware that the relations between Barotseland and Britain right back to Queen Victoria were treaty relations? Does he know that many of us on this side of the House would prefer that treaty relationship to continue?
    Mr. Fraser: I think my hon. Friend will find that the communiqué when issued is satisfactory both to this country and to the people of Barotseland.
    Mr. Callaghan: Whatever the communiqué says, may we take it that the Government have given no encouragement to the idea of secession, but rather that they will encourage the Paramount Chief to bring his system of government more into line with modern thinking?
    Mr. Fraser: I think that the hon. Member had better wait until the communiqué is issued.

  KENYA

    Mr. Jomo Kenyatta
    Mr. Stonehouseasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will make a statement on his discussions with Mr. Ronald Ngala and Mr. Derek Erskine, Members of the Kenya Legislative Council, and his reply to their request for the release of Mr. Jomo Kenyatta.
    Mr. H. Fraser: My right hon. Friend's discussions ranged over the general political situation in Kenya and in the context

    965
    of this he confirmed that he supported the line that the Governor had taken on Jomo Kenyatta in his statement of 1st March.
    Mr. Stonehouse: Will the Minister ask the Colonial Secretary to respond to this evidence of European interest in the immediate release of Mr. Kenyatta and release him forthwith? If he cannot do that, can he answer this question? Was an assurance given that if one or other of the political parties participated in a new Administration Mr. Kenyatta would be admitted within a period of three months?
    Mr. Fraser: No assurances have been given. This is a question of negotiation, and the formation of a new Government in Kenya, between the Governor and various political representatives. I prefer that it should remain as I stated in my original statement. This was a private conversation about which I am not prepared to make any further comments.
    Mr. F. M. Bennett: Would my hon. Friend agree that it is more important for all of us to try to concentrate on the formation of a stable Government in Kenya than to lend our support to the political clamour for the release of Jomo Kenyatta?
    Mr. Brockway: Can the hon. Gentleman confirm the report which appears in The Times this morning—
    Mr. Speaker: That supplementary question is out of order, with respect to the hon Member.
    Mr. Brockway: May I put it in another way?
    Mr. Speaker: Yes.
    Mr. Brockway: May I ask whether the hon. Gentleman can confirm the statements which have been made in Nairobi that a concession has been proposed?
    Mr. Speaker: That, equivalently, is out of order unless it is a statement for which the Minister is responsible.
    Mr. Callaghan: May I ask the Under-Secretary a question about the formation of the Government and ask him please not to treat it as a private matter? Is it not a matter of the gravest consequence to the people of Kenya whether as a result of these conversations there is a further prospect of the formation of a stable
    966
    Government in that territory and, if not, what action do the Government propose to take?
    Mr. Fraser: The hon. Member should wait and see until we achieve a stable Government. This is the main objective. I suggest that at this stage any publicity of private conversations cannot be helpful to the interests of the people of Kenya or indeed those in this House.
    Mr. Brockway: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Would I be permitted to put a supplementary question asking whether a statement is true or not?
    Mr. Speaker: No. The point, which I think the hon. Member understands and which I will explain to him privately if he wishes, is that an hon. Member cannot ask a Minister to confirm or do the opposite in relation to a statement for which he or the Government are not responsible.

  MALTA

    Employment (Dockyard Workers)
    Mr. Awberyasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what figures of estimated discharges from the dockyard in Malta in 1962–63 and 1963–64 were given to the delegation from the General Workers' Union when it was in London recently; what action is being taken to find employment for discharged dockyard workers; what public work is being planned to meet the situation; and what provision is made for, and what amount is paid in, unemployment benefit.
    Mr. H. Fraser: The discussions with the General Workers' Union were in general terms on the overall employment prospects in Malta and assumed that the level of employment in the dockyard would remain constant save for the return of Admiralty staff lent to Messrs. Bailey. Regarding the second part of the Question, a Joint Advisory Committee on Employment, representative of all sections of employers and employees, will be keeping the employment situation under continuous review. The Malta Government's programme of public work is contained in its Five Year Development Plan, copies of which are in the Library of the House. Provision for unemployment benefit is made under the National Insurance Act, 1956; the

    967
    weekly rate of benefit for men is 45s. married, 30s. unmarried, and for women 22s. 6d.
    Mr. Awbery: The Minister has not answered my Question. I asked what number of unemployed he expects in 1962–63. Figures were given to the delegation which came from Malta. Two months ago the delegation told me that unemployment in Malta was negligible and now there is a possibility of it increasing because of lack of agreement with Messrs. Bailey and Co. I want to know what has been done to relieve the situation in the future.
    Mr. Fraser: As I understand it, a very heavy investment is being made in private industry, and from Her Majesty's Government something like £29 million will be available for development between now and 1964. As to the size of unemployment, both sides assume that employment will remain at about the level the hon. Member has mentioned.

  MINISTRY OF DEFENCE

    Policy
    Mr. Shortasked the Minister of Defence what immediate reappraisal of Great Britain's defence arrangements, including alliances, he has ordered as a result of the Russian manned space flight.
    The Minister of Defence (Mr. Harold Watkinson): No reappraisal is called for.
    Mr. Short: Does not the Minister of Defence agree that the Russian manned space flight has brought very much nearer the day when most of our defence arrangements, including our alliances, will be completely obsolete and out of date, and indeed any effective national defence will be virtually impossible? In view of this, does he not agree that the nations of the world must now get together and be prepared to submerge their sovereignties in some kind of world order or policy?
    Mr. Watkinson: I do not agree with the defence assumptions in the hon. Member's supplementary question. On the military basis, this achievement is the culmination of a long series of tests. It shows the capacity to deliver a container
    968
    from an orbiting vehicle to earth, but there is no reason to suppose that a satellite presents any more accurate means of delivery of a warhead to a predetermined target than an I.C.B.M. If by the second half of his supplementary question the hon. Member means that it would be a good thing to get on with disarmament negotiations, the Government entirely agree.

  ECONOMIC PLANNING
  Mr. Shinwellasked the Prime Minister whether he will introduce legislation for the creation of an economic council under a Minister charged with the responsibility for planning the financial, investment, production and commercial affairs of the nation.
  The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Macmillan): The organisation for dealing with economic planning has been enormously improved under successive Governments during the last generation. The Ministers chiefly concerned work very closely together and are served by the Plannings Staffs of the Treasury and other Departments. I do not think it would be of advantage to set up a new Minister with a new council which must either work side by side with the existing Ministers or take over the responsibilities which are properly theirs.
  Mr. Shinwell: Does not the right hon. Gentleman experience a sense of frustration because of his inability to put into operation a plan which he advocated some years ago? Does not he realise that I want to relieve him of that frustration?
  The Prime Minister: I am always grateful for the nostalgic memories that the right hon. Gentleman recalls, but, if he is referring to what I advocated twenty-three years ago, I should say that since then there has been a new organisation of the Ministers. There has come into the picture a quite important body called the National Production Advisory Council of Industry and, of equal or perhaps greater importance, an Economic Planning Board, representing officials of the Treasury, nominated members of the Trades Union Congress and the various employers' associations. All this, in addition to the general changes which have been made, is a great advance.
  Mr. Shinwell: Does it not go rather beyond what the right hon. Gentleman has said? Is it not a fact that the right hon. Gentleman is a rather different person from what he was twenty-three years ago?
  The Prime Minister: I should not like to deny that, but that is true of all of us, including the ever-young right hon. Gentleman.
  Mr. Chetwynd: How can we expect this sort of policy from the right hon. Gentleman when he forsook the "middle way" many years ago for the more pleasant paths of the "High Tory road"?

  UNITED NATIONS (CHINESE REPRESENTATION)
  Mr. C. Osborneasked the Prime Minister if he will make a statement on his talks with President Kennedy on the admission of China to the United Nations.
  The Prime Minister: This question came up in the course of our discussions on the future of the United Nations. As I said in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) on 13th April, it is a complicated matter on which our views are well known. We are equally aware of the United States position and it must be remembered that this question involves not only the seating of the Chinese People's Republic, but also the problem of Formosa.
  Mr. Osborne: I recognise the difficulties of the problem, but would my right hon. Friend not agree that the peace of the world may well depend on agreement between America and China? Was anything said at Washington which could encourage the hope that a better understanding between those two countries will emerge?
  The Prime Minister: The peace of the world depends on a great number of things, but I agree that this is an important matter. It is, however, not a very urgent matter, because it cannot arise until the autumn meeting of the United Nations.
  Mr. Gaitskell: The right hon. Gentleman says that the views of the Government
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  on this matter are well known. Will he clear up this matter? Is it the case that the Government consider that the credentials which are now awarded to the Government of Formosa should simply be awarded in the United Nations to the Peking Government? Is that their proposal?
  The Prime Minister: No. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, it is more complicated than that. There is the question of the recognition of China, the question of what would be the result in the United Nations, the problem whether there might be two different countries represented, and the effect on the Security Council. All those are difficult problems, but our general position, I think, has been stated by my right hon. and noble Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and I think repeated in a long debate not very long ago in this House.
  Mr. Gaitskell: It is because the Prime Minister said that the Government's views were well known that I asked the supplementary question. If he cannot do it by question and answer today, may I ask him to take an early opportunity of explaining to the country generally what the Government's precise views are on these various problems which, I agree with him, arise.
  The Prime Minister: I will look at that, but I repeat that there is some time before it will be necessary to face the next stage of this problem which will be at the next autumn meeting of the United Nations.
  Mr. Fernyhough: Is not the Prime Minister aware that the ordinary man in the street cannot understand why Her Majesty's Government gave recognition to Communist China and then at the United Nations suddenly voted against her being given her rightful place in that Assembly?
  The Prime Minister: We have recognised the Chinese People's Government, but the question of the United Nations has for many years been dealt with by the voting on the moratorium, on which there has been a large majority and a number of abstentions. The question which has now to be decided is what procedure should be followed at the next meeting of the United Nations.

CUBA (SITUATION)
Mr. S. Silverman (by Private Notice)asked the Lord Privy Seal what reports he has received from Her Majesty's representatives in Cuba concerning the invasion of that country and what action relating thereto Her Majesty's Government proposes to take at the United Nations.
The Lord Privy Seal (Mr. Edward Heath): As telegraphic communication with Havana has now been cut off, we have very little information about the confused situation there beyond what has appeared in the Press. Late last night, however, Her Majesty's Ambassador at Havana was able to report by telephone that so far as he knew no harm had come to any British subject in the island.
This matter has been raised at the United Nations by the Cuban Government and is at present being debated in the Political Committee of the General Assembly.
Mr. Silverman: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that it is painfully obvious that an invasion on this scale could not have been prepared, or could not have taken place, without long and elaborate preparations in some other territory? Is he further aware that the American Government have publicly declared their sympathy with the invaders, and does he not consider that it is vitally important that Her Majesty's Government should take some initiative at the United Nations to see that this dangerous situation is brought to an end at the earliest possible moment? Will he say what initiative the Government propose to take?
Mr. Heath: We have no clear information about the scope of these operations, or their location, or their source of origin, but the American Secretary of State said quite clearly yesterday, at his Press conference, that they did not originate in the United States and that American forces were not intervening and would not intervene.
As regards our position, we are in the closest contact with our delegation in New York at the United Nations and we must await the course of that debate and also such information as we can obtain about the situation in Cuba.
Mr. Healey: Because of the dangerous international implications of the present events in Cuba, particularly arising out of a Note which the Soviet Government have addressed today to the United States Government, will Her Majesty's Government support an inquiry by the United Nations into allegations that foreign States are supporting the current invasion of Cuba?
Secondly, will the right hon. Gentleman undertake to inform the United States Administration that the many friends that it has won throughout the world by its vigorous and progressive policies in many fields would be deeply dismayed if it turned out that the United States Administration were smudging this image by the illegitimate use of violence to solve political problems in a way all too reminiscent of the precedent set by Her Majesty's Government at Suez?
Mr. Heath: The American Secretary of State defined very clearly yesterday the position of the American Government, and I have already referred to that.
As regards any inquiry into any allegations which may be made, we will have to consider that at the United Nations in the light of the requests which are made.
Mrs. Castle: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, according to Mr. Stanley Burch, the correspondent in New York of the Daily Mail, the troops now invading Cuba were trained at camps in Florida with American arms and American provisions, and that he adds:
"Make no mistake about it—the U.S. contribution and commitment to this operation is immense."?
Because of that, is it not clear that it is the duty of Her Majesty's Government to declare vigorously on every possible occasion in the United Nations that it is contrary to the Charter of the United Nations, as well as to the Treaty of the Organisation of American States for this kind of attempt to overthrow a Government from outside to be undertaken by any member of the United Nations?
Mr. Heath: I have, of course, seen various reports of this kind, but we have no clear information about them or about their justification. I think that we must await the course of the debate

973
at the United Nations, and until the situation becomes clear, before we instruct our delegate on the action that he should take.
Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Can we take it that the British West Indies Squadron is not steaming about in the path of the invaders?
Mr. Silverman: Does the right hon. Gentleman seriously contend that in a situation of this kind it is a sufficient discharge of the responsibilities of Her Majesty's Government in the dangerous state of the world now to sit back and wait for the continuance of a debate and to take no initiative themselves either to obtain information or to do anything else about it? Is it not clear that the situation is exactly like the situation in Laos? How do they hope to succeed in the one if they ignore the other?
Mr. Heath: The matter is being handled at the United Nations at the moment, and I should have thought that it would have been wise and prudent for us to have information about the situation before we instruct our delegate as to the action he should take.
Mr. Gower: Is there not evidence that the leaders of the present revolt were formerly associated with the present head of the Cuban State when he seized power? Is not that evidence that there is some difference among the Cubans themselves?
Mr. Hale: Whether there is a difference between the Cubans themselves, and wherever these invading forces come from, is it not already abundantly apparent that a heavily armed act of aggression has been committed on an independent country which is a member of the United Nations? Is it not, therefore, vitally necessary that the right hon. Gentleman should declare at once that Britain has no lot or part or sympathy with an armed act of aggression on an independent country, and will not be dragged into any sort of association with this gross and grave breach of international law?
Mr. Heath: I think that that illustrates the desirability of finding out what the situation is. There are others who would argue that this was an attempt by
974
some Cubans to overthrow their own Government and substitute another one.
Mr. Paget: Is not there some danger that the United Nations may become a sort of holy alliance in which Governments band themselves together to impose themselves on their subjects and to resist all forms of change? Is there not that aspect which should be borne in mind?
Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. We cannot debate this matter now.
Mr. Silverman: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I ask your leave to move the Adjournment of the House, under Standing Order No. 9, to call attention to a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely,
the neglect or refusal of Her Majesty's Government to take effective steps at the United Nations to secure an end to the invasion of Cuba and the immediate threat to the peace of the world inherent in that invasion.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) asks leave to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9 in order to call attention to a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely,
the neglect or refusal of Her Majesty's Government to take effective steps at the United Nations to bring to an end the invasion of Cuba and the immediate threat to the peace of the world inherent in that invasion.
I regret that I do not feel able to accede to the hon. Member's request. I do mat think that it falls within the rules governing this matter.
Mr. Silverman: Would you care to clarify that Ruling, Mr. Speaker, to show in what respect it falls outside the relevant Standing Order?
Mr. Speaker: As the House and the hon. Member know, I tried to avoid giving reasons, because they promote argument. But one thing which will be apparent is that there is no superfluity of information available upon the matter at the moment.
Mr. Silverman: In that event, would I have your leave to raise the question again, when more information is available, Mr. Speaker?
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member is entitled to make application at any time and I will be very glad to consider it as best I may upon its merits in the circumstances at the time.
Mr. Emrys Hughes: Would it make any difference to your Ruling, Mr. Speaker, if you were aware that a serious position has arisen owing to a Note which has been sent from the Government of the U.S.S.R. to the Government of the United States of America?
Mr. Speaker: No, not on that Motion.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  WAYS AND MEANS
  Considered in Committee[Progress 17th April].
  [Sir GORDON TOUCHE in the Chair]

  AMENDMENT OF THE LAW
  Question again proposed,
  That it is expedient to amend the law with respect to the national debt and the public revenue and to make further provision in connection with finance, so, however, that this Resolution shall not extend to making amendments of the enactments relating to purchase tax so as to give relief from tax, other than amendments making the same provision for chargeable goods of whatever description or for all goods to which any of the several rates of tax at present applies

  BUDGET RESOLUTIONS AND ECONOMIC SITUATION
  3.44 p.m.
  Mr. Harold Wilson: I should like to join my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition in congratulating the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the manner in which he presented his Budget yesterday. Content apart, it was one of the crispest, clearest and most vigorous Budget speeches which we have heard. I should also like to congratulate him on his decision to defer it until after the county council elections. We were told that the reason for that postponement was the bearing on the Budget of the Prime Minister's Washington discussions, but it was not very evident yesterday what bearing they had.
  This is the present Chancellor's second Budget. The first was introduced two months ago by the Minister of Health, and we have to take both of them together. Both impose taxation and yesterday's remitted taxation. The people on whom taxation was remitted yesterday were, in the main, not the people on whom tax was imposed two months ago, and yesterday's Budget provided hardly a farthing of tax relief to any taxpayer earning less than £2,000 a year. £40 a week.
  The measures of last February, even ignoring the incidence of the health

  977
  charges or the imposition on welfare foods, added 10d. a week in the shape of a poll tax on everyone, irrespective of income, and, as we warned at the time, that was setting the stage for the Budget. It was raising taxation in advance and in aid of the Budget, taxation raised in the most regressive and unjust manner, taxation which has now been dissipated in an even more unjust manner.
  The February impost put 10d. a week equally on the tycoon, the £8-a-week wage earner, and the 10s. widow. Under the Chancellor's proposals, the £5,000 a year married man has £9 a week handed back and the £25,000 a year man—and I gather that these figures are not unknown in British industry—has £1,775 a year handed back, £35 a week in spendable tax remission.
  The Prime Minister, who is not here at the moment, likes talking about masters and men. We can calculate that it would take additional weekly stamp contributions of 840 men to provide the Surtax relief of one of the masters. That is the way in which this tax has been handed out, divested of every canon of fiscal justice. For example, it is more favourable to the single man than to the married man with a family. A single man earning £5,000 a year has £512 handed back, nearly £10 a week, but the married man with two children gets £445. That is the Government's concept of social justice, or presumambly they would not have done it. I will return to that question when I examine the proposals in detail.
  The other criticism of the Budget is its monumental irrelevance to the urgent problems of the nation. Most of these proposals are as relevant and as up to date as the Ottoman Guaranteed Loan, 1855. First, however, I want to address myself, as the Chancellor did, to the economic situation with which he was supposed to deal.
  Last year, our balance of payments was by far the worst since the Korean War. Chancellor after Chancellor has told us that we must have a minimum surplus of £450 million to cover our overseas capital obligations, including our somewhat misdirected private overseas investment, that is, £450 million each year on the current account surplus.
  978
  What have we achieved? The Chancellor, as he told us, has just revamped his balance of payment figures and one result is to reveal that after the 1958 surplus of £291 million, in 1959 the figure turned out to be a miserable surplus of £51 million. That was a year when the Prime Minister was telling the electors:
  "Today the British economy is sounder than at any time since the First World War. Sterling has been re-established as a strong and respected currency. Our balance of payments is strong. … I do not remember any time in my life when the economy has been so sound."
  That was the Prime Minister's own conclusion. If the Prime Minister had conducted his business life on the same ethical basis as inspires his false prospectuses at election time, he would have been "doing time".
  But 1960 was worse. Instead of the miserable surplus of £51 million, which we had in 1959, with favourable conditions and with an unprecedentedly favourable balance of payments we had a deficit of £344 million, £400 million worse than the previous year and about £800 million down on the minimum figure which the Home Secretary, when Chancellor of the Exchequer, set as the surplus which we needed to achieve. The currency last year was protected only by the precarious hot money borrowed by the Chancellor at penal rates of interest.
  The Chancellor was very perfunctory yesterday about our balance of payments—£400 million worse in a single year. Visible trade, exports against imports, worsened by £300 million; invisibles by £100 million. We used to hear a lot about invisible exports from hon. Members opposite. Now they are going down the drain. We know, of course, that we had to pay £35 million more on interest charges because of the high Bank Rate which we had to pay to attract the hot money which we did not want. In addition, Government expenditure abroad was £57 million worse and this was mostly net military expenditure. Every Minister of Defence that we have gets more expensive.
  Under the last Minister of Defence, now the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations, we had to pour out £100 million of taxpayers' money to save his face on Blue Streak. The present Minister of Defence has managed to

  979
  spend overseas £57 million a year more than his predecessor. I seriously suggest to the Chancellor that he should dig his toes in. It is no use making nostalgic, Gladstonian references to candle ends while he allows this to go on.
  The Chancellor referred to German payments. Last month he went cap in hand to Bonn, an undignified posture for a Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he was promised £60 million in quicker repayment of Germany's post-war debt. I congratulate him. The Government have avoided international bankruptcy by a speedier repayment of the loan which the Labour Government made to the Germans, and we are glad to be able across the Committee, and across the years, to help the right hon. and learned Gentleman.
  Turning from the current account to the capital account, we see that there were two special items in the White Paper. We got £131 million, according to the White Paper, from Ford's for the sale of Dagenham and we remitted to the International Monetary Fund the £127 million that we had borrowed in the 1956 emergency. As Chancellor of the Exchequer his record last year was that he sold the British-owned assets of the Ford Company, one of our major industrial undertakings, to pay off the balance on the Suez debt which he had incurred as Foreign Secretary. The figures just about balanced.
  I now turn to production. The election over, we have had, of course, another twelve months' stagnation. Production this January was the same as a year ago. It is the old familiar pattern—the election spurt, and then a long period of stagnation while other countries go marching ahead. Since we have now had nearly ten years of right hon. Gentlemen opposite, I think that it is not inappropriate that I should give the Committee comparative international figures for the period since 1951. Taking 1951 as 100, in Japan production has gone up by 253 per cent.; in Russia by 166 per cent.; in Germany by 113 per cent.; in Italy by 108 per cent.; in France by 79 per cent.; in the Netherlands by 75 per cent.; in Canada by 44 per cent.; in the United States by 33 per cent.; in Britain by 32 per cent. and in Belgium
  980
  by 18 per cent. Are hon. Members opposite proud of our standing in that league table?
  I could give the export figures which show an even more miserable relative performance. I could give the figures of investment not only outside investment figures but within the total figures for the growth of major industries, which show that most other countries expanded a great deal more than we did in the metal-using industries, the chemical industries, in the industries providing goods which the world wants, while we, of course, led Europe in the provision of consumer services.
  These figures have two very pointed lessons in the terms of the Budget and our position in world affairs. Let me tell hon. Members opposite what our position would have been if we had increased production in this country since 1951 only as much as the rest of Western Europe. It is not much to ask, but I think that hon. Members opposite will agree that it was too much for them.
  Mr. Cyril Osborne: That was just after the war.
  Mr. Wilson: I am grateful to the hon. Member for admitting that 1951 was so close to the end of the war. It is not exactly the current theme of Conservative propaganda on the other side. If it were any comfort to him, I could give similar figures to those that I have given, taking 1956 as the best date, when the present Prime Minister first became Chancellor of the Exchequer. The hon. Member would find that the figures then were worse than those that I have given. It depends, as the hon. Member says, where one starts.
  Mr. Osborne: Can the right hon. Gentleman give the figures of production and the sale of exports by the coal mining industry in the last ten years, and explain to the Committee why both production and exports have failed in that nationalised industry?
  Mr. Wilson: The hon. Gentleman gets a little tedious with his questions. We have had that from him many times. The Committee knows perfectly well that production rose a great deal more under public ownership than it could ever have done under private ownership, until the Government's fuel policy caused a

  981
  decline in coal production two years ago. I can understand the hon. Member not wanting to hear the figures which I am about to give.
  If we could have done that, I think that he would have agreed that it might have been possible for this country, under a Tory Administration, to increase production as much as the rest of Western Europe has done. If this had been done our national income would be nearly one-fifth greater than it is today. This would have increased Government revenue at existing tax rates by £1,000 million a year, enough to double our public investment in education, housing, and the health and welfare services, and to double the level of aid to underdeveloped countries. On top of that, we would have increased personal incomes by over £2,000 million, equivalent to more than £2 a week extra to spend for every family in the country.
  Of course, the second result would have been the immense strengthening of this country's position abroad. I think that we were all a little concerned a couple of weeks ago when our economic weakness was shown in the recent Washington meeting, where the whole world could see the Prime Minister, the man who, five years ago, said that he intended to make Great Britain great, in the rôle of a rather seedy uncle at the receiving end of some well-chosen homilies from his wealthy, forward-looking nephew. Our position at that meeting, and the image which we gave to the world, would have been immensely stronger but for the debilitating effects of Tory freedom. As President Kennedy said in his election campaign, quoting Lloyd George:
  "A tired nation is a Tory nation."
  The never-had-it-so-good boom which won the Tories the last election barely survived the election, but now, thanks to the courtesy of the Chancellor and the White Papers which he has published, we have the figures of that boom. We can look at it over the whole period and it is right that the Committee, concerned, as we should be, with social justice, should see how different sections of the community fared in that boom, as recorded in the White Paper. Let us see who it was who cashed in—those who never had it so good: old-age pensioners, no increase; National Assistance recipients, up 11 per cent.; wages up 11 per
  982
  cent.; gross profits up 20 per cent.; dividends on ordinary and preference shares up 34 per cent.; dividends on ordinary shares up 43 per cent.; index of ordinary shares up 52 per cent.; dividends on property shares up 110 per cent.; and the index of property share prices even higher than that.
  As the Prime Minister said so movingly on election night:
  "We are one country. We are one people."
  These were the main facts which the Chancellor faced when he prepared his Budget—all these figures were known to him—and his Budget should have been dictated by them: first, a disastrous balance of payments position, secondly, stagnation of production, and, thirdly, a manifestly unjust distribution of the national dividend. The inspiration directing his Budget should have been a determination to remedy them by positive and vigorous action.
  The Chancellor began yesterday by examining his expenditure commitments. He faces, as did his predecessor last April, a formidable increase in Government expenditure. Five years ago the Prime Minister pledged himself to reduce Government expenditure by £100 million. Since then it has risen by £1,300 million. During the last General Election he produced blood-curdling and marrow-chilling speeches saying that if the prodigal Socialists were returned Government expenditure would rise at the end of five years by £1,000 million a year. In eighteen months it has risen by £600 million, so we are more than half-way there already.
  In the debate on the Report of the Public Accounts Committee last December I said that the House cannot expect to secure major reductions in Government expenditure except on the basis of major changes of policy, and that it is dishonest for an hon Member to vote for certain spending policies one month and then complain when the Chancellor presents the bill. I said that it was the duty of the House—aided by the Estimates Committee and the Public Assistance Committee—[Laughter.] I am sorry, but after the White Paper that we had last week, referring to the £401 million to private industry, I am not sure whether that would not be a more accurate title. Anyway, it is the duty of the House, aided by the Estimates

  983
  Committee and the Public Accounts Committee, to secure value for money, and this, quite manifestly, we are not getting.
  The Chancellor was brutally critical of his colleagues yesterday in the matter of waste, but he should start with himself. Since last year there has been an increase of £46 million in interest payments on the National Debt, as a result of his own monetary policy, and his estimate for this year shows that that figure is likely to rise by another £20 million.
  Let us look at the Chancellor's colleagues—as I think he would prefer. Let us take the Admiralty Accounts, published last month. We have the normal overspending on individual items. We are all used to an admiral-warship coefficient greater than unity—more admirals than ships; but this year we have something even more interesting. Let us consider the figures for Admiralty educational establishments—the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth and the Royal Engineering College. They both have a staff-pupil ratio of more than 1 to 1. There are more teachers than pupils. Meanwhile, the right hon. Gentleman who presides with such elegant complacency over our national educational backwardness stands at the Dispatch Box and tries to justify classes of 40 pupils and over in our primary schools.
  Let us consider other major spending Departments, and the vast amounts poured out by the Minister of Health, without check and without even obtaining figures of costs of production and advertising, to the American pharmaceutical subsidiaries—the one-armed bandits of the National Health Service. Let us consider the missiles programme. Blue Streak was scheduled to cost £600 million, but was mercifully stopped at the £100 million figure; but it is still costing £1 million a month. Seaslug was estimated to cost £1½ million; it is now estimated to cost £70 million; Thunderbird was estimated to cost £2½ million, and is now estimated to cost £40 million; Firestreak was estimated to cost £4 million, and is now estimated to cost £33 million, with another £20 million required for the cost of the Mark IV variation.
  984
  There are a lot of candle ends for our Gladstonian Chancellor there. His failure to deal with them—his failure to stand up to the costly ambitions of the Prime Minister and the Service Ministers—are of direct relevance to this Budget and the unequal burdens falling upon the British people.
  I now turn to the Chancellor's proposals. The first of the powers he seeks to introduce are his new economic regulators—devices for regulating the economy between Budgets. The right hon. and learned Gentleman is different from the Home Secretary who, when Chancellor, used to give us autumn Budgets instead. The Chancellor complained about the jerkiness of existing policies. He seemed to say that we suffered from Government by jerks. I welcome his clear repudiation of the monetary weapon as the main economic regulator. Year after year we have argued this point, and our arguments have been sustained by the Radcliffe Committee.
  The best epitaph for this now discredited policy, which has been so ruinous to this country, was contained in an article a few weeks ago by the City Editor of the Spectator, in which he said:
  "This Government will go down in history as the purblind administration which abused and disintegrated the gilt-edged market, which brought ruination to thousands of trust funds for whom the Trustee Investments Bill is now intended to bring some overdue relief. The theory behind this monetary folly is that in a free economy the long-term rate of interest must be allowed to find its proper level—the so-called 'equilibrium' rate—which on the high side will check an inflation and on the low side will check a deflation. The theory is moonshine because the 'equilibrium' rate which will really stop an inflation is so high—over 12 per cent. at least—that all forms of investment—industrial and social investment in council housing and public works—become too expensive to undertake. In fact, it kills both expansion and the Welfare State. It also kills itself, for it raises rents to such a high level that the enraged trade unions perforce demand higher wages and so add to the inflationary pressures."
  We are now to have two new regulators, and the House of Commons will want to consider these very carefully on the Finance Bill. The first gives the Chancellor power at any time to vary the broad field of indirect taxation by fiat, subject to the affirmative Resolution of the House of Commons.

  985
  These are very big powers to give to a Chancellor. There will be many who will object to relinquishing this House's control, at Budget time, of the total revenue with which the Government are to be entrusted for the year ahead. There will be many fears that a Government in trouble will increase the taxation on commodities of general consumption while still leaving Surtax untouched. Under the proposal we might get an autumn Budget every year, without the all-night sittings and the other things that, as the Home Secretary well remembers, normally accompany an autumn Budget of this kind.
  We must also face the fact that there will be serious uncertainty for trade and industry. The effect upon traders' stocks might be very serious from time to time as speculation arises whether the Chancellor will use his new regulator and, in consequence, it may be far more of a destabiliser than a stabiliser. We can also visualise the pre-election use that might be made of it by a Prime Minister of the same high electoral principles as the present incumbent.
  But what strikes me as odd is the Chancellor's willingness, indeed his desire, to introduce this power when he and his predecessors have rejected the proposals that we have made year after year, that Chancellors should have power, by Order, between Budgets, to make illegal new tax avoidance devices which might be losing the Revenue tens of millions of pounds. We have made this proposal year after year and have said that what the Treasury was trying to do about the dividend stripper was outflanked by dividend strippers and other tax avoidance manipulations before the ink was dry on the Finance Bill, but we have always been told that such action would be undemocratic. Now the Chancellor is proposing to do it so as to have freedom to raise a couple of hundred million pounds excess revenue in any year. Why use it for raising indirect taxation and reject it as a step to curtail the activities of tax dodgers?
  My right hon. Friend pointed out some of the objections to the payroll tax. He referred to its unfairness between industries, and its blunt instrument effect as between different areas. The Government
  986
  would be most likely to introduce this payroll tax at a time of balance of payments difficulties, such as we had in the autumn of 1957. Had the Government had power to do this at that time it is clear that it would have intensified the depression and the growth of unemployment which was already on the way. The idea amazes me.
  We had a half-hour homily yesterday about labour costs being too high, but a tax on wages would make them higher. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman thinks that wages are too low to secure a real economy in the use of manpower the answer is obvious. He should press for higher wages instead of following the usual procedure of condemning wage increases for three years and then taking credit for them at election time. Has he considered the effect that the new proposal will have on industrial relations? Does not he feel that the workers will consider themselves to have been cheated when they think that employers can afford, or can be made to afford, to pay the labour tax to the Government—while, at the same time, those same employers are refusing to give them wage rises? Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman really think that this measure will be effective? Does he really feel that 4s. a week in this form of taxation will secure an economy in manpower?
  Suppose that the Chancellor wants to persuade an industry that is working short time—such as the motor car industry was doing a short while ago—to streamline its labour force. What will happen if that industry considers that the market will improve—in a very similar way as the motor car market did improve not long ago? Does the right hon. and learned Gentleman expect the leaders of that industry to discharge its workers for the sake of a 4s. a week tax? When we consider that an industry will continue to pay wages, it is hardly likely that it will streamline its manpower force because of this proposed 4s. a week tax.
  Has the right hon. and learned Gentleman considered the effect of the proposed 4s. payroll tax on the different industries in Britain? How, for instance, will it affect the hospital service, or local authorities, or the other one hundred essential services and industries in this

  987
  country which are quite incapable of introducing automation?
  So much for the economics of the matter. Now I come to the proposals, some of which we welcome. We welcome, for example, the relief proposed to be given to victims of Nazi persecution, for which some of my hon. Friends and some hon. Gentlemen opposite have fought very hard for many years. Secondly, we welcome the Excise duty on television advertising revenues, which we pressed on his predecessor year after year. Although the original suggestion came from this side of the Committee, we are glad that it has now been accepted. We consider that the duty is at too low a rate, but at least it is a start.
  I was interested to see yesterday that the Chancellor actually confessed to having been one of the originators of commercial television. Admittedly, he is a poacher turned gamekeeper, but, in admitting that, I was surprised at his frankness. Last night, on television, the Chancellor admitted quite freely that this fantastic and, in many cases, degrading advertising is, in fact, paid for by the consumer. He did not seem to mind that the tax was passed on to the consumer as a result of higher prices in the shops. Nevertheless, we welcome what he has done in this direction and we further suggest that he should put a tax on patent medicine advertising and, in our view, that he should use the revenue from that tax to abolish the charges for National Health Service prescriptions.
  We welcome, also, the tax on fuel oil for heating. This was first proposed from this side some years ago, both for the sake of removing an anomaly and as a measure which would make this country less dependent on highly precarious imported oil and help the use of indigenous fuels, such as coal. We consider that some of the revenue should be devoted to removing entirely the tax on diesel oil used by road passenger transport. We are all aware of the serious difficulties of some country bus services. There has recently been a report proposing a Government subsidy for them. Since we are all aware of the difficulties of these bus services, we hope that the Chancellor will devote some of the revenue to that quarter.
  988
  We are seriously concerned about one part of the changes that the right hon. and learned Gentleman proposes in the oil duties, and that is the increased tax on paraffin, or kerosene. We are all surely aware that this commodity is used in many country districts, not only for heating but in some cases for lighting. On the whole, it is a poor man's fuel—unlike central heating, which is a rich man's luxury. This particular proposal of the right hon. and learned Gentleman will mean serious increases for some people who cannot afford the extra money, and I warn the Chancellor now that we intend, during the Committee stage of the Finance Bill, to move an Amendment designed to exclude this fuel from the operation of this tax.
  We welcome, of course, the additional relief of insurance contributions, but again, this was pressed upon the Chancellor by my hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) some time ago. We welcome that concession just as we welcome the minor relief given to ministers of religion who pay tax as the beneficial occupiers of manses and vicarages.
  I pass over without comment some of the minor measures—double taxation relief, the ad valorem Stamp Duty on bills of exchange, Schedule E assessments, the returns made by industrial and provident societies, even the final redemption of the Ottoman Guaranteed Loan, 1855—as these are appropriate matters for the Committee stage of the Finance Bill, late at night.
  Turning to Profits Tax, this has been appearing with surprising regularity in successive Tory Budgets and the figures I have given of the rise in profits, dividends and share values suggest that it will not impose hardship, although I press upon the Chancellor the need to revert to a differential Profits Tax with a low rate for profits ploughed back in new investment and a high rate on profits distributed as dividends.
  In connection with Profits Tax, I record one of our major disappointments; the failure of the Chancellor to do anything about a capital gains tax. The arguments for this have been put forward from this side not only as an act of fiscal justice, but as an essential instrument in the hands of the Chancellor if he is to stop tax avoidance. Our

  989
  warnings have been given point, because in a newspaper article this morning there was an account of the way in which yesterday—Budget day—a man, through marketing his property shares on the Stock Exchange, made £1 million tax-free in that single day. Yesterday, we heard from the Chancellor all about hardship and the miseries of the poor Surtax payers. Well, that was one result.
  Vehicle Excise duty was, I suppose, a sitting target. It was clear that the Chancellor would not be able to keep his hands off it. I will not weary the Committee, nor embarrass the Chancellor, with long quotations from the speeches made attacking the level of road vehicle taxation, then very much lower than today, in the Budget and Finance Bill debates of 1950 and 1951, by a distinguished Tory back bencher, then described in HANSARD as "Mr. Selwyn Lloyd (Wirral)." In passionate words he condemned the fact that road taxes had risen to £275 million in that Budget. They will be running at nearly double that rate now.
  I do not suggest that the increase will mean hardship for every car owner. Far from it. But many families with small cars, will feel it, including those who have just invested in one. No one objected, twelve years ago, when the horsepower tax was replaced by a flat-rate tax, but £15 is very heavy as a flat-rate tax. Without going back to horsepower tax, with its distortions of engine design, I feel, as we have urged before, that there is a case for taxing cars by their ground area; the amount of space they occupy on the Queen's highway. It is quite wrong that a small Austin, Morris, or Anglia should pay £15, the same rate paid by some of the American obscenities that are coming over in increasing numbers, and which are taking up so much parking and road space.
  I deprecate the chicken-hearted attack the Chancellor made on the business-owning motor car racket. There is a slight increase in the calculation of annual value and a limitation of capital value to £2,000. The Welfare State no longer covers Rolls-Royces or Bentleys. It draws the line at the Daimler, the Cadillac, the Princess, or the Jaguar. However, the subsidised business-owned fleet will still be running as a charge on the national resources of between £120
  990
  and £130 million a year—and this in a country which cannot afford to provide small runabouts for paraplegic ex-miners or ex-Service men unfortunate enough to have had both legs amputated just below instead of just above the knee.
  I suggest that the Chancellor should do the following four things: first, abolish the initial allowances; secondly, provide that the annual value of car use allowed to any employee of a company shall not exceed, say, 4 per cent. of the individual's declared income for tax purposes; thirdly, tax each allocated car on an assumed 50 per cent. private use—this may be over-generous—except where full log-books are kept proving a higher figure; and, fourthly, limit tax-allowed cars to being driven by the firm's employees and not their wives.
  As for business entertainment, since this is presumed to increase orders and profits and since, as the Chancellor admits, it is being greatly abused, I suggest that only 50 per cent. or a similar figure of total business entertainment expenditure be allowed for tax purposes. This is not a triviality. Business entertainment expenditure on drink alone is estimated by the Government—and this is a very conservative estimate—at £40 million a year. Business entertainment expenditure on food and other things must run into hundreds of millions of pounds a year, and I suggest that the Chancellor should deal with it.
  I have just had handed to me an advertisement from The Times. I quote:
  "Experienced Butler, 40/50, required for the director's suite of a world-famous company in the West Middlesex area; duties will involve the control of three dining rooms and a staff of two or three waitresses, including wine service; hours … with possible overtime, evenings and weekends (with pay). This is a permanent staff appointment with a good wage and bonus, excellent working conditions and staff facilities."
  The taxpayer, through the Chancellor, is paying for this. Why not deal with the problem instead of merely preaching sermons?
  Now I come to the Chancellor's Surtax proposals. Let us right away strip this argument of the humbug and hypocrisy. Why does not the Chancellor "come clean"? This is what the Tory Party is in business for. This is class legislation of the most blatant type, made all the worse this year by the increase in

  991
  the National Health poll tax. The Chancellor prefaced his proposals with an appeal for restrant in wages, for restraint in personal expenditure, and this is the example he sets. Certainly, never has a tax change been more carefully prepared in the public Press than this one over the past few months. We have even had speeches from the President of the Board of Trade. It is all to be done in the sacred name of incentives and exports. This is a new development of Tory folklore.
  We have all known for a long time that all Stock Exchange investors were widows and orphans—and the orphans have been fairly active recently in the take-over bids. Now we find that all Surtax payers are exporters. The argument is that if we cut their tax, they will work harder and export more. It is a fairly serious slander on the business community to say that they have not been trying full-out because they resented the level of Surtax that they were paying, that they were weary Willies and tired Tims and all the other things that used to be thrown at the British workmen by right hon. and hon. Members opposite.
  I do not believe that to be true. I believe that the vast majority of our businessmen have been working full-out for export and in other directions as far as they felt able, having regard to the pull of the market. It was not the pull of the Surtax that was holding them back. The argument now—the Chancellor put it frankly on television last night—is that the Surtax-paying exporter will work harder, that he will export more and that our balance of payments will prosper. That is the argument, is it not? Suppose, however, that the businessman is an importer. Will not this incentive make him work harder to import more and sell more on the home market? Of course, he may not be engaged in international trade at all. He may be a take-over bid tycoon, a television advertising manager, a property speculator, or a tax avoidance specialist—because we were told about the professional man. They will all work harder. He may be the owner of a strip-tease parlour that flourishes under the expense account racket. All these will work harder. Will they all equally help our exports?
  992
  We welcome the Chancellor's fine words about scientists and technologists. We would like to see these fine words matched with action in scientific education and measures to encourage scientific research in industry. Fox every scientist that the Chancellor helps by his Budget, however, he is assisting 100 non-productive financial operators who already take too heavy a toll of the nation's wealth. As for emigration—we all deplore the loss of some of our best brains to America—my impression, after discussing this question with British scientific emigrés in the United States, is that their motive is not Surtax. It is the poor promotion prospects and the miserably inadequate salaries which so many of our industries hold out.
  Some of our industries are not science-minded; they hold out no prospects. Even in the case of some of the best, I have looked through last Sunday's Observer, with all the advertisements that it has for young scientists and technicians, but I could not find one firm operating a starting salary that would bring the recipient into anything like the Surtax level.[An HON. MEMBER: "Starting salary"?] Yes, starting salary. These are the people whom we talk about discouraging from emigration. Most of those of whom I have heard have emigrated simply because, having started, the prospects of promotion are so dim. First-class graduate scientists start at £700 or £800 a year in the aircraft industry, with very little prospect of promotion as time goes on.
  I ask those hon. Members opposite who know industry how many firms are paying scientists on a scale even remotely comparable with public relations officers, advertising managers, or home sales managers. There are very few of them indeed.
  Mr. David Price Mr. David Price (Eastleigh) indicated dissent.
  Mr. Wilson: The hon. Member shakes his head. Of course, he has a great connection with I.C.I. There are big exceptions, I agree, and I.C.I. is the biggest, as is well known. Scientists are well paid in I.C.I. We had reason to hear about this recently. Not all concerns, however, are like I.C.I. The truth is that this Surtax manœuvre, when stripped of its humbug and hypocrisy, is, in the main, a hand-out to the directors,

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  a pay-off for years of costly and unremitting propaganda by the Institute of Directors and their fellows.
  It would be improper for me to say how far it is the pay-off for their electoral endeavours. I want to be frank, however. Many hon. Members opposite know that what I am saying is true. Many of Britain's business managers and directors, particularly those who have worked their way up and come onto the board as a result of their ability in science, management, design or knowledge of exporting, or of the export drive, are as good as any in the world. But if a good half of the nation's directors—those appointed through financial tie-ups, through the old-boy network, through fourth generation dynastic appointments, simple nepotism of the kind that we see in Government appointments, or because of their tie-up with the Tory Party in either of the Houses of Parliament—if half of these directors went and were replaced by energetic young scientists, technologists and executives, Britain's industry and export trade would be a great deal healthier and more vigorous. Hon. and right hon. Members opposite know this. Given the chance, these young men whom I have mentioned would not refuse responsibility because of the rates of Surtax. They would be keen to do the job.
  Of course, we want to see taxation on the middle ranges of our scientists and executives reduced. We want to reduce the glaring gap in rewards between those who do a productive job in British industry and those who make vast tax-free killings by speculation in land, property or Stock Exchange shares. That is why we have urged a capital gains tax and a determined drive against tax avoidance. That is why we believe that vigorous policies of economic expansion can produce the revenue which would enable the Chancellor to operate a fair tax system with much more generous personal, child allowances and unearned income allowances all up the scale, not merely at the top, providing incentives to all the workers who, by hand and brain, produce the nation's wealth.
  The difference between a Conservative Chancellor and a Socialist Chancellor is this. The Conservative—we have debated this principle year after year—regards all taxation as a withholding of private
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  wealth and so he concentrates his reliefs on those who pay most. "I am only returning their money", he says; so to him that hath shall be given back. The Socialist Chancellor looks at the whole complex of national wealth and income and asks in what areas, from the distortions and injustices of the economic system, we find those in greatest need. He makes them—the old, the disabled, the war pensioner and the sick—the first charge on the national wealth. The Budget should be not only an instrument of social justice in itself. It should go beyond this and act sharply and effectively to correct the distortions and mal-distributions of the national wealth and income.
  Then the Conservative adds to the injustice of this approach by a new concept. We have had this now three times in five Budgets—the concept of the dual Budget, the February Budget, increasing direct taxation by more contributions, and the April Budget, reducing taxation on the rich. This now has happened in three years out of the last five. The poll-tax element in our system of direct taxation now accounts for nearly 30 per cent. of the total direct taxation raised by Income Tax, Surtax and stamp contributions. It is an element of flat-rate taxation which we on this side of the Committee have argued bears no relation to means and none to needs.
  It has reached a point now where an average family man has to earn £850 a year, £17 a week, before he is paying as much in Income Tax, graduated in terms of ability to pay, as he pays in flat-rate Health and Insurance contributions. From each according to his means, to each according to his needs; that is why I assert that the time is long overdue for an integration of the poll-tax revenue with the graduated system, so that ability to pay taxation, having regard to income and to family needs, should be the theme of our entire fiscal system.
  But hon. Members opposite who cheered the Surtax hand-out yesterday have voted year after year, and they will troop into the Lobbies again on this year's Finance Bill, against a tax allowance for blind persons for the cost of maintaining guide-dogs. One has the same anomalies in indirect taxation. I have referred to expense account cars, on the one hand, and paraplegic ex-miners, on the other.

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  Last year, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer took £5 million off the tax on port, to the unfeigned delight of the overripe pheasant in the Home Office. This year, new charges are added to welfare foods, costing less than the £5 million—orange juice, cod liver oil and the rest.
  But a Socialist Chancellor would have based his Budget not only on social justice, but on the overriding economic needs of the country. He would have given priorities to essential investment, not by gimmicks like the payroll tax, but by provisions for a quicker write-off of capital investment, not excluding the possibility that businesses could decide their own rate of write-off—all in one year if they want.
  If there is one priority overriding all others, it is the encouragement that this country needs to give to science and technology. The events of the past week lend it special urgency. We meet the Soviet scientific challenge—with what? With a national expenditure on consumer advertising of £450 million a year against a total expenditure of £478 million on scientific research, of which £370 million is contributed from public funds. Seventy per cent. of our scientific budget comes from public funds and less than 30 per cent. from private industry, which puts up £136 million, less Chan one-third of its expenditure on advertising.
  This is why we have called for a crash programme to train more scientists and technologists. The Soviet Union trains 130,000 graduate scientists and technologists each year. We produce 13,000. Japanese universities have 600,000 students, a proportion ten times as much as that of Britain and, even so, they intend to double the output of scientists, engineers and technologists. The President of the Board of Trade knows what that will mean to export trade in a few years' time.
  This crash programme for which we have called will mean not only a great deal more money, but a complete reorientation of our priorities and our educational structure. Our proposal to end the arbitrary 11-plus selection is not only put forward on democratic and egalitarian grounds, but it is an imperative for our national survival. We need a
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  new policy for science teachers—what my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King) has called the seed-corn of the scientific harvest. We need a new policy for the redeployment of our scientists when we have trained them.
  Fifty-two per cent. of the total national expenditure on research and development goes on defence, or so-called defence. This high proportion now imperils our national survival. Far too many of the rest are deployed in private industry, on trying to produce new and unwanted gimmicks or additives to consumer goods so that the advertising managers can rush on the television screen. We shall not meet the Gagarin challenge by deploying still more trained scientists on the job of inserting different coloured stripes into the nation's toothpaste.
  But we need, even more than these, a new and determined drive to apply science in industry. Some of our industries have a great record, some private and some public industries. We have the great research record of the Post Office, which has never received its due meed of tribute, the Atomic Energy Authority, in which, as the Prime Minister has boasted, we lead the world in the peaceful application of atomic energy, the new developments in publicly-owned coal, gas and electricity. Let us look at the machine-tool firms which account for 90 per cent. of the output with 25 graduate scientists and engineers between them. Shipbuilding has a record which is no better.
  In industry today we are suffering from the Maginot mind. Just as the French, a generation ago, thought that their military defences were impregnable because of the Maginot Line, so we tend too often to think that Britain will maintain her exports and we can come to no harm because of an impregnable reputation for quality. But, just as the Maginot Line was turned by the gap which the Germans exploited, so we may go down because of the equally dangerous gap so far unbridged between science and industry.
  Last month, when I was in the Soviet Union, I saw at first hand their top-level organisation for linking science with industry, the committees of the

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  Presidium of Ministers, the arrangements for the engineering industries, including machine tools, for the chemical industry, for automation, for shipbuilding, for building and building materials, and for aircraft, including their not inconsiderable work in space travel. What have we to set against this? The noble Lord, Lord Hailsham, on a part-time basis.
  An indication of what we can do has been given by the National Research Development Corporation, set up by the Labour Government, which is, more than anything else, responsible for the development of our computer industry and the Hovercraft. Today, for lack of funds and for lack of the necessary statutory powers, vital work is in danger of coming to an end, including a major break-through in what might be the world's finest fast computer. I emphasise to the Government that these developments, starved through lack of finances, even more through lack of drive and concern, have vastly more bearing on our national survival than many of the pet projects so wastefully financed by successive Ministers of Defence.
  I therefore suggest to the Government, and especially to the Minister for Science, that they extend the powers of N.R.D.C, that where important developments are going on they come along with firm orders, beginning with the computer, to maintain continuity of production and development; that they work out a plan to increase the number of scientists on civil research and development—perhaps 15,000 today—by a further 3,000, or 20 per cent. They have not been slow to place orders for missiles and aircraft on a cost-plus research development basis. Why cannot they do the same for civil industry? Why should they not place orders for new machine tool developments, new methods of welding for shipbuilding, and so on? Why cannot we have a new shuttle-less loom for the textile industry? Let the Government get the young scientists and organise them into teams and give them a chance to show what they can do on the basis of contracts given by the Government or by the National Research Development Corporation.
  These are concrete proposals. The events of last week give them peculiar and pressing urgency. I do not suggest
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  that we should try to compete with the Soviet Union in space research. The lesson of last week is that we must begin to compete with them in the training of scientists and technologists, in employing them on national purposes and not on frivolities, and in linking science to industry.
  This, in our view, is Britain's destiny in the 1960s and the 1970s. Yesterday, we saw theirs. After ten years we heard a confession of economic failure. We meet the challenge of the modern world with an effete Venetian oligarchy, a Government who themselves reflect the nation's besetting weakness of family connection and aristocratic recruitment, because this Government stand condemned not only for their crime against social justice and their monumental economic irrelevance. They stand condemned even more for their failure to produce policies which will enable Britain to recapture its lost dynamic at home and abroad.
  4.41 p.m.
  The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Reginald Maudling): There was one phrase in the speech of the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) which particularly caught my ear, and that was "monumental irrelevance". So far as I understood the right hon. Gentleman's speech, he made a number of criticisms of my right hon. and learned Friend, to which I will reply, but he made precious few suggestions as to how he would tackle the economic problems of the country.
  The right hon. Gentleman finished his speech with some extremely interesting remarks about the importance of scientific development in industry, with most of which I agree entirely. We certainly need much more research and development in British industry, including some of the industries to which he referred. We need a greater programme, as we are having a rapidly expanding programme, of scientific and technical education. We all look forward to the time when we can transfer more of our scientists and technologists from defence research to civil research, but that time will not come until the national defence requirement permits it.
  With all those points that the right hon. Gentleman made I entirely agree, but beyond that I thought that he made

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  no positive alternative suggestion as to what should be done to deal with the balance of payments problem, or the question of economic growth, to which he often referred, but to which he had no particular solution.
  Last year, the right hon. Gentleman said:
  "A budget, in modern times, must be judged on two tests: how far it succeeds in promoting social justice and how far it helps to solve the economic problems facing the country."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 5th April, 1960; Vol. 621, c. 215.]
  I entirely agree with that. My right hon. and learned Friend's Budget meets both tests.[Laughter.] Yes, because social justice is not confined to certain income groups only. People who have won positions of responsibility by their own efforts have a similar claim to social justice. Social justice does not mean equality of income. Merit is entitled to its reward, as need is entitled to its care.
  During the last ten years Surtax rates have not changed at all. In that period real wages have risen by 32 per cent., the real value of pensions by about 40 per cent., and expenditure on the social services by 90 per cent. In the same period the fall in the value of money has made the burden of Surtax more onerous and has brought within the scope of Surtax many people who were never envisaged as possible Surtax payers when the tax was first thought of. The £2,000 limit was fixed in 1920 and by now has become grotesquely out of date. It was quite right for my right hon. and learned Friend to double it.
  The other thing that he has done is to apply to Surtax the earned income relief given for Income Tax. What argument can there be against that? Surely there are two rates of direct taxation, Income Tax and the so-called higher rate of Income Tax. If the earned income allowance is a good principle for the one, why is it not good for the other? I can see no argument against it, and I heard no argument from the right hon. Gentleman in any way to controvert the rightness of the two steps which my right hon. and learned Friend has taken.
  It is neither social justice nor economic wisdom to impose a discouraging and penal tax on people with skill and enterprise who have won their way to leading
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  positions in our country. I have no doubt that these rates of Surtax, despite the right hon. Gentleman, have been a discouragement. They have been a discouragement to risk taking. They have been a discouragement to people taking greater responsibility. They have been a discouragement to greater effort. They have been a discouragement to people to change their jobs and go to new situations. Anyone who knows industry knows that that is true. I have no doubt that these changes will be a great stimulus to the economy as a whole and to exports in particular.
  Let us look at the comparison with other countries. The right hon. Gentleman produced his usual league table to show how other countries are doing better than ourselves, but he did not go into the other comparisons. The Germans, probably the best example, have expanded their exports much more than us. They do not plan more than we do, they do not nationalise more than we do, and they tax their businessmen far less. For people earning £2,000, £3,000, £4,000 a year the amount of tax they have to pay on every additional £100 they earn by their efforts is much higher in this country than in Germany or the United States. If hon. Gentlemen are interested to know the reason why Germany is expanding faster than us, that is a very good place to look for the reason.
  Mr. John Diamond: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way so early. Will he explain to the Committee in exactly what way he will work so much harder and better as a result of the £450 a year that he will get out of the Budget?
  Mr. Maudling: I do not think that anyone regards that as a serious argument. I have an incentive to dispose of the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman which money would not buy.
  There is another argument, apart from the question of the relative rate of Surtax upon executives, technicians and managers. The scarcity commodity in this country at the moment is good management. We must face that. If we are to expand faster, we must depend on our resources of skill and efficient management. Looking at the other end of the scale, if we are talking in terms

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  of social justice the rates of direct taxation in this field on people earning less than £1,000 a year are still much lower than they are in Germany, America and France and all the other countries, except Australia, shown in the recent National Institute Review.
  The Surtax changes my right hon. and learned Friend has made can be justified not merely as an incentive to output and expansion in the economy, but as an act of social justice that, if anything, was overdue. The money is coming from the equity shareholder. That is also just and certainly in line with the precepts of the Leader of the Opposition, who thinks that, on the whole, owning is too profitable and earning not profitable enough. Therefore, what could be more reasonable than to increase the taxation on the equity shareholder and use the proceeds to relieve the manager, the scientist, the technologist and the people who are living on earned incomes?
  My right hon. and learned Friend's proposals in this respect have a courage and realism of the type which this country's economy badly needs at present, because we are at a moment when we must take a new and dispassionate look at the problems facing us, the progress we have made and the changes we must make in future. There are many reasons for this—the development of technology, particularly in Soviet Russia; the great changes taking place in Europe; impending reductions in tariffs in the G.A.T.T. negotiations, which I hope, will be very substantial; the very rapidly growing burden of aid to the underdeveloped countries; the growing competition of cheap imports from industrialising nations; the changing policy of the United States; and the new impulse from the new Kennedy Administration. All these factors combine to impel us as a nation to look again at where we stand, what progress we have made, and where we go from now.
  Our progress during the last ten years has not been so bad as the party opposite has sometimes argued. There has been a steady improvement in living standards and we are keeping fully abreast of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary's target of doubling our living standards in twenty-five years. Over the last ten years investment has
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  increased by 135 per cent. Next year it will be up to over 19 per cent. of the gross national product. Our expenditure on education in these ten years increased by 140 per cent., and our expenditure on road-making by more than 600 per cent. We have maintained in general full employment. There is still a very serious problem in Northern Ireland, and there are still, I agree, difficulties in Scotland, but, by and large, we have retained a high level of employment and remarkable stability of prices.
  All this is not a record of which this country should be ashamed, and we should be unwise to listen too much to some of the groanings that come from the other side of the Committee. It is equally true that we have still failed to solve two particular problems. We have not broken loose from the dilemma of the balance of payments, and we have not made our rate of growth fast enough or consistent enough. The right hon. Gentleman talked about our rate of growth this afternoon and produced his usual table. This reminded me of the definition of "growthmanship" in the book by Mr. Colin Clark:
  "An excessive preoccupation with economic growth, advocacy of unduly simple proposals for obtaining it, and the careful choice of statistics to prove that countries with a political and economic system which you favour have made exceptionally good economic growth and that countries administered by your political opponents have made exceptionally poor economic growth."
  The right hon. Gentleman did not do that. What, in fact, he showed was that the countries which have grown most rapidly are those which pay the least attention to his advice.
  Of course, in considering these international growth tables, we must not be led away by simple statistics nor try to write them off too easily. There are reasons why our growth has been less rapid than that of some other countries—the growth of our working population, the actual number of people who work in industry has grown far less than in Western Germany, and the burden of defence in this country, which we must undertake, and the burden of aid to undeveloped countries, which we are proud to undertake, has been and remains a heavy one. Indeed, I have the feeling that we are doing more than our own share. The position of sterling is one

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  thing that we must always have uppermost in our minds and, as the right hon. Gentleman himself said in 1958:
  "… the strength of sterling and all that depends on it must take priority over all other considerations."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th April. 1958; Vol. 586, c. 187.]
  That, I take it, includes growth as well.
  Mr. H. Wilson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we have argued many times with right hon. Gentlemen opposite and yesterday we managed to get one glimmer of understanding from the new Chancellor that the best way to keep sterling strong is to have expanding growth, expanding investment, and, above all, the increasing productivity which results from that growth?
  Mr. Maudling: I do not think that is quite right. I do not think that growth itself maintains stability. It is a question whether growth is combined with efficiency and proper cost of production. Sheer crude growth does not itself solve any problems anywhere. Although these are handicaps which we have to face, they are handicaps which we must clearly overcome.
  First, we must have more room for manœuvre. Our short-term position has always been difficult since the war because of the inadequacy of our reserves in relation to our commitments. Here, we have two different considerations to bear in mind. First, possible speculative attacks on sterling, and here the co-operation of the central banks has obviously in recent weeks provided new opportunities and ways of meeting difficulties. Secondly, there is a necessity to provide finance at times when countries are passing through temporary economic difficulties. Here is the function of the International Monetary Fund, about which the right hon. Gentleman has often spoken, but not today, surprisingly, because it is one of the most important and urgent problems facing us today. I should have thought that he would have told us what his choice was between the Triffin Plan, the Bernstein Plan and the Maxwell Stamp Plan.
  Mr. Wilson: I gave the right hon. Gentleman and the Government my views in the debate on the Radcliffe Committee's Report on 26th November, 1959, and we still have not had one single word in reply to what we put forward.
  Mr. Maudling: The urgent problem is to improve international liquidity by restoring the present imbalance, which we are doing in concert with the Americans and the Germans, and improve rapidly the facilities of the International Monetary Fund by increasing their drawing rights in currencies other than dollars and sterling. This is the sort of thing which can be done readily and we shall consider whether any further and fundamental improvements can be made to the International Monetary Fund.
  This is only dealing with temporary problems. The long-term problem, to which the right hon. Gentleman addressed not one single word this afternoon, is how to improve our export trade. It must surely be apparent, even to the right hon. Gentleman, that without this we cannot hope to have a greater prosperity in this country and stronger growth.
  Mr. Wilson: Even?
  Mr. Maudling: If the right hon. Gentleman feels so strongly about exports, why did he not refer to them? I was hoping that we should hear from the right hon. Gentleman something of his own proposals for dealing with these problems. I studied his recent article in the New Statesman on his four-year plan, and despite Mr. Alan Day's letter, I think there are some bits left of it, but he did not produce them this afternoon.
  So far as I recall, his first main proposal was to nationalise the commanding heights of the economy. The party opposite has never defined these commanding heights, probably because it cannot define the commanding heights of its own party. Whatever the reason, the right hon. Gentleman did not define them He said nothing about controls. Has the party opposite abandoned controls? Has it given up import controls and building controls? Perhaps it at last realises what has been apparent to all of us on this side—that import controls have no possible relevance to our problems and are no solution to the balance of payments difficulties. Equally, I think the party opposite realises that building controls are irrelevant and offer no contribution to the solution of the problems of our economy at present. If the party opposite and the right hon. Gentleman still think that there is anything in the

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  system of controls which may be of value to this country's economy, why did he not mention them this afternoon?
  He did not refer to the need for restraining consumption. He did that in his article, and he has done it in previous speeches, but not today. Perhaps, at last, he has realised the unwisdom of constantly appealing for measures to restrain consumer demand while constantly voting for measures which increase it. The right hon. Gentleman voted yesterday against a measure imposing taxation on vehicles which I should have thought was a policy entirely in line with his own public statements.
  We have received from the party opposite today no alternative policies whatever to deal with our problems.[An HON. MEMBER: "Why should you?"] Why should we? Because if the party opposite thinks we are wrong, if it thinks that what we are doing is wrong, I should have thought that it would have put forward some alternative. If it thinks that the issue was so simple and our errors were so clear, it might, for the sake of the country, if not the Government, have pointed out to us the errors of our ways, but there was little of that this afternoon.
  Mr. H. Wilson: The right hon. Gentleman will sympathise with us in our difficulties. This is the second economic debate we have had in two months, and both my right hon. Friend and I went to great length on the last occasion in showing what should have been done about exports. That is what we have done many times in this House, but the right hon. Gentleman always comes along with a speech prepared to answer the one he thought I was going to make, so we never get a reply to the one I made. Will he now give a reply to the speech I did make this afternoon, or, as an alternative, reply to what we have said on previous occasions about exports and international liquidity; or, if he cannot reply to them, would he at least read them?
  Mr. Maudling: The right hon. Gentleman should not weary of well doing. If he thinks that what he said is right, he might occasionally repeat it. If I made the error of misjudging what the right hon. Gentleman was going to say, it
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  was because I paid him the compliment of thinking that his speech was going to have some relevance to the problems. However, I will not make the mistake again.
  So far as the proposals of my right hon. and learned Friend are concerned we believe that one of the first responsibilities of the Government in order to increase exports is to restrain the demand of the home market. I will give the right hon. Gentleman the point that he did say something, one sentence, about avoiding excessive home demand, though he said nothing about how we should do it. My right hon. and learned Friend introduced this Budget, which is without question a very stiff Budget, which introduces and imposes new taxes entirely designed to deal with the balance of payments and the security of our reserves in the coming years. A stiff Budget is the first requirement to improve our balance of payments. The encouragement of savings is the next.
  My right hon. Friend's other measures, the two new regulators, were treated by the right hon. Gentleman with less than his usual perception. Surely these are the sort of regulators for which hon. Members opposite have been asking and which they think are required. Every hon. Member, I think, agrees that, for example, hire-purchase regulations, although effective, are far too arbitrary in their incidence. Certainly, I, as President of the Board of Tirade, have been made only too well aware of that. I also think that we recognise that while the Bank Rate and monetary measures themselves have an important part to play, they are not enough. We want new regulators which bear upon consumption and which encourage investment. I thought that that was entirely in accordance with the right hon. Gentleman's view of our economy.
  The right hon. Gentleman keeps asking for more investment. Surely he would agree that to regulate demand in the economy my right hon. and learned Friend was right to take two measures. The first, that concerning indirect taxation, will bear directly on consumption, and the second, the payroll tax, is designed to encourage investment in labour-saving machinery. I should have

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  thought that that was entirely in accordance with the arguments which have been pressed on us by hon. Members opposite.
  In modern conditions, consumer demand is far more volatile than investment demand. If we want a steady rate of expansion, we must, as far as we can, maintain a steady rate of expansion in consumer demand.
  Mr. H. Rhodes: Before the right hon. Gentleman leaves that point concerning the payroll tax, perhaps he will allow me to say this. I have been interested in what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said about a 3 per cent. increase in productivity, thus filling the gap between the state of the economy now and what it might be later in terms of inflation. If a firm proved that it was carrying out the aim referred to by the Chancellor, namely, an increase of 3 per cent. in productivity each year, would he excuse that firm from paying the payroll tax?
  Mr. Maudling: I do not think that that is the point. There has been a good deal of discussion in public about a payroll tax as an alternative, possibly, to a Profits Tax, or some other taxation on industry in the long term. The argument for the payroll tax, which I think is a very good one, is that we in this country must recognise that labour is our scarcest commodity. We must encourage industry to develop in such a way that the maximum output comes from every man, and that means that we must have the maximum capital equipment behind every man.
  I was surprised that the Leader of the Opposition, with his economic knowledge, yesterday criticised this concept on the ground that it bears more heavily on the so-called labour-intensive industries than on the capital-intensive industries. The whole point is that the more rapid growth of our total output will come about only if we put an increasing share of our resources into those industries which by high capitalisation make a better use of the labour which is available. The same applies to the inevitably growing imports of cheap manufactures from developing countries. We can maintain our position in the export and home markets only if we
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  apply ourselves more and more to the forms of output where capital is proportionately more important.
  That is the argument for a payroll tax, and it seems to me to be a good one. That is the argument for substituting a payroll tax for other forms of taxation on industry. But that is not What is proposed at present. My right hon. Friend is now working on the idea that if in any given circumstances he feels that the economic situation is such that he ought to collect another £200 million worth of revenue, or some such sum, from industry, then he ought to do it by basing it on an incentive to people to use more machinery so that a smaller tax burden falls on the people who use their labour most efficiently. I should have thought that that was simple common sense. If we impose additional taxation for economic reasons, surely we should take the opportunity at the same time to instil into industry the fact that the whole country must recognise more and more as the years go by that our scarcest commodity is labour, and that we shall survive and increase our prosperity only by increasing more and more rapidly the proportion of capital equipment behind every worker.
  Mr. Rhodes: I once served with a man who was a very good marcher. He used to put lead in his boots because he said that it gave him a bigger incentive to raise his feet higher. That is precisely what the Chancellor of the Exchequer is doing by this one-sided payroll tax.
  Mr. Maudling: If he raised his feet higher, then that is the answer.
  Mr. Rhodes: He became tired less quickly.
  Mr. Maudling: If the hon. Gentleman studies the taxation system in some of the countries which are ahead of us in the industrial race, he will find that this is an effective principle. I am not saying that we have accepted changing the Profits Tax to a payroll tax, but my right hon. Friend, in applying, if he has to, taxation to raise another large sum from industry, will apply it in such a way as to encourage capital investment. I cannot see why anyone should object to this.
  The fundamental problem is to increase our export trade. Because invisibles have been relatively disappointing, an

  1009
  even greater burden is falling on visible exports. The selling of exports and the responsibility for it must rest with industry. Our responsibility as a Government is to provide all the help we can and to remove some of the difficulties in the way of exporters. In recent months we have made steady and substantial progress in that direction. The improvements, which are large and far-reaching, in the services of the Export Credits Guarantee Department, the steady improvement and expansion of the export services of the Board of Trade and additional expenditure on overseas fairs are all ways of giving positive help to exports. We have done things to remove difficulties, irritations and frustrations in the way of exporters. The removal of Stamp Duty on bills of exchange in the Budget, the doing away with the silly system of home savings in connection with business travel and, above all, at this moment the reduction of Surtax to levels more comparable with the levels paid by our competitors who are fighting against us in overseas markets, are ways in which we are improving the opportunities for the exporter and providing him with new incentives.
  I do not believe that it would be wise to introduce a special tax incentive to export, a form of subsidy based on the remission of tax on overseas sales turnover. Any such scheme would be bound to fall foul of our existing international commitments and would inspire our competitors to embark on similar schemes. By my right hon. Friend's action in respect of Surtax, I believe that he has disposed of the major part of the argument of the disincentive of taxation on exporters. Exporters and business men as a whole must recognise that the only possible basis for a sound and growing home market is a rapidly increasing export, trade. Anyone who fails to do the best he can in exporting is damaging, not only the national interest, but his own individual interest as well.
  Our recent experience in the export market has, I think, shown some encouraging signs. Exports in the early part of 1960 reached a very high level. We had a sharp setback in the spring last year, mainly in North America, particularly with regard to motor cars. In considering the statistics since then, and taking account of the tally clerks' strike,
  1010
  which had such a big effect, it is fairly clear that since June and July our exports have been on a gradually rising trend. The figures published today confirm this. The fact that our export position has been slowly improving, despite the fact that North America is still weak, is a reason for encouragement. I believe that there are signs that North America is picking up again, and that should help us a good deal. But the backwash of the American recession will be felt by many countries who are exporters of primary products and some of our best customers. There are difficulties ahead there.
  In general, in recent months experience has shown that we can increase exports if we have the will to do so. What is also shown, however, is that we are not increasing them fast enough, and we will not do so unless we put an even greater effort behind them.
  Mr. J. T. Price: I wish that the right hon. Gentleman would address his mind to what my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) said about the dual rôle of people in business. I agree with every thing that the right hon. Gentleman says about the need to encourage exports. I am all in favour of much more intensive encouragement in quite different ways. However, for every exporter, off potential exporter, in this country there are at least two importers who will work just as intensively to bring into this country, not only raw materials, but all kinds of consumer goods from Hong Kong and elsewhere. They do not come spontaneously. They are brought here because people are in business to bring them here.[HON. MEMBERS: "Speech."] The right hon. Gentleman has given way to me. I will finish presently. This is what the right hon. Gentleman will not face. The adverse balance of trade is being created just as positively by the people who are importing from Hong Kong and everywhere else masses of consumer goods which we do not need.
  Mr. Maudling: I agree that imports are as important as exports to the balance of payments, but the suggestion that masses of consumer goods are the main reason for our balance of payments problem is completely wrong.

  1011
  When the hon. Member interrupted me, I was about to say that a healthy balance of payments must be based on an efficient economy as a whole, efficient production for the home market to face the competition from imports, and efficient importing to get the cheapest raw materials and cheapest machinery that we can buy from abroad. That is why the fact that the Surtax cuts will give incentives and strengthen the economy shows that once again my right hon. and learned Friend has matched up to the problems of the economy that the right hon. Member for Huyton this afternoon ignored.
  Mr. C. Osborne: May I ask a simple question? How is it possible for a Government, of any kind, to drive a greater proportion of our total production into the export market and to consume less of it at home, as the Germans have done, and which is the basis of German success?
  Mr. Maudling: I do not think that Governments could do more than reduce the obstacles to exporters, as we are doing in the Budget, and increase the services to exporters, as we have done in recent months. It is now up to business, to employers and workpeople alike, to produce the exports that we need in competition with other countries who have no advantage now over us. Our people are adequately and equally placed to compete with the Germans, the French the Italians and the others. Now that the Government have taken these measures, they must depend upon industry to see that the exports are obtained.
  The essential way in which we can achieve the efficiency of the economy that we want is by more efficient use of manpower, and more efficient use of capital. We need more scientific and technological education, as we are having, and more training of apprentices. I have no doubt that the main limiting factor on our economy is not shortage of capital equipment but shortage of skilled labour, and not only shortage of skilled labour, which my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour, in collaboration with industry, on both sides, is doing so much to overcome, but also the need for greater mobility of labour between job and job and between task and task within a given
  1012
  company. The greater the degree of skill, the greater the mobility and flexibility of our labour force.
  We need also the abolition of restrictions on the maximum use of labour-saving machinery, just as we need proper differentials for skill, risk-taking and responsibility. We need more mobility of capital and more willingness of industry as a whole to apply itself to new production and new exports. I often hear exporters complaining that countries overseas, often the developing countries, now make for themselves things that we used to export to them, and that is true. That means that the same exports will no longer go to those countries. Those countries will, however, go on spending abroad just as much as they did before, every penny that they can lay hands upon. Therefore, although we may lose an export opportunity in one line, there are many new lines to be exploited. I wish that industry would sometimes concentrate more on the new opportunities and less on bemoaning the loss of the old ones.
  Mr. Leslie Hale: If the real problem is a shortage of skilled labour, does the right hon. Gentleman think that a payroll tax will induce employers to part with their highly-skilled men who are in short supply rather than their disabled or older workers?
  Mr. Maudling: The payroll tax will induce employers to use their labour, skilled and unskilled, more efficiently and give them more horsepower to their elbow. That is the point of the operation. The hon. Member has missed it.
  One of the ways in which we can get greater efficiency in industry is by more competition, including more competition from imports. I believe that in the coming months, during the G.A.T.T. negotiations that will start soon, we must aim at substantial reductions in our tariff rates over a wide range of industrial products. We should not do this on a unilateral basis. In exchange for these reductions, we should obtain new opportunities for our exports in other markets, in the form of reciprocal reductions in the tariffs of other countries. On that reciprocal basis, I hope that we shall be able to make a big move in the reduction of tariffs, as I am convinced that that would not only give us more export opportunities but,

  1013
  by providing more competition at home, increase the efficiency of our own industry.
  These are the ways in which we must tackle the problems of the economy. I agree that there are the two fundamental problems that we have not yet solved: the problem of the need for more exports and the problem of the need for a more steady rate of growth. By his new economic regulators, my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has brought in devices for guiding the economy which should be less jerky in their operations than those which hitherto have been used and should concentrate on encouraging people to invest more and to make better use of the available labour force. By our Export Credits Guarantee Department innovations, we have provided considerable new assistance to British exporters. By the reduction in Surtax, my right hon. and learned Friend has given a substantial new incentive to business and to management to become more efficient and to export more.
  These are practical ways of dealing with the practical problems, just as the Surtax proposals are, in my view, a belated way of dealing with a matter of social justice. That is why, on both of the tests suggested by the right hon. Member for Huyton, my right hon. and learned Friend's Budget meets his requirements and answers the problems which this afternoon the right hon. Gentleman so agreeably and engagingly ignored.
  5.17 p.m.
  Mr. A. Woodburn: I congratulate the President of the Board of Trade on his brilliant verbal answers to all the problems. The only difficulty is that his Government have been in office for eleven years but do not seem to have been able to answer the problems in practice. It is this difference between the verbal solutions of problems and their real solution that raises the difficulty. I agree absolutely with the right hon. Gentleman that the real problem is the question of increasing productivity and getting an increase in exports.
  The right hon. Gentleman referred to the various points of his right hon. and learned Friend's Budget and made great claims for certain of the items. I was quite unable to follow the argument that
  1014
  the relief of Surtax is a contribution to exports. The relief of Surtax is simply an increase in real pay to the people who occupy certain positions and earn between, £2,000 and £5,000 a year. Had that increase of pay been necessary, it could have been given by the firms themselves without any action by the Government. If the firms considered it necessary to increase the incentive for these people, they could have increased their pay without this jugglery of the Government taking something from the profits and handing it back in the relief of taxation to the individuals concerned. That is simply a piece of financial jugglery that makes no difference to the contribution to exports one way or another. If these people are underpaid, their firms should pay them a proper salary to get the proper results from their labour.
  The whole Surtax system is a system of graduated taxation. The President of the Board of Trade said that the value of money had fallen and that therefore something had to be done about the Surtax. Obviously, if the value of money has fallen the value of the Surtax has fallen also in sympathy with the fall in the value of money. All this argument has nothing to do with the adjustment of paying these people extra from the Government by relief of taxation and charging it up to a decrease of profits.
  The other argument seems a curious one—that the money which comes into the Treasury from the profits is the same money as is handed out to the Surtax payer. That does not follow. The same amount of money will be coming in from the contributory pensions and from those paying for prescriptions and other National Health Service charges. The Treasury does not distinguish between the money that comes in, and it is a matter of political argument to say that the money going to the Surtax payer is coming from the tax on profits and not from the tax on the workers and others who are paying the contributions.
  Apart from that argument—which is one of the things we could quibble about all day—there is nothing in the Budget to justify the stupid and inhuman tax on prescriptions, which prevents people from having their medicine in order to get a measly £12 million, while at the

  1015
  same time the Chancellor talks in terms of hundreds of millions of pounds in taxes in other directions. It is shameful that, in order to placate some people in the Conservative Party outside the House, the Government have indulged in such a stupid piece of tax legislation by imposing health and prescription charges. I hope they change their minds. Whatever the arguments about the polltax through contributions, nothing justifies depriving a person of his medicine, or of the opportunity of obtaining alleviation for disease or pain, by such a petty piece of legislation as the recent measure laying down new charges.
  The President of the Board of Trade sneered at controls. He is now boasting about the exports of motor cars. He probably forgets that had it not been for controls there would not have been these exports. When I was in the Government the motor car industry resisted any suggestion that it should find markets in America and elsewhere. It could have sold in the home market all the motor cars it could produce without bothering about exports.
  Mr. R. Gresham Cooke: That is a travesty of the truth. I was involved in this matter. In 1948 the motor manufacturers started out in America with a motor show and sold about 20,000 cars in the United States in that first year. They made very great efforts.
  Mr. Woodburn: I was at the Ministry of Supply at the time and had responsibility for this. The motor car industry resisted until it was told that it would not be able to get raw materials, such as steel, unless it exported a proportion of its cars. In addition, the Government prevented it from selling cars at home by laying down ratios for exports and domestic sales. I am perfectly aware of the conditions which existed then. The manufacturers were forced to go abroad and to start their export markets, as a result of which they built up a very profitable trade. Now, even the present Government boast about the export of cars, which was forced upon the industry because of the Labour Government's power to control raw materials and steel.
  1016
  While we hear sneers at controls, the Government are proposing to introduce them. Are the new ones to be effective? The only control which the Government have used up to now has been the Bank Rate, and I am delighted that they have given up the idea that the Bank Rate is the only instrument which can be used to control consumption. It was a crude instrument. It cost the country a large sum of money. It handicapped local authorities. It meant a roundabout of financial juggling which was economically stupid.
  What happened? The Bank Rate went up, followed by interest rates. The local authorities had to pay more interest on their borrowings, so their costs went up. The Government then had to give the local authorities a bigger general grant in order to pay the interest which the Government had themselves imposed by the higher Bank Rate. Because of the increase in the general grant the Government's own Budget expanded, and the Government then complained about increases in public expenditure. A large part of the increase in public expenditure was this circumlocution in Government income because, presumably, a good part of the income went back to the Bank of England in interest.
  I would like to have examined the question of why, if the Bank Rate had to be raised in order to put a handicap on certain industries, that handicap should automatically have meant a higher income to the banks for doing no extra work, except for a few additions to figures. Has anyone investigated what has been accumulated in interest in the Bank of England? I suppose that money goes back to the Government in some form, but it is farcical that in order to put a brake on certain industries local authorities and industries working for exports should be handicapped by having to pay more for their loans.
  Such a blunt instrument as the Bank Rate is stupid, and demand has been made from these benches—and others—year after year for it to be dropped as the main weapon. I compliment the Government on at least giving it up as the sole instrument for containing expenditure.
  Mr. C. Osborne: It is true that immediately after the war the Labour

  1017
  Government exercised controls in order to force a certain part of our production into the export market by denying supplies for the home market. But that was at a time when the world was starved of goods and we could sell almost anything anywhere. Does the right hon. Gentleman think that similar action today would result in greater exports, when there is a surplus of production the world over?
  Mr. Woodburn: I do not think so, but I think that part of our economic trouble was caused originally by the Government setting the motor car industry free to sell as many cars at home as it could to clutter up our roads at a time when they could have restrained it a little and forced more cars into export. That could have been done. In 1951 the Government let the country rip in buying cars. Cars for the home market were obviously taken from what could otherwise have gone to export markets.
  I do not say that the same measures which we employed would work today, but the Government themselves are now introducing controls to induce motor manufacturers to sell less at home and more abroad. I am in favour of that, and I welcome the proposal to try to introduce more flexible methods between Budgets to put pressure both on the public and the manufacturers to restrain consumption, so that a greater amount can go to capital expenditure or to exports.
  Sir Douglas Glover: I appreciate the point put by the right hon. Gentleman, but we should bear in mind that, although we are complaining about the number of motor cars cluttering up our roads, the fact is that we are exporting nearly twice as many cars as in 1950 and the country is more prosperous.
  Mr. Woodburn: When we started exporting in 1948, no one expected that within two years we would reach the limit in our export markets. It took nearly two years to establish servicing arrangements in the United States and elsewhere. It was a slow process. But, nevertheless, the thing was started against the will of motor car manufacturers, who now rejoice that it was done because
  1018
  they recognise that exports mean a very big part of their business.
  I welcome this more flexible arrangement which has been proposed. While we can criticise it in theory, I think it a much more useful instrument than Bank Rate. Any instrument proposed for this purpose will have criticisms made against it. I shall look forward to the adjustment of taxation up or down between Budgets as a very interesting experiment. I certainly thought it quite wrong that hire purchase should be the instrument mainly used, although it was a very easy and useful instrument. It brought great dangers because after the "let it rip" policy was carried out to provide election advantage it obviously made for trouble when the boom had passed. We cannot spend ten or fifteen years income ahead and expect to remain prosperous.
  If we are eating up our seed corn ahead we shall have had it. If a Labour Government had come in would it not have been lovely for the Tories ! All the consumption and income would have been pledged for the years ahead by the Conservative Government. They did not expect to come in at that time so they were landed with their own problem of a financial crisis. That is the result of putting on the accelerator violently then pulling it off and putting on the brake which has been the process ever since the Conservatives came into power.
  Mr. R. J. Maxwell-Hyslop: Would the right hon. Member agree that a cheap money policy is primarily one which encourages people to spend their future income today, as opposed to a dear money policy?
  Mr. Woodburn: It depends on to whom the policy is applied. I suggest that we do not need to give the same cheap money to everyone. In other words, I think that interest can be used as a good deterrent. In the old days what we called gilt-edged securities always had a lower rate of interest than investments with a great deal of risk. Therefore, interest on risk capital was much higher than that on gilt-edged guaranteed securities. This could be applied in modern finance, and local authorities whose loans are guaranteed gilt-edged securities could have a lower rate of interest than the interest given to speculative investment, or even to

  1019
  Colvilles steel company which gets a big rake off from Government finance. The two things are quite different.
  We ought not to handicap public activity—expenditure on hospitals and public expenditure of all kinds—merely because we want to put a brake on industry. There can be a discriminating interest between the Public Works Loan Board and other organisations. That discrimination would allow the Government to help the good things and to discourage the bad things, which would be of great assistance. I agree with the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) that cheap money in the wrong place will encourage wrong expenditure.
  I said that increasing exports was the main problem and the President of the Board of Trade has challenged this side of the Committee to say something about that. Therefore, I gladly offer him some suggestions.
  I think that he will agree that the proposals which have been made in the Budget are not very dynamic. Even the Minister's own suggestions do not seem to have very much positive effort. All they seem to suggest is that they would ease the way for other people to do the exporting, or they would take away obstacles. That was one of the right hon. Gentleman's words, "obstacles". That is very good in its way, but I had this problem in regard to research. The Medical Research Council takes the line that if someone has a spontaneous desire to do some medical research it will assist him, but the approach in industry was that if one wants to investigate a problem, one seeks a group of scientists and says to them, "That is the problem, solve it."
  That is what we did during the war. I take the view that it is our business to find where research needs to be done and then to get it started. I make the suggestion to the President of the Board of Trade that he should take a step forward from acting as a balancing factor or "sugar daddy" to exports and come into the field actively to organise exports. I.C.I. and other big firms are quite capable of looking after exports for themselves, but when I was at the Ministry of Supply we found that about 48,000 firms came under our umbrella. One problem was that those firms were mostly small.
  1020
  I have had experience of what is called the small firm. I was connected with a firm which had 600 workers, That would be looked upon by I.C.I. as a very small firm, but it actually exported to nearly every country in the world because it had a very special product of which it had practically a monopoly. Its wheels were running in Moscow, China, Spain, South America and nearly every country, yet it had only 600 workers. That firm could not do more than utilise agents in other parts of the world; but maintaining agents is a very risky business for small firms unless one has some sort of guarantee that a failure to pay accounts will be looked into. This is a very important problem for small firms taking part in our exports.
  There are many firms of that kind, small firms which are highly specialised and which do valuable work. Take the woollen industry in Hawick. It has a greater export value per worker than any other industry in the country. There is the same kind of woollen industry in my constituency—small firms producing types of woollen goods which would be easily absorbed in the American market. One produces the sort of baby's shawl which every mother dreams of having for her baby. Others produce women's twin sets which sell at very high prices in every market in the world. Those small firms cannot afford to have agents looking after their business everywhere, though many small sales may add up to a high total.
  There is a firm in Motherwell which produces coal-mining machinery which is quite unique in its way. A big firm, such as Messrs. Babcock & Willcox, also is a unique firm, but it has wide connections. I suggest to the Board of Trade that many small firms are not looking to exports because they cannot take the risk of going into a field which they do not understand. If someone had as his business the organising of the exports of those firms, they might be prepared to take it on.
  That is where the Government must co-operate with private enterprise. We on this side of the Committee do not say that private enterprise should be scrapped. As a matter of fact, a great deal of the greatest activity taking place today is a combination of Government activity and private enterprise. We are

  1021
  to subsidise Cunarders and we are subsidising steel and car works which are coming to Scotland and factories which are going to other parts of the country. In the same way, we should spend some money on an organisation which will make it possible to bring new people into the field of exports.
  Mr. Maudling: My right hon. Friend the Minister of State has written to 30,000 individual firms offering them loans on these lines. If the right hon. Member would put the firms he has been talking about in touch with the Board of Trade we would do what we could to help them.
  Mr. Woodburn: Firms at that period were offered an export guarantee from the Board of Trade which I think at that time amounted to 15 per cent. for an order from Russia. Such a firm did not make 15 per cent. profit on the job and could not possibly pay 15 per cent. for a guarantee. It had to wash its hands of the proposal. The idea that firms are all making big profits and can pay for a guarantee to ensure their capital is quite fallacious. Curiously enough, at that time, the Board of Trade was asked to guarantee big orders which were coming here from Russia and we refused to do so. Yet we guaranteed money to Germany which used our money to guarantee the credit to their firms which got the orders direct from Russia. The orders for the main contract went from Russia to Germany though my firm, I am glad to say, got that part of the order from the German firm which it would have got from the firm in this country if the British Government had been prepared to guarantee that order. That firm was Walmsley's paper engineering firm.
  It is not a question of money. These firms are afraid. They cannot take risks. I think that there should be a department of the Board of Trade to organise these firms, and collectively they would be able to do what they are not able to do individually. The right hon. Gentleman said that there were 30,000 firms. Collectively they could produce a lot for exports, and the Board of Trade must do something more positive to help them.
  It is impossible for many of these firms to spend money setting up stalls in exhibitions in different parts of the world. It is a costly business to maintain people
  1022
  to sell their products abroad. It could be done collectively, and I suggest a method by which it might be done. Is there any reason why some of our ships which are laid up should not be made into exhibition ships? We should arrange exhibitions of British industries in ships for people who cannot afford to advertise abroad in the normal way. The goods produced by many of these firms would be of interest to people in many parts of the world, and these exhibition ships could be sent to the various ports.
  The cost would be high, but it might be combined with other activities. Many people pay to tour the world. Is there any reason why, when they are touring and travelling on the top deck, there should not be an exhibition below decks? When the ship arrived in a port, be it Hong Kong, South America, or wherever else the ship called in, an exhibition would be available for the people in that part of the world. They could come on board and see British products. I would give Income Tax relief to people who use their holidays to act as socialites and entertain the people from the ports at which these ships called.
  Mr. Richard Marsh: I would volunteer.
  Mr. Woodburn: There is a social aspect to getting business abroad. If we could use the odd duke or two to decorate life on the upper deck—I would not suggest that members of the Royal Family should undertake this job—they would attract people in the same way as they attract people to garden parties when they attend them. This project could be undertaken with the help of a Government subsidy, if it could not be done by private firms alone. Every port would become a market and we should be able to sell our goods abroad.
  That is not a fantastic suggestion, because a young friend of mine has been advocating that we should have schools on ships. Instead of boys being taught geography at a school on land, he would like to see children taught on board ship. They could visit the various ports and see the different countries. The British India Shipping Company has taken up the idea, and the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence) has been invited to join one of the company's ships on which there are teachers, and the children on board are to visit

  1023
  different ports in the Mediterranean. If the British India Shipping Company can use one of its troopships for that purpose in peace time, some of the other ships at present laid up might equally well be used to provide exhibition ships to go round the world.
  If the Government are not prepared to do that for England and Wales, we are prepared to take up the idea for Scotland because we have many products made by small firms and we are prepared to have exhibitions of Scottish products abroad if the Government will help in displaying our goods. Scotland depends largely on exports, and I think that the right hon. Gentleman will agree that that is a good idea.
  Another way to increase exports is to provide full employment in Scotland. We could do with more industries, and we would be prepared to produce for export. So long as people are idle in Scotland there will be a reserve capacity available to help the export trade. If the Government want suggestions about how this could be done, I suggest that they consult the Secretary of State for the Colonies who evolved a fine scheme for stimulating industry in Malta. It is proposed to give a tax-free holiday to new industries in Malta, together with assistance to start the industry, and that would be a good inducement for getting industries to come to Scotland. Private industry cannot work in Scotland, not even in the North-East. They cannot work profitably, and some balance must be provided by the Government.
  How can that be done? It has been suggested that we can have a labour tax to deter people from employing too much labour. I suggest that there should be a subsidy or some kind of lesser taxation to induce people to employ labour at present available in Scotland.
  I hope that the Minister will consider the incentives which have been suggested. There might be some manipulation of profits, just as there is with taxation, to stimulate activity to help the export trade. If the Minister will consider appointing export promoters at the Board of Trade and setting up export agencies to take care of these many firms which are doing nothing for exports, he will do a lot to help these small firms.
  1024
  Science must play a large part in our exports. This country, and especially Scotland, has no raw materials. Our coal is less readily available than it is in other parts of the country. We have nothing to export except fresh air from the Highlands, and good health, but we have plenty of skill and are capable of hard work.
  Mr. Marsh: Scotland has a football team.
  Mr. Woodburn: We export good footballers, but we have nothing really to export but hard work and skill.
  Sir Harmar Nicholls: And whisky.
  Mr. Woodburn: Yes, but it is one of the things which does not need labour. It ferments itself. We are also patriotic. We allow it to be exported instead of consuming it at home. The point is that the production of whisky does not entail the use of much labour, and, as the hon. Gentleman knows, the same applies to the brewery trade. We want new industries because we have the skilled men available to do the job.
  Unfortunately, we are losing many of our skilled workers because of the lack of employment. They are moving south. As long as we do not provide employment, the skilled workers will drift to the motor car industry where it is a case of money for dirt. That is dangerous for Scotland because it leaves us with a balance of semi-skilled and unskilled people who cannot be given employment with the key skilled people gone. This can be remedied only by the skilled men returning to Scotland, or we must provide training for more people to become skilled.
  We need more research and education, but one of our problems is that many of our industrialists are reluctant to use science and the higher skills. Even when we train people in our universities, they still go south. The majority of our graduates in science and physics go south of the Border. One industry which has been in Edinburgh for some time has made the greatest progress in the world in machine tool automation and electronic control. Even the Americans admit that this firm is ahead of any firm in America. The complaint is that after these things have

  1025
  been invented, British industrialists will not make use of them.
  I do not know what the Chancellor and the President of the Board of Trade can do to remedy that. Firms seem to sit back and wait for the firm which made the invention, partly through Government research, to come in and do the job itself. These, like other inventions, may be exploited in America and elsewhere, leaving us behind the band.
  We are suffering from the fact that private enterprise is showing so little enterprise. If only the Government can give a kick in the pants to private enterprise, especially in Scotland, we may get more progress. Governments have cooperated with and financed private enterprise and many new industries have come to Scotland, for which we are fully grateful, but, according to the Scotsman's survey of 1960, the net result has been that in the last eleven years for every twenty-five new jobs provided in Britain only one has been provided in Scotland. The Scottish Council (Development and Industry) calculates that 12,500 new jobs every year are needed to match wastage of jobs and growth in population, and we are failing short of that figure. In the last eleven years the average has been only 2,500 new jobs.
  The problem is serious and Scotland's unemployment problem is still being solved by some of its best workers going south. The 20 million people who have gone from Scotland to all parts of the world, have made great contributions to their new homes, but it is not enough that we should lose those people and not have industry in Scotland to provide reasonable opportunity for those who stay. I hope that in his activities to prevent the export trade the President of the Board of Trade will have some form of direction of industry to provide opportunities which will prevent the agglomeration of people around London and Birmingham and will spread the population throughout the country, so that at least people can get fresh air.
  In that connection one of the Scottish industries which requires stimulation is the tourist industry. Last year, Scotland earned £17 million from tourism, and England also had a substantial income. If there could be a credit policy in respect of hoteliers, as there is with exports, hoteliers in the North of Scotland
  1026
  could modernise their equipment and premises to suit the American and other tourists, and any increase in tourism would be an extremely valuable invisible export. The sum of £17 million a year is not to be sneezed at in Scotland, and the figure is nearly £100 million over the United Kingdom as a whole.
  Those are some positive and practical suggestions which I hope the Government will study. I hope that the Government will invest a little money to see whether they can produce new industries in Scotland and stimulate existing industries to bring about greater and greater exports, both visible and invisible.
  5.53 p.m.
  Sir Harmar Nicholls: The right hon. Member for Clackmannan and East Stirlingshire (Mr. Woodburn) has produced a number of bright ideas to encourage people to accept their obligation to exports, and I have no doubt that industry will study what he has said. He will have some difficulty about getting the "odd duke" of whom he spoke, because all the dukes who are "odd" are already busy exploiting their oddities to their own personal profit, and it may be that he will have to accept the offer of his hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Marsh) instead.
  The right hon. Gentleman began by congratulating my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade on what he described as a brilliant reply. Those comments were justified. The right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) began by congratulating my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the vital way in which he had presented his Budget Statement. That was well deserved, too, because my right hon. and learned Friend has shown an ingenuity and courage which will bring worth-while results to the country over the years which lie ahead.
  Among all this welter of congratulations, deserved or undeserved, no one has yet congratulated the right hon. Member for Huyton, who deserves some congratulation. His reply was easy on the ear and full of all his normal witticisms, and he never seemed to stop for breath. On those grounds alone he is entitled to the congratulations which I eagerly extend to him.

  1027
  Having said that, I support my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade in saying that the right hon. Gentleman's speech was irrelevant. It did not face the issues which the Budget has put before us, nor the problems which the right hon. Gentleman himself has previously asked the country to face. Not only was it irrelevant, but it was full of party political camouflage. It is just possible that some of my constituents in Peterborough will read this speech and I want to answer four of the party political pieces of camouflage which the right hon. Gentleman included.
  He began by saying that these were the worst balance of trade figures which we had had since the Korean War, I want my constituents to note that that is another way of saying that the time when the balance of trade figures were worse than now and when they were worrying us was after six years of Labour Government, in 1951. If we are to use camouflage words of this sort, it is as well to understand what is meant.
  The right hon. Gentleman went on to say that over the last ten years, there had been election Budgets which had brought about a spurt after which we had gone back into stagnation.
  Mr. Marsh: True.
  Sir Harmar Nicholls: The hon. Member says "True". If it is true that we have had spurt and stagnation for ten years, and as a result of that spurt and stagnation we have obtained better wages, better pensions, better living standards and a better way of life throughout the country, then I am a supporter of spurt and stagnation.
  The right hon. Gentleman went on to say that the Chancellor was slandering businessmen when my right hon. and learned Friend said that lifting the Surtax level was the only way to make them work harder for exports. The right hon. Gentleman said that it was slander to suggest that businessmen had not already worked to the utmost and were interested only in financial gain. The right hon. Gentleman added that we had won elections only because of introducing a spurt just prior to the elections. If that is not a slander on the British public, I do not know what is.
  1028
  We have now won not only one but four elections, and with increasing majorities each time. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman is not suggesting that the British public is so gullible that it can be led astray in the voting booths by spurts just before an election. The results of the election show what the right hon. Gentleman in his heart of hearts himself knows—that, with all the spurts and stagnations which he mentioned in his witty way, we have produced a nation better fed and better looked after and with greater confidence in the future than has been the case for many years.
  He also suggested that the improvement of the Surtax position would not encourage scientists. He said that he had looked at the Observer last Sunday and had not found one advertisement for a junior scientist with a starting rate within the Surtax range. That establishes that the right hon. Gentleman is purely a man of theory. Those of us who have anything to do with business all know that for junior scientists and junior executives the starting point of salary is not the important thing.
  In the businesses with which I am connected, I am not interested in someone who is terribly concerned about his starting rate. The man I want to see in those businesses is the man who sees the possibility, having got in, having proved his worth, of getting to a worth-while salary. It is not sufficient to have paper qualifications and to come into industry with merely academic qualifications, showing certificates and other bits of paper, unless in addition the man has ingenuity and general "know-how". That will justify better pay, and the higher positions which will go to him.
  The importance of the Surtax improvement is not the starting rate for scientists or business executives, but the fact that they will not have the incentive to leave the country when they reach the Surtax point. I support what the Chancellor has done in the advances he has made in the Surtax level.
  For two and a half years I had to answer in this House on science when the Minister for Science was in another place. The one thing that worried me more than anything else when receiving briefings and advice which one gets in order to answer Questions was the number of young scientists who were

  1029
  leaving the country. I believe that lack of hope for the future was the one thing above all else which caused them to do so. We had an Answer only the other week which confirmed that 2,000 scientists leave Great Britain every year.
  It is perfectly true, on the other side, that 1,000 scientists enter Great Britain from other countries, but in terms of scientific "know-how" we have a debit of 1,000 scientists every year. We have paid the cost—and it is a big cost when one looks at the education bill—of training 1,000 men, only to lose them to countries where their skill and know-how is used against us in the export markets, so that to work against us we have not only the cost of training on our bill, but the extra competition from those whom we have trained. The Chancellor's Surtax proposals will play some part in keeping those 1,000 scientists to work in this country instead of going to other countries to work in competition with us.
  Similarly, throughout the whole executive range it is important to bear in mind the top rate of tax on income in the countries which are our competitors. It tells a significant story. Before the Budget, the top rate of tax on income in the United Kingdom amounted to 88·75 per cent. of the income. In France it was 73 per cent., in Japan only 70 per cent., in Belgium 65 per cent in Italy 68 per cent and in Germany 53 per cent. We were taking 88·75 per cent. top rate in this country and in Germany they were taking 53 per cent.
  When we have the right hon. Member for Huyton telling us how to improve our productivity and exports it is not irrelevant to note that this competitiveness is in direct relationship to the standard of Income Tax in this country, because we find that in 1960 exports from this country went up by 17 per cent. in France by 54 per cent. in Belgium by 33 per cent., in Italy by 53 per cent. and in Germany by 30 per cent. I think that we should be doing less than our duty if in order to make party political points—and the election is three years away—we disregard the fact that the people in the executive level and the leading scientists have had to face in this country, as compared with other competitive
  1030
  countries, this extra disincentive in the terms of the tax that we are deducting.
  Mr. Woodburn: When it was apparent that loss of scientists was preventing our exports going up, why did not the firms pay them more and get their exports increased?
  Sir Harmar Nicholls: I do not say that it is as simple as that. I am not suggesting for one moment that all the scientists and young executives have been waiting for was this reduction in Surtax for them to do something different and more wonderful than they have done in the past. I am not saying that this will be the complete answer. Later I want to make some criticisms of my right hon. and learned Friend on the things which I think he ought to have done. I am saying that this will be a significant contribution to keeping 1,000 scientists a year in this country and working for us. I believe that the top executives and managerial classes who have often to lead in the exporting schemes will have "extra" encouragement to do things better than they have done in the past. I make no greater claim than that. I know that this Budget is not the full answer.
  Mr. Douglas Houghton: In the Budget of 1957, when earned income relief was carried into the Surtax field, exactly the same hopes were held out then in justification for that relief. What does the hon. Member think that the experience has been since then?
  Sir Harmar Nicholls: The hon. Member has not followed my argument. He is usually very alert in following arguments put from this side of the Committee. I have pointed out that, whatever relief was given in 1956–57, it still left us taking 88·7 per cent. of the income whereas Germany was taking only 53 per cent. I have said that we have not got back to the point where there are special inducements for people to stay here as compared with those in other countries. I will give the hon. Member, who is an expert in this field, another example.
  If we take a senior executive, earning up to £5,000 a year under the old rate, if his salary had gone up to £6,000 a year, out of that extra £1000 he would have kept in the United States, £720, in France £690, in Germany £600 and here only £400. I am merely saying that in

  1031
  the ratio of tax extraction this reflects itself in the amount of the contribution we are able to get out of the expanding world market. It will not be the full answer, but I am sure that my right hon. and learned Friend's judgment is absolutely right in looking on it as an important factor, which had to be dealt with. I am not arguing in support of it because a few will benefit financially. Of course they will—and a few who do not deserve it will benefit financially—but I believe that it is essential to improve the balance of trade by extra exports if the general way of life and standards of living in this country are to be improved.
  I know that we shall have a great deal of criticism up and down the country from hon. and right hon. Members opposite stating that the Exchequer has given this extra inducement to the Surtax-payer, but I do not think that we should overlook the fact that this benefit will really be paid for by industry itself. The 2½ per cent. increased Profits Tax will bring in over £70 million a year, and this will be a very big contribution towards paying those people who are to have extra inducement as a consequent of it. Therefore, my aim is to focus still more attention on the need for extra exports, and the special plea which I want to make to my right hon. and learned Friend again today is that he should treat this only as a beginning. The improvement of exports is undoubtedly the outstanding thing.
  The balance of trade problem is here not only for today and tomorrow. It is not a matter of trying to meet it by having a savings week or an Air Force week. This is a battle that is going on for the rest of this century and beyond it. We must induce our industries to do more and more exporting. The thing to do is to give some concession directly for this.
  I have paid my compliment to my right hon. and learned Friend on his Budget, and I meant it, but I would draw his attention to a comment made in the Yorkshire Post today:
  "There seems little in the Budget calculated to provide any direct incentive to the export drive, particularly since the profits tax and the oil duty moves will cut margins and increase costs. The overseas tax adjustments, however, will be of some help to companies
  1032
  with overseas subsidies. The City will probably feel that the Chancellor has not gripped the nettle of tax reform as firmly as he could have done."
  There is something in that. The export credit schemes announced by the President of the Board of Trade recently, coupled with what has been done in this Budget, will make a valuable contribution, but in my view we must proceed a little further and more directly than that in tying the concession to those who actually do the exporting.
  I want to return to my theme in the economic debate, and to suggest a lower Profits Tax on export business earnings. I shall try to move an Amendment on the Finance Bill to exclude from liability to Profits Tax that part of a firm's business which goes in exports. I shall start lobbying almost from this minute. I shall lobby my right hon. and learned Friend in preparation for his Budget next year. I want to see a real concession—for example, a concession of 2s. in the pound—in respect of the export business done by our firms.
  This could be done. We already pay tax on a certificate supplied by our accountant or auditors, and the same people could provide a certificate saying that a certain proportion of their business had been done in the export market, and that proportion could be charged at a lower rate of tax. I suggest that a concession of 2s. in the pound could be made on that proportion of business, on the production of a certificate by an accountant.
  The first objection to this proposal is that it is difficult or impossible to carry out, because of the sub-contractors that contribute to the item exported. That question does not come into the picture. If I am exporting bicycles and somebody provides me with the tyres for those bicycles he is sending the tyres to my factory in the United Kingdom, and is not exporting. He is not engaging in any of the risks and troubles involved in exporting. It is my firm which exports the bicycles, which has to face all the difficulties and takes risks, and which has to set up the overseas agency and deal with all the problems involved. It is my firm which earns the foreign currency, no matter how many sub-contractors may supply the ingredients of the bicycle, and I am one who should have the benefit of the tax concession.

  1033
  The second objection, which seems more formidable on the face of it, is that if we gave such a tax concession our competitors would follow suit, and that we have been working hard for many years trying to persuade our competitors not to give this sort of concession in order to help their exports. It is said that we should be going back on all our efforts of we instigated a new concession of our own, and that we should be no better off than we were before. That point of view overlooks the fundamental problem behind our exporting.
  This was brought out best in the Sunday Times, in a series of articles in a series of articles in January. The opening paragraph of the series describes the position correctly, and answers the fear that if we gave a tax concession our competitors would do the same, to our disadvantage. It says:
  "There is one very important difference between British industry and that of Germany, or Holland or most other European countries. For the great majority of British firms the home market is the natural market, and exports are something which comes after home sales. For the European businessman exports are an equal part of his business. Whereas very few British factories are built in order to supply exports as such, export factories are quite common in Europe. If we can find the reason for that contrast we shall be some way along the road to finding out what has gone wrong with the British export drive."
  Because of our good home market and the spending power of our large population our firms have not naturally been exporters for a century or more, whereas Germany and other European countries have. They would not benefit as much from such a tax concession, because their mood is already channelled along these lines. In the last ten years I have travelled across America, Canada and Europe, as far as Austria, looking at factories, and I have found nothing to frighten me as to our ability to compete in factory layout and ability to export. The only country which bothered me was France, which has a specialised engineering layout. They might make us look twice. But I do not think we need fear encouraging the thousands of our small and medium-sized firms with the knowledge and skill to get into the export market in the way that Germany and Holland do. I have no doubt that our firms could "lick the pants off"
  1034
  many of their foreign competitors, to the advantage of our export trade.
  But our firms want an extra inducement in order to get our exports started. If they receive such an inducement the benefit they derive will not be distributed in extra profits. If they receive a tax inducement of £5,000, I believe that the fact that they have been given £5,000 to start with will cause them to spend another £5,000 of their own money in order to extend their agencies and make use of new ideas. Unless we do something like this very soon our already diminished share of world markets will become even smaller, and instead of our export position being a worry it will become a disaster.
  I cannot get out of my mind—and I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will keep it in his mind, unless it can be disproved—the report of a research team, to the effect that 30 per cent. of our total exports were being carried out by no more than forty firms. With my knowledge of Birmingham and my own City of Peterborough I am sure that if the thousands of small firms there could be persuaded to enter the export market they would be able to make a good contribution towards solving the problem. The Federation of British Industries has 8,000 members, and the National Union of Manufacturers has 5,000. Thousands of our firms are potential exporters, if we can once break down the natural reluctance to do no more than serve the home market.
  I warn my right hon. and learned Friend that I shall be lobbying him as from today. I shall urge him to be prepared, so that, in his next Budget, he can take the next logical step, having made his excellent start. I suppose that I ought to lobby the F.B.I. and the National Union of Manufacturers. I know that they have been giving the Treasury advice which runs counter to what I am now suggesting. I believe that they are wrong. I believe that they represent the "big boys", who do not understand the mentality of many of our medium-sized firms and their problems. Only by taking a step such as this can we ensure, in the years ahead, that better wages, pensions and living standards will be the order of the day in England.
  Finally, I should like to use the words of Lord Amory, last year's Chancellor

  1035
  of the Exchequer, who, when speculating on my right hon. and learned Friend's Budget as recently as three weeks ago, said:
  "I would even be prepared to look again at the difficult question of possible variation in the Profits Tax related to the turnover of export business."
  I beg my right hon. and learned Friend, in whom I have such confidence—especially after his Budget—to consider my proposal. I hope that he will come to the conclusion that it will carry on to a satisfactory end the beginning that he made yesterday.
  6.14 p.m.
  Mr. Roy Jenkins: The hon. Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls) began his speech with an orgy of all-round congratulations to everybody who had previously spoken. I am sorry that I cannot entirely reciprocate those congratulations. Although he deployed the latter part of his argument extremely skilfully and forcefully, he began with a lot of tired old party points. He did so particularly in the guise of rebuking my right hon. Friend, where his party points led him to an apogee of misplaced complacency and self-satisfaction.
  He looked back over the past ten years and said, "If what we have had over that period was stagnation, that is fine so far as I am concerned, and I hope we shall have more of it in the next ten years". I understand that the Chancellor does not share that point of view, because I believe that the high noon of satisfaction with our economic policy passed, so far as the Government Front Bench is concerned, about nine months ago. About that time doubts crept in about whether everything was as right as we had been told. This probably did not have a great effect on Government policy, but it had a small beneficial effect in that the President of the Board of Trade began to prepare his speeches more carefully and to deliver them a great deal more vigorously. He began to pull up his socks before the present Surtax concession came into operation. I suppose one can describe him as a middle Surtax-payer and it is as such that he must be regarded.
  I do not believe the substance of his speeches has improved that much, because
  1036
  occasionally he slips back into misplaced complacency and, indeed, scepticism, as to whether anything is wrong and, if it is wrong, whether anything can be done about it. That fact showed itself as soon as he spoke about economic growth.
  He sough to suggest that international comparisons were not as clear cut as had been suggested. Of course, all tables need a certain amount of interpretation, and there is no question that one cannot get round these difficulties by saying freely that our population has not been rising as much as the populations of other countries. But if one takes the productive as well as the population tables, the result is nearly always inevitable.
  I was also distressed to hear him raise once again the old point that what really matters is not economic growth, but economic growth accompanied by efficiency—that unless we are efficient it does not matter whether or not we are growing—because that is a false antithesis. It might be possible for a single firm in a monopoly position to grow fast and inefficiently, but it is certainly not possible for the economy of a country as a whole to grow fast and at the same time to do it inefficiently.
  The main point one should ask about this Budget is whether it is a Budget for stimulating economic growth and for getting Britain on the move once again. If it is suggested that it is a Budget for doing both these things effectively, one could and should forgive the large number of other proposals in the Budget. But, in my view, it is not that sort of Budget. The reason primarily is that the psychological revolution which is necessary if we are to jerk Britain into rapid economic growth has not yet really occurred, not even in the mind of the Chancellor or even in the mind of any Member on the Government Front Bench. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Peterborough quoted a passage from a speech made by Lord Amory, last year's Chancellor. I wish also to quote an interesting passage from a speech made by Lord Amory, and it is sometimes the case that ex-Chancellors are more frank than are Chancellors. This quotation is from a speech he made on November 8th, 1960:
  "These I believe to be the aims we ought to keep in front of us First, to keep our

  1037
  currency, sterling, strong and respected … secondly, to keep the cost of living and our costs of production stable … thirdly, to encourage a high and, I hope, still higher level … of productive investment … Then, fourthly, but only fourthly, to encourage further growth in our living standards and an expansion of our economy generally at a pace consistent with our success in achieving the first three of those aims. These … are the priorities that I think right, and they are, I am confident, those by which the Government will continue to be motivated."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, House of Lords, 8 November, 1960; Vol. 226, c. 347.]
  Studying that quotation, the question to be asked is whether they are, in fact, the order of priorities proposed to be given by the Government. If they are, and if achieving a greater growth comes fourth in the list of priorities, this country will remain in a sluggish position as far as growth is concerned. There must be a different approach if we are to achieve a rapid rate of growth.
  I thought that the Chancellor half indicated yesterday that he was a little in advance of Lord Amory in this respect. It appeared to me that he would like growth a little more—perhaps he would put it third in his list of priorities. I should like to know if he would. Yesterday's speech took us to the point in the analysis—the point at which we were hoping to discover whether we were to sacrifice a strong balance of payments position for a rapid rate of growth—but at that point the Chancellor abandoned the analysis and went on to tell us about how the Government are constantly being accused of being complacent and how the Government are constantly accusing the Opposition of being irresponsible.
  What should one say about this dichotomy between a strong balance of payments position and a rate of growth? Firstly, while the Government have not sacrificed a strong balance of payments position to a rapid rate of growth, they have certainly sacrificed the position to something over the last year or so, because the balance of payments position in 1960 has slipped by without making a great deal of impact.
  The 1960 result, of a deficit of £340 million, is an appalling result. Since 1954 the change in the terms of trade has been such that the same volume of imports can be bought for 11 per cent. less exports than six years ago. This deficit of £340 million, in the circumstances,
  1038
  becomes appalling, for if the terms of trade were at the 1954 level, the deficit would have been £800 million at the present time—a far worse deficit than the 1951 result, in spite of the Korean War difficulties.
  Despite this extremely serious result, the Chancellor, I thought, in his Budget speech, turned an extraordinarily blind eye to the balance of payments problem. He hardly mentioned balance of payments. He merely said that the position was rather bad and that there was difficulty between it and the rate of growth, but he did not give a single indication of what he expected the position to be or how he intended to improve it in the forthcoming year.
  It can be said that 1960 was hardly a year of growth at all. In my view, the position now arising gives us no choice whatever between balance of payments and growth. Perhaps in the past there was a short-term choice for going for growth or balance of payments stability, but the position now is that we have stagnated for so long that the competitive position of our exports has worsened to such an extent that we now have no choice. Our balance of payments position is weak without growth. The position has arisen where there is no possibility of solving the balance of payments problem, and at the same time maintaining a strong position, unless Britain makes a break-out and goes for a rapid rate of growth. At least, I am sure that there is no possibility of doing it without import controls.
  On the whole, I take the view that import controls were removed too precipitously in the last eighteen months or so, but at the same time, speaking for myself, I do not want to see them put back, for two reasons—partly because of the reciprocal consequences abroad and partly because, on the whole, British industry needs more and not less competition. I should therefore not like to see us trying to fight our way out of our difficulties by replacing those import restrictions, however precipitously they were taken off.
  We have reached a position in which there is no prospect of improving our balance of payments, except by achieving a new dynamic growth which will lift our competitive position from the level to which it has been allowed to fall in

  1039
  the past few years. I do not think that there is a possibility of Lord Amory achieving his personal objectives, or the majority of his objectives, unless the Government are prepared to take the last objective and to give it a very much higher priority than they are giving it at present.
  Sir Alexander Spearman: Will the hon. Member say how he would proceed to obtain a much greater growth?
  Mr. Jenkins: I do not think there would be much difficulty in getting a much greater growth. I think that all hon. Members will admit that. We had the great spurt of growth during 1959 and the first three months of 1960. The growth then died away, not because people in industry became tired or were paying more Surtax but because the Government changed their policy and cut back on production. The Government thought that the boom was boiling over and should be damped down because they were worried about the balance of payments. If hon. Members like me to put it in this way, the growth died away because the Government applied the higher priorities which the ex-Chancellor from whom I quoted said should be applied; and they did this as a deliberate act of policy. I want to change the order of those priorities, and it is possible to do so.
  The French have followed a different order of priorities over the last five or ten years. They have not cared so much about the balance of payments, partly because they were not concerned about the franc as a world currency. They have operated a very weak balance of payments, which eventually they have turned into a strong balance of payments as a result of an extremely dynamic economy at home.
  Equally, when President Kennedy came into office he was confronted with a weak balance of payments position and a greater challenge to the international standing of the dollar than has been seen over many decades. But he was also committed to a programme of growth. He did not say that his first priority was the stability of the dollar, that the next priority was the stability of prices at home, and that the third priority was American foreign balances,
  1040
  adding, "After all those three we will try to get some growth".
  Sir A. Spearman: There was 7 per cent. unemployment in the United States, and that is a very different position from that in this country.
  Mr. Jenkins: The position may be different from the point of view of the desirability of coping with unemployment, but is the hon. Member arguing that, because we have a relatively low rate of unemployment here, he is not in favour of growth and thinks that growth does not matter? If that is his argument, I suggest that United States unemployment is not relevant from this point of view.
  Mr. Kennedy came into office with quite a different approach. He said, "We will try to solve the problem of the dollar difficulties on the basis of growth, on the back of growth." This indicates what other countries think can be done, and it means that the United States is in a mood in which it might take a more imaginative approach to the problem of world liquidity than it has taken many times in the past. We might be well advised to seize those opportunities vigorously and to try to create a much more liquid position throughout the free world. On that basis we should be prepared to go through a period of weak balance of payments, if necessary, a period of losing reserves, if necessary, in order to get over the hump of stepping up our rate of growth.
  But all we have done is to go through a period of weak balance of payments without any prospect of getting over the hump of stepping up the rate of growth. It would be much more encouraging if we had that change of emphasis, but there is no indication from the Chancellor that he is inclined to take that view. Almost the last words which he used were:
  "Our firm intention to keep our financial house in order will be clearly demonstrated."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th April, 1961; Vol. 638, c. 822]
  That is a reasonable statement but it is certainly not a clarion cry for a new policy or a move towards growth. During the more immediately post-prandial stage of his speech my attention wandered for a short time, and it was drawn back by my hearing the words "a five-year plan". I thought,

  1041
  "Here we have a new Chancellor of the Exchequer who is introducing an entirely new approach to our problem. We are to have a five-year plan for rapid economic growth." Not a bit of it. It was a five-year plan for cutting Government expenditure.
  We cannot take the view that the Chancellor's new regulators are in any way a recipe for growth. His regulator of Purchase Tax is certainly not a regulator for growth. In a sense, I support this proposal; I think that it will operate more fairly and more smoothly than the hire-purchase restrictions and other measures which we have had in the past. It gives the Chancellor enormous powers. I am sure that the Home Secretary wishes that he had had those powers when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer. Had he had them, he might easily be Prime Minister today, because we should not have had the autumn Budget of 1955. The right hon. Gentleman would then have had a much easier time than that which he had last week when he was dealing with the question of flogging. He would have been better placed with the power which the Chancellor has very smoothly and quietly taken. On the whole, I welcome this change, because I think that it gives the Treasury important powers which can be used more effectively than the rather ragged powers which they have had in the past.
  But this regulator in itself will not be used to stimulate growth. Why has it been brought in now and held ready? It has been brought in as a new method of clamping down in the autumn, if, unfortunately, as seems likely, we have sterling difficulties on top of balance of payments difficulties. It is a new method of clamping down, not a system for achieving growth.
  To some extent the same comment applies to the payroll tax. I confess that I was surprised that it was introduced, because it has been canvassed in the country for only a very short time—for far too short a time for its implications to sink in with the general public. I doubt whether its implications have fully sunk in with the Treasury and the Chancellor, because it was never proposed that it should be used as an economic regulator, that it should be used as an instrument to be changed from year to year or even from month to month. It was intended to be an
  1042
  instrument which would change the relative cost of capital and labour in a fairly long-term sense and possibly have some effect in that way. As a regulator, I think that it is undesirable, and it is certainly not likely to have any substantial effect on the balance of costs between capital and labour. Its main effect, as it will be used, will be a slight upward effect on prices generally—a slight inflationary effect throughout the economy.
  I turn, lastly and briefly, to the question of Surtax. I think that it is extremely doubtful whether the Surtax concession will have an enormous effect. To suggest that this in itself makes the Budget into a growth Budget is a completely unacceptable proposition, because nobody believes that lack of effort by those people earning between £2,000 and £5,000 a year has been the main factor holding the country back during the past few years and that a change in their degree of effort, however desirable in itself, would have a substantial effect on our general level of economic performance. I do not think that it is likely to have an enormously incentive effect.
  Had it been done in a different way, then I believe that there would have been a certain equity in doing something about the lower ranges of Surtax on earned income. There would have been a good deal to be said for an effective redeployment of the taxation burden between those who earn a lot of money and those who own a lot, because there is no doubt that the big owner is in an enormously more favourable position compared with the big earner than he was 20, 30 or 40 years ago. But that is not what the Chancellor has done, and I do not think that the increase in Profits Tax is any substitute for either a capital gains tax or a significant drive against tax avoidance in the upper reaches of Surtax.
  Let us consider it from this point of view. This concession will improve substantially the standard of living of those people who get it. A very substantial sum of money is involved; some people will have £300 to £500 a year more. Their standard of living will rise significantly. That is the intention. If this were to be justified, it might be justified as a redeployment of the burden among what might be called the upper 5 per cent.

  1043
  in the matter of standard of living, and somebody's standard of living would have to come down.
  Whose standard of living in this group is to come down as a result of the Chancellor's proposals? Nobody's. Purchase Tax will not have the effect that a capital gains tax would have or an effective drive against Surtax avoidance. I do not think that any of us are terribly clear about where the burden of the Profits Tax falls ultimately. Does it fall somewhat on the consumer and tend somewhat to restrict capital investment? Nobody knows, but I should be very surprised if there were any effective restriction of dividends as a result of this increased Profits Tax.
  The Chancellor therefore has not done what might have been justified, which would have been a planning operation which within the upper spending groups as a whole would largely take the burden off earned incomes and put it on to unearned incomes and capital gains. Because the Chancellor has not done this and because of his preface to the Budget, his proposal is quite unreasonable.
  The inadequacy of the Budget becomes extremely clear. The proposals offer no way at all by which we can break out of this vicious circle of the difficulty of achieving a balance of payments position combined with growth, which the Chancellor obviously began to recognise but did not answer. We go on with a sluggish economy and with a weak balance of payments position, waiting for the further blow of exchange difficulties and with a few new regulators up the Chancellor's sleeve to clamp on when those come along.
  6.42 p.m.
  Mr. Geoffrey Stevens: I am extremely glad that in his earlier remarks the hon. Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins) accused us of what he called our misplaced complacency. I do not think that his charge is justified, but I am glad that he made it, because he is someone to whom we on this side of the Committee listen with great interest and to whose speeches we pay great attention.
  It is the fact, as my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade indicated in his speech today, that we have had ten years of full employment,
  1044
  ten years of a rising standard of living and ten years of Conservative Government, and perhaps it would not be altogether surprising if signs of complacency began to develop. Speeches such as that of the hon. Member tend to remind us that in other countries in Europe the standard of living has increased at a faster rate in the last ten years than it has done in this country. Speeches like that of the hon. Member, which do not come exclusively from that side of the Committee, tend to keep a party that has been in office ten years on its toes all the time.
  But I should like to take up that challenge and see how the Budget matches up to it. Is it a complacent Budget? I should have thought that there were a good many things to be said in its favour and a good many against it, but that whatever else one could say about it one could not call it a complacent Budget. It combines three of the most far-reaching proposals that any Budget has included for a number of years past. One is the very substantial reduction in Surtax on earned incomes and the other two are the economic regulators to which the hon. Member for Stechford devoted a good deal of time.
  These are bold and courageous steps to take. There is nothing complacent about them, and, incidentally, they are the reasons why I am not only able but keen to support my right hon. and learned Friend's proposals as a whole.
  There are, however, some things on the debit side. I am extremely sorry that my right hon. and learned Friend found it necessary to pay off the Surtax concession by an increased Profits Tax. There is one major omission. I regret that there is no provision for overseas corporation status for overseas trading companies. There is an absence also of minor tax concessions for which a number of us have been pressing for some years. Some of these no doubt will feature as new Clauses in Committee on the Finance Bill.
  I support the reduction in Surtax. It may seem a little finicky, but I should have preferred a reduction in the standard rate of Income Tax, even though that was only 3d., which would have cost the same amount. It is perfectly

  1045
  true that it would have applied to earned and unearned incomes, to businesses and industry as well as to individuals. However, if both could not be done, my right hon. and learned Friend has done this in a big way. I am glad that he has not tinkered with the problem by raising the starting point by £500 or something like that. He has made a bold and equitable sweep.
  I am well aware of the great difference of opinion about the extent of the disincentive effect of high rates of direct taxation. On this side of the Committee we are inclined to exaggerate that effect from time to time; hon. Members opposite are apt to ignore it, but I read an article the other day which I thought put the matter very objectively and fairly. It was one of the many articles written in an attempt to guide the Chancellor in his Budget proposals.
  I quote the following extract:
  "The Chancellor should also increase the allowances for industrial investment and exports and he would be encouraging able young men in industry as well as performing a belated act of justice if he ended the collection of Surtax on earnings as low as £2,000 a year. Surtax was meant to be a tax on the rich but £2,000 a year now is equal to only £700 before the war. Even if the starting level were raised to £5,000 the tax would still be discouraging people whom it was never meant to reach. People to whom £2,000 still sounds a lot of money should not be jealous, for the present state of affairs is harming the interests of the whole country. For instance, the Minister of Education is begging married women teachers to come back and help us over a desperate shortage, but if all they achieve by coming back is to make their husbands liable to pay Surtax on their joint incomes, they will not come."
  That is very fair, and the fact that it is an extract from a leading article in the Daily Herald of 16th January perhaps lends a point of emphasis to what I have said.
  It is perfectly true that there was a tailpiece to the article which went on to say how the cost of the Surtax concession should be met. Incidentally, how remarkable it is that a starting level of £5,000 was suggested so long ago, though I am sure that it cannot have been a Budget leak to Odhams or the Daily Herald. The tailpiece was to the effect that the Surtax concession should be met by a capital gains tax, and we have heard something about that today from the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) and also very briefly from the hon. Member for Stechford.
  1046
  There has been a good deal of misapprehension and misunderstanding about the probable yield of a capital gains tax. I noticed a most significant omission from the speech of the right hon. Member for Huyton today. He gave no indication of the probable yield, but during the General Election campaign of October, 1959, both he and the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition gave some estimates of what they thought a capital gains tax introduced by a Socialist Chancellor—presumably the Socialist Chancellor who would come in as a result of that General Election—might produce. The figures they gave at that time varied between £200 million and £300 million in a year. Some of us thought that that was a rather excessive figure to consider, and it was certainly far beyond what the Inland Revenue suggested when it gave evidence before the Royal Commission on the Taxation of Profits and Income.
  I am not surprised that the right hon. Gentleman did not give any figures this afternoon. He may have done what I have done, which is to look at a booklet which probably all members of the Committee have received. It is entitled "Interest and Dividends upon Securities Quoted on the Stock Exchange, London, 1960". Table VIII on page 14 is most interesting and instructive. It shows the aggregate market value of all securities quoted on the London Stock Exchange at six-monthly intervals. The total market value at 31st December, 1959, is shown at £37,670 million. Going to the end of 1960—I ask hon. Members to remember that this is the year which is to produce £200 million to £300 million by way of a capital gains tax—we find that the value, instead of being £37,670 million was £37,075 million, which is a reduction of £600 million. What kind of capital gains tax could possibly have collected any revenue out of that overall drop? Although it is not a direct arithmetical relationship, had there been a capital gains tax in 1960 there obviously would have been no net yield, but there would have been substantial administrative costs.
  Mr. Bruce Millan: Surely the hon. Gentleman does not seriously base his argument on one year's figures, especially as he is starting at a particularly high point? After the last General Election share values rose very

  1047
  considerably. One has to take a long-term basis.
  While I am on my feet, may I say that it is quite wrong for the hon. Gentleman simply to mention the estimates given by the Inland Revenue to the Royal Commission without taking account of the very stringent criticisms, which have since been absolutely justified, which were made in the minority Report.
  Mr. Stevens: The hon. Member and I belong to the same very cautious profession. I am rather older than he is and more experienced in the profession. I think that his first question was rather a daring one. If he knew me better, he would know perfectly well that I would never dream of basing my whole case on a single year. He obviously has not done his homework. If he turns to Table VIII on page 14 of this interesting booklet, he will find that between 1st July and 31st December, 1957, overall the values fell from £28,437 million to £25,371 million. In other words, as the Inland Revenue witnesses said very clearly on that occasion and as many other people have said since, not only is the overall yield, taking one year with another, likely to be far less than the wildly optimistic guesses made at General Election time, but in point of fact over a considerable period there would probably be no net yield at all. In any case, it would certainly be nothing like enough to justify so radical a departure.
  Mr. Millan Mr. Millan The hon. Gentleman is again taking very selective dates, this time over a period as short as six months. Does he not realise that the figure he quoted for 1957, namely, £28,437 million, as compared with £37,075 million for December, 1960, completely explodes his case? In the four years between 1957 and the end of 1960 there was an increase of about 33⅓ per cent.
  Mr. Stevens: It is always difficult for a Chancellor of the Exchequer and his advisers to estimate the likely revenue for the forthcoming year. It is not an unimportant thing for a Chancellor of the Exchequer to try to do. If it is as chancy as it quite obviously is, when men so expert in these matters as the Leader of the Opposition and the right hon. Member for Huyton can be so
  1048
  wildly out in an estimate made in October, 1959, as the figures for 1960 clearly show, it would be a very dangerous kind of tax to touch.
  Mr. G. R. Mitchison: I wonder why the hon. Gentleman omits to mention the rise in the value of land. That was the instance taken in the minority Report. It is difficult to argue that land has remained steady in value in recent years or is likely to remain so.
  Mr. Stevens: I certainly should not dream of alleging that prices of land have remained steady. I should say something very different. The minority Report did not limit itself to land. It dealt with a capital gains tax covering securities, property and land.
  Despite what has been said today about men in the export and import industries working already as hard as they can go, it will be a considerable encouragement to men of the type of Sir William Lyons if they can keep more of their own money. Sir William Lyons springs immediately to my mind, because his company has just obtained £13 million worth of orders in New York. Such men will find considerable encouragement in the fact that they can keep a little more of their own money.
  I make one small reservation, and I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend in his thinking about alterations to the tax structure as a whole will bear this in mind. This means that there is a further differentiation between the tax treatment of earned and unearned income. A good many of us on this side of the Committee feel that that difference is already too great and that a very large number of so-called unearned incomes have, on the contrary, been earned by the sweat of the brow. I hope that when the Chancellor of the Exchequer makes permanent changes the gap will not be widened. Indeed, I hope that he will find it possible to narrow it.
  I want to say a few words about the two new economic regulators. A number of my friends outside the House have already voiced strong objections to both types. The first is the ability to increase or decrease by up to 10 per cent. a wide range of duties. The second is the possibility of the payroll tax. They are exactly the same people who in the last

  1049
  two or three years have complained bitterly about the putting on and off of credit restrictions, the increase and decrease in hire-purchase deposits, and one thing and another, because those have either been too long-term in taking effect or have affected too narrow a range of goods.
  The first of my right hon. and learned Friend's proposals has not that disadvantage. Further, it should have immediate effect. I ask my friends whether they want to go back to the pre-war conditions of alternate booms and slumps. The Government of the day must, particularly in these days, have instruments ready at hand the moment signs of inflation or deflation become apparent to take immediate action in an effective manner. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer has these powers he will have more flexibility, and that should assist control both over the balance of payments position and over prices.
  I turn now to my objections. As I indicated a short while ago, I am sorry that my right hon. and learned Friend has found it a good thing to finance the Surtax reductions by an increase in Profits Tax. By a Surtax reduction he helps the industrialist. By increased Profits Tax he harms industry itself. This afternoon my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade said that it was only fair that the owner should be taxed to pay the earner. I do not think that he can have read this morning's leading article in The Times, which draws attention to the fact that in industry as a whole it is not only the earners who are wanted but also capital for industry.
  The increase of 2½ per cent. in the Profits Tax follows a similar increase of 2½ per cent. last year, making a 5 per cent. increase. That is a 50 per cent. increase from 10 per cent. to 15 per cent., which is a considerable increase. We have already moved into conditions in which profit margins are bound to be narrower than they have been in the past. I am not at all certain that industry as a whole will find it possible to carry this additional 2½ per cent. without increasing prices.
  Mr. C. Osborne: Is it not true that control of capital today is less and less in the hands of the men who manage the business? It is the men who manage
  1050
  the business that make the profits. They are entitled to get a slightly greater proportion of the profit they make, as against the shareholder who does not play an active part. To that extent, the proposals of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer are justified.
  Mr. Stevens: I do not dissent from that, but, as the whole burden of Profits Tax falls on the holders of the equities, and, therefore, an increased Profits Tax must mean a lesser reward on that capital and a lesser reward for savings, there is a disincentive effect on savings. There can be no question of opinion about that; it is a question of fact. My hon. Friend the Member for Taunton (Mr. du Cann) yesterday lamented the fact that there was no extra incentive to saving in this Budget. Here we have an active and substantial disincentive, and I am sorry that my right hon. and learned Friend found it necessary to do this.
  The overriding consideration. I should have thought, of all of us must be the fact that my right hon. Friend has budgeted for this very large surplus of £500 million. I am one of those who intensely dislike compulsory savings through the Budget. I much prefer to increase the ability of individuals to save, but if, in the circumstances, it seems unlikely that private saving will match up to the needs of the moment, I certainly think this is necessary, and I challenge the hon. Member for Stechford, who talked about complacency. I think the size of the proposed Budget surplus—£500 million-most certainly is not complacent. I hope it will be appreciated by the world at large. It can only be a good thing for the stability of the £, and that is something vital to us as the financial centre and the bankers of the whole sterling area.
  7.1 p.m.
  Mr. David Ginsburg: I listened with very great interest to the observations of the hon. Member for Portsmouth, Langstone (Mr. Stevens), who speaks with very great conviction and expertise, but I am afraid that I cannot agree with everything he said, because the economic philosophy for which he stands is something diametrically opposed to my own beliefs. I hope

  1051
  he will not take it in a personal sense if I say that his economic beliefs are the beliefs of the pre-Keynesian era.
  My right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition yesterday mentioned two tests for any Budget. He asked how far it measured up to the economic needs of the nation at the present time, and then he asked whether it imposed the necessary burden in a fair and equitable way. As I shall endeavour to show in a few minutes, the Budget fails on both those counts. As far as the actual diagnosis of the Budget is concerned, the Chancellor failed to show any sense of economic purpose at present. It is true that he painted some of the economic difficulties which face this country, but he omitted to paint some other very great difficulties which we are encountering, and he most certainly failed to give the lead which we vitally need at the moment.
  To turn to his tax changes, the Chancellor has produced a Budget—and I say this very deliberately and very advisedly; let there be no mistake about this—which is directly relevant to the domestic needs of the Conservative Party at the present time, but is not relevant to the needs of the British people. Quite basically, the tax part of this Budget does only two things. It imposes imposts, some of which I agree are justified while others are unjustified, on millions of people in this country, and it gives relief only to a very minute section indeed. This sort of treatment is resented in my own constituency, but I would go very much further and add that when the plaudits which we heard yesterday coming from behind the Chancellor have died away, it will be found that there is great dissatisfaction with this Budget, not only on this side of the Committee, but also among millions of Conservative electors at the same time. Indeed, I would add that I do not think that Conservative white-collared workers voted for the Conservative Party in 1955 or in 1959 in order to have a Budget of this kind inflicted upon them.
  Mr. C. Osborne: Surely, the hon. Gentleman cannot claim that there is dissatisfaction with the Budget when there are only ten hon. Members on the benches opposite taking part in the debate?
  Mr. Ginsburg: I am not only referring to what we have said from this side, but
  1052
  to what is happening in the country, and I venture to say that when the next lot of local government elections takes place or the next lot of by-elections, we shall see a very different picture.
  Mr. Diamond: I am sure that my hon. Friend is capable of appreciating the fact that there are fewer Conservative Members here than there are Labour Members, and that it is pointless for the hon. Gentleman opposite to make such an inane remark.
  Mr. Ginsburg: I am very grateful for that intervention from my hon. Friend. I am only a humble statistician, and my hon. Friend is an accountant, and accountants are far more accurate.
  In one respect, I agree that this Budget is significant, because it marks a recognition on the Government's part of the fact that the monetary weapon has failed. It also marks—does it not?—a recognition on the Government's part that the attempt to use the Budget as the annual regulator of the economy has also failed. It has always seemed foolish to many of us to try to steer the economy for 12 months ahead, anticipating in this way. To that extent, the various devices, which the Chancellor has outlined and for which he proposes to take powers, whatever we may think of them in certain details, have something to be said for them, although I shall later say something about the payroll tax.
  The Chancellor, moreover, in the course of his address yesterday, expressed certain extremely ambitious views about the simplification of the tax system. Indeed, when we read the papers the weekend before, we were given to understand that, whatever else happened, this year of all years provided the Chancellor with a great opportunity of tidying up and streamlining the tax system. He has started off—and this is my criticism of the Chancellor's whole approach—with some extremely ambitious statements criticising the present complexity of the tax system, indicating that he was moving towards simplification. He indicated an idea of simplification so far as Profits Tax is concerned, and then threw it out of the window. He indicated some simplification of Surtax, and then he threw that out of the window, and then told the Committee what he in fact proposes to do.

  1053
  I hope he will re-read what was said in The Times today, when it was indicated that there was something to be said for trying to have one systematic progressive system of the taxation of income right through the income ranges. If that were done and it was linked to a capital gains tax, very many desirable changes could be made, and we could move towards what I think is really needed in the economy, which is not Surtax relief, but relief so far as the basic earned income allowance is concerned. It is worth mentioning that it was relief of that kind which Lord Dalton gave many years ago, which provided the sort of lift in production which the British economy so badly needs.
  There is one other aspect on the problem of simplification which I should like to mention. In my opinion, what the public resent is not paying taxes, but coping with the ever-growing complexity and intricacy of the tax system. As hon. Members know, we have had a Royal Commission on taxation which produced a valuable Report. However, it did not deal sufficiently with the administrative and public relations aspects of the workings of the Board of Inland Revenue. I think that I carry most hon. Members with me when I say that the Board of Inland Revenue is bureaucratic in the extreme.
  I should like to pose two questions to the Government. First, have they considered having a serious organisation and methods study of the workings of the tax administration? If they did have one, I am sure that great improvements would follow. Secondly—and here I speak with some practical knowledge of consumer research—has there been systematic research and study of the Income Tax form which members of the public have to complete? I should be grateful if inquiries could be made on this point.
  If a research were made—I think that it would be found that this form is beyond the comprehension of most hon. Members—if such research were undertaken, I think that the task which the public have to face would be eased. As I understand it, members of the public who have not accountants to advise them are entitled to go to the Inland Revenue and ask the Revenue to complete their tax forms. If the public availed themselves of their rights and privileges in
  1054
  this matter, I think that we would find that the work of the Inland Revenue would come to a stop. I sincerely feel that the Chancellor has missed a valuable opportunity of simplifying the tax system and introducing the administrative changes which would have been invaluable at this moment.
  Another disappointing aspect of the Chancellor's Budget Statement was that it failed to make any contribution to some of the important economic objectives which the Chancellor himself mentioned in his speech. For example, he referred to the need for exports. The more we look at the problem, the more we realise that nothing has been done by the Chancellor specifically to assist exports. The right hon. and learned Gentleman mentioned the need for improving productivity from the point of view of investment. Nothing has been done to assist investment.
  There was a lyrical passage in the right hon. and learned Gentleman's speech about the need to step up scientific research, but nothing has been done in the Budget to assist scientific research. If the Chancellor had been bold and really intent on doing something new, as we thought he might try to do, surely he would have said something about the discriminatory methods of taxation which are practised in this country and in other countries and which, if they had been applied, in these cases would have helped us very much.
  Perhaps the most serious criticism of all that we level against the Chancellor is the lack of clarity about the diagnosis that he applied. After listening to him, and having heard the President of the Board of Trade, we do not know the approach of the Government to the economic situation that faces this country. A great deal was said yesterday about the visible trade balance. In the light of today's news, the position of the visible trade balance is, in all conscience, getting, if anything, rather worse.
  But I wish to draw attention to something that I have mentioned before, namely, the absolutely catastrophic deterioration in the invisible trade balance of this country. The invisible trade balance was, in a sense, this country's pride if we consider the pre-war position. In 1960, we had an invisible trade balance, a surplus, of only £22

  1055
  million. In 1958, it was £229 million. I believe that before the war it was £280 million. This is a staggering decline. The deterioration in the invisible trade balance is something which needs explanation. What has happened? We should like to know rather more, in particular, about the Chancellor's plans for setting this country free from the incubus of dear money. For as long as the Government practise dear money in the economy, hot money will flow into this country and there will be vast and expensive out-goings on the invisible account which this country's economy cannot afford.
  I should like to go beyond the issue of dear money and ask the Government this question: are they satisfied with the economic performance of the service industries? Much has been said about the performance of the conventional export industries, but what about the less conventional ones? What is the Government's view about the contribution of the insurance industry? Is it pulling its weight? What is the Government's view about the shipping industry? Such statistics as are available from the new balance of payments statistics suggest that all is not well and that things are deteriorating.
  What is happening with regard to the oil industry? I think that the Committee generally welcomed the Chancellor's action in imposing an additional taxation on fuel oil. I believe that this will assist, not only the coal industry, but also our balance of payments. One of the things which has contributed to the serious deterioration in our balance of payments has been the growing importation of oil. We should like to have something more than generalisations on this subject. We should like to know where we are and what is the contribution of the oil industry to the economic life of the country. We should like to know how big or how small are some of its earnings. There are all sorts of disturbing reports that profits are being retained abroad and that the income is not coming home.
  Mr. Maudling Mr. Maudling indicated dissent.
  Mr. Ginsburg: The President of the Board of Trade shakes his head. He may be privy to the sort of information to which we are not privy.
  1056
  Some time ago I asked the Prime Minister a Question on this subject and he indicated that there were difficulties in the way of publishing the figures. I have looked at the recent White Paper, and all the signs are thoroughly unsatisfactory.
  Mr. Maudling: I also looked at those figures, particularly those concerning interest coming into this country. One of the big reasons for the fall in interest on profits is the fall in profitability of the oil industry. The hon. Gentleman is right in saying that that has had a big effect on the invisible balance.
  Mr. Ginsburg: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I hope that he will use his influence among his colleagues to ensure that we have some more facts. We are not deliberately "going" at the oil industry for emotional reasons. If it "came clean" and set out the position in a balance sheet, we would be able to take a much more intelligent view of the subject.
  We had no hint from the Chancellor yesterday of the type of trade policy that he wants the British economy to follow. Is it the policy of the Chancellor and of the Government to strengthen the sterling area? If so, the Government had better move very fast because, according to a recent interesting article in the Economic Review of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research we are losing ground extremely quickly in our traditional sterling area markets.
  Many figures can be given to illustrate what is happening to British trade in the sterling area. If I mention only one series of figures, it is because of the local interest of my constituency in the woollen industry. I wish to draw attention to what is happening in the export of what are called "miscellaneous fabrics" to the sterling area. "Miscellaneous fabrics" is the only suitable classification that I have been able to find available. It covers the whole range of textiles. I am advised that wool makes up about 50 per cent. of these miscellaneous fabrics.
  The export of miscellaneous fabrics from the United Kingdom to Australia in 1954 amounted to 68 per cent. and in 1959 to 46 per cent. The export of miscellaneous fabrics to New Zealand in 1954 amounted to 87 per cent. and in

  1057
  1959 to 74 per cent. For South Africa, an important country for United Kingdom exports, the figures were 33 per cent. in 1954 and 23 per cent. in 1959. Northern Rhodesia, 93 per cent. in 1954, 51 per cent. in 1959. India, 29 per cent. in 1954 and 18 per cent. in 1959. This is a catastrophic decline in traditional British exports to traditional British markets.
  Many explanations can be adduced. If, however, we accept the President's suggestion earlier this afternoon that he is entering negotiations to lower preferences even further, this will mean lowering Imperial Preference, which we enjoy in those markets. I venture to say that the position will be even worse concerning many key British exports. What I have said about miscellaneous fabrics can be paralleled for many other industries in the constituencies which hon. Members represent. If the Government do not want us to strengthen our economic ties with the Commonwealth, do they want us to move more into Europe? If so, why are the Government procrastinating concerning the Common Market?
  We simply do not know what is in the Government's mind concerning external trade policy. As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins) made clear, we do not even know whether the Government want to expand our economy or are seeking to squeeze it. I am inclined to think that the public will not regard the Budget as an expansionist Budget. They will consider it restrictionist, because it does impose considerable restrictions.
  The Chancellor of the Exchequer and the President of the Board of Trade have argued that many of the various burdens, particularly some of the new devices, are being imposed to produce efficiency and to make industry use labour and machinery more efficiently. Speaking for my constituency, I do not think that what the President of the Board of Trade has said will be so interpreted. My experience is probably paralleled by that of many other hon. Members who represent low wage areas.
  My constituency has two key industries, wool textiles and coal. They are both extremely labour intensive. It is an area where, as the President of the
  1058
  Board of Trade admitted some months ago, there are no jobs in prospect. No industrial development certificates have been granted. Most of my constituents get no tax relief from the Budget. Most of them will have to bear heavier imposts in terms of social security payments and also in terms of higher prices which the Budget will engender.
  If the payroll tax is brought in, it will make for heavier burdens among small employers in my constituency. If the President of the Board of Trade argues that the object of the payroll tax is to squeeze labour and to get employers to release labour, I must take him up on that and ask what he is doing to provide alternative industries in my constituency or other constituencies. The right hon. Gentleman knows—I have just given him the figure—that nothing has been done and I am not aware of any intention to help. If the right hon. Gentleman replies that we have made far too sinister an interpretation and that something else is envisaged, if the result of the payroll tax will be simply to put a financial burden upon an employer so that he does not pay higher wages, which may be an aspect of the operation, speaking as the representative of a low wage area I am bound to ask not only what is the economic point, but what is the social justice of an action of this kind.
  By whatever test one uses, by whatever criterion one judges the Budget—whether international, national or local economics—this is a misdirected Budget. We have missed a valuable opportunity of doing two things which matter to our economy: simplifying the tax system and getting the economy on the right road to expansion and economic progress. It is an opportunity which we can ill afford to miss at this moment in our history.
  7.26 p.m.
  Lady Tweedsmuir: The hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Ginsburg) seemed to see nothing good in the Budget. Yet he told us that he has the coal industry in his constituency and he knows that one of the arrangements in the Budget is to put a tax on fuel oil, which is something that the hon. Member's party has demanded for a long time. Apart from that, the hon. Member said that he did not think

  1059
  that the average person in his constituency would see any justice in the Budget. Memories are short and people always forget the earned income and other reliefs which have been given in no less than eight Tory Budgets before this one. The proof is that the total of taxation on the gross national income has fallen from 31 per cent. to 25 per cent. during the ten years of Tory administration.
  The hon. Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins) quoted Lord Amory rather approvingly as having put forward three criteria to judge whether the Budget was a just one. The first criterion was whether it did anything to strengthen the currency. The size of the Budget surplus is an indication to the world at large that the Government are determined to keep their house in order and to keep confidence in the pound.
  The second criterion was whether we would hold costs steady. That is a much more difficult question. It depends largely upon the efficiency of industry, which is why we do not wish to have growth at any cost, as the hon. Member for Stechford seemed to suggest. We want growth and efficiency. The third criterion was whether enough had been done about investment. Concerning investment, and particularly about exports, I should like to say a word or two. In passing, however, I welcome the reference made yesterday by my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the fact that the 40 per cent. investment allowances for shipbuilding will continue.
  This is a courageous and imaginative Budget, but we must look at it in relation to what will appear next year and the year after. In his Budget speech yesterday, my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor made plain that he had set in train a large number of inquiries into our whole tax structure and system. I hope that one of the questions which he will examine closely is the taxation of married women with their husbands. Although I have to declare an interest, nevertheless, we are making an appeal to, for example, married women to return as teachers; and you, Mr. MacPherson, will be particularly interested in that profession. The disincentive of double taxation is a very real one and I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor will consider it.
  1060
  I myself feel that the relief which is being given in the Surtax range is very long overdue. I believe that it will stop a great many our our trained, skilled men, particularly in responsible executive positions, from going overseas. The Financial Times today showed us that in the £2,000 a year bracket, a man in the United States can keep 80 per cent. of his earned income, in West Germany 72 per cent., and in this country only 60 per cent. Therefore, this is a long overdue change. As my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade said, it has not been altered since 1920.
  This may also have a very beneficial effect upon our exports. It is one of the most responsible and difficult jobs to go out to export markets. The reduction in Surtax should be an incentive to people to take greater responsibility, and I hope that it will encourage firms to give the very best salaries to those who are to look for export markets.
  I see a certain amount of what goes on in Canada, as I am fortunate in being able to go there from time to time. So often, British firms hopefully send someone who is not in a senior position to the Canadian market, a man who is unable to take a responsible decision. It is no good thinking that exports to this particularly difficult market, so close to the United States, can be undertaken by sending overseas exactly the same product one would send to the home market here.
  There is a tremendous influence from the United States throughout Canada. I believe that the Canadian housewife is subjected to about 700 advertisements of all kinds every day, mostly from over the border. That means that she is largely accustomed to American styling, and we have a great responsibility to send people to study overseas markets intelligently and then manufacture our products for the particular needs of those markets.
  I was very disappointed that there was no active stimulus to exports in the Budget. I think that it was my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls) who said that in his view the natural market for manufacturers in this country was the home market. That I believe to be true. We are always told that we cannot have any

  1061
  particular stimulus to exports, because that would encourage other countries to do the same. But, surely, what would result would be competition in exports between various countries using export stimuli, while, at the same time, we would be trying to lift home producers into export markets.
  We might take some notice of what is to be done in Australia on 1st July. When Mr. Menzies was here for the Common-wealth Prime Ministers' Conference, it was announced in Canberra that there would be two definite stimulations to exports. First of all, there is to be an allowance for exporting. At present there is an 8s. in the pound deduction on the total amount spent by firms in export promotion. This is now to be doubled. From 1st July, it is to be 16s. in the pound.
  The second stimulation to exports concerns the payroll tax, which Australia has had since 1946. I understand that in the Australian Parliament Members from both sides have constantly pressed for its removal. I do not see, at first sight, how it will help our position here to have a payroll tax. It is thought generally in Australia that while such a tax may help some firms which are highly mechanised, or might mechanise further, in order to economise on labour, it is hard on those which cannot mechanise for various reasons and have to employ large labour forces.
  I can see the same sort of thing happening here, and I understand that it is liable to inflate costs. It is proposed in Australia that, from 1st July, if, between 1958 and 1960, a firm has increased its exports by an average of more than 8 per cent. of its total sales, it will be given a total remission of the payroll tax. Smaller increases will earn smaller percentages of remission. The aim is to encourage firms which are normally accustomed to working in what is sometimes called the soft home market, to take large risks in trying to reach highly competitive overseas markets.
  I ask my right hon. and learned Friend, therefore, seriously to consider, between now and the next Budget, whether we should not have some stimulus for those engaged in the export trade. At least one measure which he could consider even now is that of exempting such firms from the payroll tax, if it comes about,
  1062
  and also not imposing on them the increase in the Profits Tax which is proposed. We have to urge our people on in order to get them into these more difficult markets.
  The payroll tax is liable to work very unfairly as between areas of relatively high employment and those which have over-full employment. Representing a Scottish constituency, I cannot see that a payroll tax will do anything but encourage even greater unemployment than that with which we are battling today. It is also unfair as between firms which cannot mechanise more than a certain amount and other firms which can.
  The job which my right hon. and learned Friend wants done by this payroll tax—greater efficiency—would surely be done by the increase in the Profits Tax. No firm would do other than try to get greatest efficiency in order to compete with that increase in the Profits Tax. I hope that the payroll tax as an economic regulator will never be brought into being.
  The other economic regulator is the Purchase Tax. We have heard so much about the difficulties in changes in Purchase Tax, but to hold the sword of Damocles now proposed over industry as a whole throughout the year will be unsettling, will cause great lack of confidence, and will give very great power to the Government. I cannot see that we on these benches should support a measure quite like that.
  The general conditions for the export trade are, without stimulation, very difficult. I know that it is said that we must not have too soft a home market In that way, one could say that the Budget has been rather tough and has tried to hold certain conditions and, indeed, create certain taxes, because the Surtax relief will not benefit anybody until 1963. It is true that the best export market stems from a firm and competitive home market, but at the same time we need to remove obstacles to trade, and also to give incentives to exporters.
  I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend, in considering the removal of obstacles to exporters, will pay attention to a speech made about a month ago by Lord Polwarth, who is Chairman of the Scottish Council for Development and Industry, in which he said that many

  1063
  firms were discouraged in going to Scotland by a delay of anything up to four months in telling them exactly what they were entitled to under the Local Employment Act. If some easement of these delays could come about we should have more success in attracting foreign firms to establish business in the North.
  Finally, will my right hon. Friend please take the message to his right hon. and learned Friend that, apart from removing obstacles to trade, we should seriously consider how to give a serious stimulus to exports?
  7.40 p.m.
  Mr. Leslie Hale: I almost feel that I ought to ask the indulgence of the Committee for a maiden speaker, because I have had a very long absence from the House through illness and returned to find that no one had observed my absence except one or two intimate friends who asked if I had been away for a long weekend. Further, some of my first observations in Committee on the Criminal Justice Bill evoked a letter today to The Times which thought that when I was referring to Lord Eldon I was making subtle insinuations against Lord Parker.
  I therefore speak with hesitancy. I speak with more hesitancy for a much more important reason. Not having spoken in the House for many months, and, indeed, not having spoken in a by-election for a couple of years, I for once took great pains in preparing a speech in the hope possibly of catching the eye of the Chair in his important debate. I have thrown all those notes away for more than one reason. One is that I am not feeling particularly well and hardly in the mood for polemics, but, more importantly, it is because I have been moved by one or two things which have happened in the House in the last two or three days.
  When the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) spoke last week in a debate entirely irrelevant to this, and to which, therefore, I shall make no further reference, the House began to recover a little of its old spirit. I am not saying that because his remarks were highly controversial or because I happened to agree with him, but because I felt that when one hears an hon. Member speaking with obvious sincerity against
  1064
  his party view one begins to recall with pride the description by the right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) of this Chamber as "The grand inquest of the nation."
  The grand inquest of the nation can never be conducted on lines of two monolithic structures imposing their will not only on the main issues of debate but on every individual expression of opinion. I think the party opposite has gained greatly in strength by accepting criticism with a great deal more generosity than has been accepted in the House in years gone by or in other parts at this moment.
  So, when today I heard an observation by the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. C. Osborne), who was speaking with obvious sincerity—and he is a man of great experience in the export trade—I heard him put a question which seemed to me to be of extraordinary relevance. In the traditional language used by Mr. Speaker, lest there should be any doubt, I have obtained from the hon. Member an authentic version in his own hand. He said that we are selling at home too large a proportion of what we produce, but that the question arises (1) how can we restrict home consumption in a free society and, (2), if we succeed, how can we compel foreigners to buy the extra supplies against increasing products from their countries?
  I interrupt myself in parenthesis to say, in relation to the hon. Lady the Member for Aberdeen, South (Lady Tweedsmuir), that the only Parliamentary cliché I have never used in sixteen years is, "I hope the hon. Member will forgive me if I do not follow the points he or she has made". I think, however, speaking off the cuff, without notes and from memory, that I shall be following some of the points to which she referred. Not many years ago I, too, went to Canada. I went in somewhat unusual circumstances at the end of 1945. The issue she raised in her speech is also an issue which arises from the interjection of the hon. Member for Louth. I was astonished and moved by the warmth of affection felt for us in Canada. Admittedly it was just after the war, but I am assured by everyone that it is traditional. The further West one gets the deeper it is until one gets

  1065
  to British Columbia, which is essentially Scottish rather than British.
  As the hon. Lady said, they have the problem that something like 80 per cent. or 90 per cent. of the Canadian population is within 60 or 70 miles of the American border and almost every American magazine circulating in Canada carries American syndicated material, advertisements and pictures. All the names of the goods are known. I came back and said this. I said it a good deal and spoke about an Empire Consultative Parliament, not to take decisions but to exchange views while meeting in reasonably compact numbers in the capitals of what we now call the Commonwealth.
  That did not attract very much attention. Indeed, I find it difficult when I look back on life to find any serious suggestion of mine which has. A year or two later I made another suggestion which was dismissed equally as the product of the crank. The hon. Member asked the President of the Board of Trade a passionate question of first importance. I have great regard for the President of the Board of Trade, who is always very courteous to me and has considerable authority, but he brushed the question off in a way which is getting a little sickening and rather in the manner of the popular view of politicians as people who can answer slickly and brush off an inquiry.
  This, after all, is a question which is vital to the grand inquest of the nation, which does not at the moment contain many people—if I mentioned how many it might produce undesirable results. The right hon. Gentleman did not give an effective answer to the hon. Member's question.
  The hon. Member for Louth has a commercial interest allied to the cotton industry. I do not know to what extent it is, but I know that he speaks with considerable knowledge of the subject.
  There are two problems in this connection, but, let us be fair about it, neither has much to do with the efficiency or inefficiency of British exporters. They carry the can of political blame when Government financial policy falters or a market sags. We can sell British cars in the United States of America only as long as the Government of the United States is willing to allow us to do so. Do
  1066
  not let us have any nonsense about that. A point I have constantly made is that we could never compete in the case of British cotton with Hong Kong or Japan. No sacrifice of workers' wages and no subsidies of any sort of practical kind could enable us to do that.
  We have two problems, and one is a world problem of uneven competition. I use the word "uneven" rather advisedly—as advisedly as one can when speaking off the cuff—because I do not want to call it unfair competition. Nations developing from poverty towards prosperity naturally have an interim period during which their competition may appear to us to be unfair and when, virtually speaking, there is no practical alternative to it. Those of us who came up against the problem, particularly in India in relation to cotton, know that Her Majesty's advisers were then correctly saying—an unpopular thing to say and for which they should have credit—that to rescind or break that agreement would do harm both to us and to India, certainly great harm to India. India would say, "We quite understand your complaints. We can sympathise with the point of view, but what can we do?"
  The point I want to suggest is that we cannot solve this problem by unilateral action. That is why I said years ago that countries should pay for their exports, not for their imports. I know that someone will always titter; perhaps not quite so many this time as there were that time because that is what the United States of America have been forced to do since then.
  Even if one's economic circumstances seem to force one into a great export surplus, one cannot continue to use it as an economic weapon without landing the world into economic war. I am not for a minute trying to belittle the generosity of the economic help given by the United States to other countries. The only qualification I make is that they have been extremely generous, they have done many moving things, they have ignored the fact that many countries have swindled them in the course of receiving that aid, they have poured in help to the children of Southern Italy and seen it swallowed by the businessmen of Northern Italy, but they have gone on putting it in, they have behaved magnificently, but this process became

  1067
  almost imperatively imposed on them by the magnitude of their trade surplus. They had to adopt either a liberal plan abroad or a Socialist or democratic progressive policy of social reform at home which was not then politically acceptable. They could have tried to use their surplus productivity on the home market, which perhaps was economically practicable for them, but such a remedy is not practicable for us because we have to feed to live. We still have to import to feed, and we still have to export to pay for the imports. That is elementary, and perhaps I am wasting time even mentioning it.
  It can be done only by world agreement, or at least by agreement between nations. This was precisely the problem in the cotton industry. I remember that during the time of the Labour Government we were asked to make speeches in our constituencies appealing for women to join the mills, appealing to workers to work harder, and appealing for extra production, all of which sounds like a Samuel Smiles' guide to economic life. What happens when all the countries of the world start doing that? When all the British politicians have said, "Work harder and produce more", and when all the Belgian politicians have said "Work harder and produce more", and when all the cotton producing countries competitive production organisations have been geared to over-production, what happens? The only thing is that one goes bust quicker.
  This is the problem today, and I suggest that this is important from another point of view. I listened to the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson), who always speaks with great knowledge and brilliance. The House always listens to the brilliant, informed, and witty right hon. Member for Huyton. I used to work with him down below when I was the devoted servant of world interest. On one committee we laboured rather miserably—happily in one way but not with any éclat or publicity—on a cause not then terribly popular.
  The point we were making was that the Colonial Territories need economic development. They must have new industries. If one considers the problem of any one of the nascent countries, it
  1068
  has to industrialise to have even the wherewithal to produce a taxable revenue on which it can embark on social development, but in modern conditions the industrialisation and urban expansion which inevitably follows reduces its agricultural productivity and produces the evils it is trying to avoid, and produces a raging inflation in the towns and poverty in agriculture.
  I do not want to be polemical or controversial. I think that the years when we used to natter about planning, and when planning was supposed to be a private Socialist word which indicated something vaguely and acutely Left-wing and was a subject for criticism by hon. Gentlemen opposite, have gone. The party opposite are doing a lot of planning, and dashed bad planning it normally is. They find themselves supporting private enterprise and subsidising it enormously.
  The present state of Government Departments was expressed in one or two thoughtful economic articles recently. It was said that each Department tried to be a law to itself, subject to the Treasury. We have the Minister of Transport appealing that there should be no drunken drivers on the roads, and the Home Secretary appealing for pubs on the roads to open for more hours than they want to. We have the Ministry of Health studying the problem of the common cold, and the Minister of Transport jamming millions of people into tube trains under conditions which are appalling, and indeed almost indecent, and assiduously spreading disease. We today heard the President of the Board of Trade appealing for the manufacture of more cars, yet the Minister of Transport tries to keep them off the roads as much as he can by placing increasing restrictions on them.
  There is something to be said for intelligent planning. If we could get the feeling which would mean that we were not so frightened of the Whip, that we were prepared to express an independent view, some of the most controversial subjects might come up for serious discussion and thoughtful consideration.
  The hon. Lady the Member for Aberdeen, South made a passing reference to Australia and to immigration. When we talk about the immigration problem in this country, which is quite

  1069
  serious, we tend to be either pro-black or anti-black in the public estimation. The contentions are based primarily on the question of the rights of individuals. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer says, "I want to put on a payroll tax because we have a shortage of skilled labour", we must consider the question of the continued importation of unskilled labour from other points of view as well.
  We cannot dismiss these questions lightly as emotional matters. We have to plan. If we are ever to solve the problem of immigration from the West Indies we must consider the future of the West Indies. They are more fertile, they have more resources than this country, and perhaps more hope for the future in centuries to come. The West Indies could well afford to maintain their population with proper economic aid and sufficient economic guidance. That is why I suggest that we must approach the problem of exports from the realisation that competition may be an excellent stimulant, but, if it goes a little too far, it becomes a war, and between nations it becomes a trade war, and a trade war can imperil world peace.
  When we are told that the Prime Minister received in Washington advice, forthright strong advice, that Britain ought to seek a more or less safe harbourage in the Six, we have reached the stage when we can discuss with the United States the use of the economic surplus as an instrument of trade war; we can discuss the vital necessity of markets being opened to us and not closed; and we can also raise the question of the right of other nations to make their contributions to a world pool of trade, even though their wage conditions are themselves uncompetitive from our point of view. We have to do it, or we will go back to the difficulties we had to face before.
  Mr. C. Osborne: I agree with what the hon. Gentleman said, that if we are to get economic stability at home our export problem must be solved in some way by international agreement. Will the hon. Gentleman face the problem of how to get economic agreement on a world basis when we have vastly different standards of living—nine-tenths of the world live at one-tenth of our standards—and when there are political enmities which make economic agreement almost
  1070
  impossible? How are these problems to be solved to enable us to reach the agreement necessary to solve the world problem of exports?
  Mr. Hale: I do not know. Frankly, I have never posed as knowing much about economics. My knowledge of economies is rather like my knowledge of geography—when I visualise a map I have to say that Skegness is on the right and Manchester on the left. I have to do much the same with "inflation" and "deflation" and all the new terms being coined, including the Wagnerian theory.
  My own sincere impression—and the hon. Member for Louth has himself recently visited China—and I do not say that my impression is of any value, is that the Chinese were passionately anxious to trade with us and have been for a very long time. In the early days of the development of China, the Chinese were frightened of Russian economic domination. The economic embargo was an act of absolute folly for which both parties were partly responsible. It was not only an act of folly, but it was applied with folly. How far the emphasis has shifted I do not know. I suspect that what has happened is that Mr. Khrushchev has spread the net of Russian economic domination, or economic help—whatever it may be called—much wider and is reducing his assistance to China in the fear that China is making a little too rapid progress.
  China has had serious setbacks. I am not one of those who think that Communist countries are necessarily economically progressive, but I am perfectly certain that the success of Communist countries—space research and so on—cannot be dismissed. It is no good saying that Russia has the best army or the biggest army in the world and has the best H-bombs in the world and has won a couple of Olympic Games running and has won the world chess championship and is developing a standard of living for her people and so on, as every independent visitor has said, and then saying, "This silly economic system will not work". It might not be acceptable to us, and I might be inclined to agree with that.
  This is precisely what an economic conference could do and what nothing else could do. A new trade Bretton Woods coming after all the experience

  1071
  which we have learned since the original Bretton Woods, is what is required. Korea is living on invisible imports, which probably amount to 95 per cent. of her imports—some of them are still more invisible within a week or two of being in Korea, but Korea is entitled to participate.
  These problems have to be faced. The situation of Britain is very grave, but so is the situation of a country like Nigeria which has what I believe to be the ablest politicians in what, if the word will be forgiven, is called black Africa. The problem is well understood by Balewa and Azikiwe. They know that their position, based on the infiltration of foreign capital, is one in which any course they take is almost certain to be wrong and in which they cannot dominate their own future and yet cannot begin without submitting to the domination of other people which may preclude them from obtaining the future for themselves which they desire.
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton said much of what I intended to say about Surtax. Of course there is a case for reducing Surtax. The worst part about the proposal seemed to be the Chancellor's own argument in support of it. It has nothing to do with the export trade and that is all nonsense. Nobody suggests that if Surtax is reduced it is desirable for authors to write more books, or lawyers to take three instead of two cases at one time, or doctors to treat more patients than they can treat and so on. There may be short-term implications and difficulty.
  I remember as a professional man—not very successful in those days before the war—that when I married I was making about £300 a year, and a year or two later I was losing money. I finished at about £3,000 and I oscillated between those figures, much nearer £300 than £3,000, over those twelve or fourteen years.
  If a professional man has a small and fairly precarious and uneven income in which the takings are taxed, he has a considerable responsibility when he sets on a new employee, because the new employee's salary comes straight out of his money. After the war, in 1946 and 1947, when I was floating nearer to £10,000 and doing half the work, setting on a new secretary came out of my Surtax
  1072
  anyhow. It is important to remember that. It might have been a good thing. The new secretary benefited from that high taxation for one did not have to consider the salary because only 20 per cent. of it came out of one's own pocket, and anyway every member of the professional staff brings a little business of his own, so that one probably finishes up making a slight profit.
  This sudden take-off may produce a revulsion of feeling. What is serious, however, is that the professional man on £2,000 a year has been overtaxed, and let us face it. Some of my hon. Friends from working-class districts would not have submitted to that a few years ago, but since they have been here they have realised the importance of prestige, and its cost. The smaller the village, the more prestige the professional man has to have to keep up his position. It does not matter whether he needs a motor car; he has to have one. Whether or not he needs a house, he has to have a place where clients who call will be impressed with his position. The professional man on £2,000 a year and the skilled worker on £1,200 or £1,300 are the men who are hardest hit, and this Budget has not given them a bob.
  I want to refer to the payroll tax. I do not intend to indulge in any polemics, but every time a right hon. Gentleman loses his budgerigar or Tottenham Hotspur lose 2–1, for some extraordinary reason there is a run on some stock or other on the Stock Exchange, and the slightest event can keep it going. Every time we get a hint of a crisis, the first thing that happens is that there are disabled workers in Oldham who cannot find work.
  Let us be fair about it. There is the chap who in prosperous times can be allowed to muck about doing odd jobs, but in difficult times he is the first to go. I do not know whether the payroll tax is a good thing or a bad thing. I listened to the hon. Lady the Member for Aberdeen, South with attention. I can understand that it might be necessary to have this sort of device, which I dislike on sight but which I am prepared to consider. It might be necessary to have some sort of device to apply to skilled workers between the ages of 20 and 30 who are certain of getting work elsewhere anyway.

  1073
  But to put this tax on disabled workers, on people who are employed—I will not use the expression "out of charity"—out of respect, perhaps for the services which they have given in the past or for the suffering which they have been trying to surmount, is against the grain. I hope that when the right hon. and learned Gentleman considers the introduction of that measure, he will take those factors into account.
  Finally, I popped into this matter rather by accident. When I came out of hospital, having been served by devoted nurses, I put down a Question asking about the payment of nurses. They are the forgotten people. Of course, the needs of old-age pensioners are much greater, but it is not necessary to say that. There is no hesitation about it on this side of the Committee and most hon. Members opposite feel ashamed of their treatment of old-age pensioners and this miserable, niggling device which has robbed the totally blind on National Assistance even of the full benefit of the last increase.
  But there are other forgotten people. They used to include the police, but they have recently been remembered. There are still the nurses and the teachers. So I put down a Question to the hon. Lady the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health. I asked if on the whole they were among the worst paid members of the community. They get twelve quid a week after six years' service.
  The hon. Lady raised her eyebrows, rather after the manner of George Robey, and in a manner distinctly histrionic which I recalled from once before when she said something like, "What ! Grandpa not happy on fifteen bob a week?". She said, "Do I hear the hon. Member aright? Did he say the worst paid members of the community?" These highly skilled women?
  I have had more letters about that Question than any other which I have put. Some have been about people even more forgotten, the district nurse in the villages, who, like the village policeman, works twenty-four hours a day, and who is always on tap, always on call, who does not even get locomotion provided, who has to pedal along on a push bike and pump up her tyres.
  1074
  "Do I hear the hon. Member aright?" asked the hon. Lady !
  A week later a Tory Member was proposing to increase the hon. Lady's salary by £1,000 a year for an unskilled job requiring no qualifications at all. I will admit that I do not know much about the Ministry of Health, but I know a good deal about the Ministry of Pensions and I undertake to train a budgerigar to be the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance in three months. It needs to know only a couple of dozen words, mostly negatives, and to drink a dose or two of vinegar.
  I am really very humble about this and there are one or two themes which I wanted to develop but which I will not develop at any length. First, I have become very much converted to the theory that doing right is economically sound and that doing wrong does not pay. When we discuss the Finance Bill, I may get the chance to speak about local government finance.
  Oldham has a population of 117,000 and a rateable value of £5,000. Oxford has a population of 80,000 or 90,000 and Bournemouth has virtually double the rateable income per head of Oldham. We have a hang-over, perhaps a hang-back, to the old times of an immense burden of debt. Interest charges have now reached the stage of an imposed criminal lunacy in local government organisation, where more is spent in interest than almost anything else and when about 60 per cent. of rateable revenue now goes in exorbitant interest charges on old loans.
  The whole of local government is coming into stagnation. If we want serious, intelligent economics, let us consider the amortisation of the old debts and paying them out of income—I know that it is a big job and that it may have to be spread over a year or two—instead of paying for everything three or four times over on some curious piety about a decision made about 1890.
  Finally, ultimately and conclusively, the wicked swindle that this Government and other Governments over the years have performed on the savings of the small investor and people who invest in trustee securities is a scandal for which, I believe, successive Chancellors should be indicted for conspiracy to

  1075
  defraud and sentenced. I do not say that they planned to do it. Everyone knows that to increase the rates of interest is to depreciate the price of trustee securities.
  We had appeals from the right hon. Member for Woodford, in one of his wonderful speeches repeated all over the country, warning, "Save for your country". But when the people save, the money is pinched. Not only is it pinched, but some get to the point when they are embarrassed. The Chancellor imposes a credit squeeze, the bank manager sails in for the overdraft, they have to sell £100 Consuls for £41 and get less than £50 for £100 3½ per cent. War Loan, and have not enough to pay the overdraft. At the same time, the chap in the City who is a "wise guy" gets it. That is why I appeal to the grand inquest of the nation to consider these problems and to do something about them.
  8.15 p.m.
  Mr. R. J. Maxwell-Hyslop: I think that the Budget will be judged in retrospect by its effect on our balance of payments position as a nation. I should like to address myself to a few points which have not been covered in the Budget, but by which other right hon. Friends of mine have it within their power to assist British exports or to improve our position from the point of view of imports.
  I will start at the end by mentioning a point in the speech of the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale)—that we in this country are unable to feed ourselves. That is most certainly true, but the proportion of our population which we can feed from home-produced food is not fixed but variable and unfortunately in recent years it has been a downwards variable rather than an upwards variable.
  Although agriculture has had a formal support in the Annual Price Review, there is one thing which we can ask for in equity and that is that the machinery by which the anti-dumping procedures are implemented should become very much more quick acting. It should not be necessary for Parliamentary Questions to be asked seven weeks after eggs had been poured on the market at dramatically low prices and quite
  1076
  obviously well below the cost of production, and to be told that no action can yet be taken because there is insufficient evidence to justify it. I am convinced that the Board of Trade has not exercised itself as much as it could to expedite the procedure for applying anti-dumping duties.
  I should also like to refer to the services offered to British firms endeavouring to get into the export market. It has been pointed out, and it is I think an interesting point, what a very small proportion of the number of firms engaged in British industry it is who contribute in terms of value to our exports. It is certainly difficult to persuade an agent or commercial correspondent, call him what you will, abroad, to take on an agency for a market which may not yet have entered into the selling of a product, which possibly may not yet have been made, so the services offered by the Board of Trade and representatives of the Foreign Office abroad can be of immense assistance, particularly in the initial stage when the firm concerned is less able to provide these facilities for itself.
  It is here that I would contend that it is unsatisfactory to regard the job of the commercial attaché as being one stage in the development of an organism from what one might call the butterfly, via the chrysalis, to the ambassador. I believe very strongly that representing this country as a commercial attaché abroad should be a profession in its own right, with a substantial period of training before it is achieved, and with substantial experience of different sections of British industry and agriculture leading up to that post as the culmination of a career, and not as a post which is held until promotion can be secured. This is an aspect of reorganisation which we should not postpone, because it is a sphere in which the service we offer can be improved.
  I understand that, on request, the Board of Trade will submit a list of people whom it considers suitable to represent British firms in a foreign country, but it has been represented to me that it will not give what one might call evidence of character. It will give a list of people who have commercial connections of a certain kind but, for reasons which may or may not be good, it is very

  1077
  hesitant about advising upon the commercial integrity of the individuals concerned.
  I can appreciate that there may be reasons for that, obviously connected with the law of defamation, apart from anything else, although qualified privilege would probably apply to such communications. However, cases have been drawn to my attention of clothing manufacturers in the Midlands who have asked the Board of Trade representative in America to recommend a commercial correspondent or agent but who have ended up by doing the job themselves, by sending a man out there, because the time lag involved was too great and the information from the Board of Trade—which arrived too late anyway—was insufficient.
  I welcome the extremely inexpensive provision to abolish the irritating imposition of Income Tax upon the living expenses of British business men abroad who go out to sell our products. Many of them have come home to face a pile-up of work which has gathered in their absence, and have been very irritated at being asked to account for the breakfasts, lunches, dinners and teas which they have eaten abroad, and at the assessment which is made of what those meals would have cost them if they had been eaten here, and even more irritated at the tax which has been levied in respect of them. The abolition of that nonsense, which was grossly overdue, is extremely good value for money.
  The hon. Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Ginsburg) commented upon the falling-off in our invisible earnings. I hope that he will find his way into the Division Lobby with the Government when the question of providing a subsidy for the construction of a liner for the North Atlantic trade is raised, because shipping has been one of our greatest sources of invisible income, and whereas the provision of new tankers, in a grossly overcrowded tanker supply, would not necessarily bring us any more invisible exports, it is reasonable to suppose that if we do not replace the "Queens" our dollar revenues, invisible though they be, will continue to decline, and also that if we do replace them we can expect a fair return for our investment in terms of foreign currency in general and dollar
  1078
  currency in particular, which we very much need.
  We would all hope that some Chancellor, at some time, will be able to tackle in some manner the question not only of people who voluntarily purchased War Loan at 3½ per cent., but also those who had 3 per cent. compensation stock forced upon them involuntarily by the Labour Government, and who exercised no element of choice whatsoever in the investment. For that reason I welcome those features in the Budget that suggest that in future the Chancellor will have to rely less on alterations in the Bank Rate to secure our external reserves, because this should mean that we can expect a slightly lower Bank Rate than would otherwise have been the case in adverse balance of payments conditions, and one would also expect that to be reflected in a higher capital value than would otherwise have been the case. I would also presume, merely from the process of reasoning—I have not looked at the prices today—that an increase in Profits Tax would make fixed interest-bearing Consuls more valuable than variable interest-bearing equities.
  Mr. Hale: I would point to the hon. Member that the 3½ par cent. stock was also forced upon unwilling investors in exchange for 5 per cent. stock during the Tory economic crisis of 1932.
  Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: That is so, but not all those who today hold 3½ per cent. stock are the same people upon whom it was forced. That is one of the problems which face anybody who tries to unscramble these eggs. If we proceed to redeem it at par those people who bought the stock two weeks ago will do very well. If any Government were able to give compensation for this capital loss—and I doubt whether any Government will be able to do so—it should be given to the people who sold that stock rather than to those who bought it. It is because of the complexity of the transactions involved and the number of times that individual units have changed hands, rather than because of the equity of the situation, that it is unlikely that any Government, of whatever political view, will be able to remedy it.
  Mr. Hale: But they can fix a redemption date, however far ahead it may be.
  Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: They can fix a redemption date, but if that is done the people who have had undated stock forced upon them will still be treated more unjustly than they were being treated before.
  The hon. Member for Dewsbury said that people did not resent paying taxes so much as they resented the growing complexity of them. If ever there was a half-truth I suggest that it is that, because it has never been drawn to my attention by any of my constituents that they do not object to paying taxes—but their resentment and objection is to some extent mollified if they feel that the money being raised by taxes is being efficiently spent on objectives which it is socially desirable and just that they should be spent upon.
  Having sat through this debate, it appears to me that there is a fundamental dividing line between the two sides of the Committee. Speaking for myself—and I suspect that I can speak for many of my hon. Friends in this—I do not regard any Government as giving away money if they merely take less of other people's money. I do not regard the Government as giving anything to a man who has earned 20s. if they take 6s. instead of 7s. 9d. out of his earnings. All that they have done is to leave him with more of what he earned. They are certainly not giving anything away. Hon. Members opposite sincerely believe that the Government are giving something away when they enable people to retain a little more of their own money.
  I congratulate the Chancellor for increasing the lower limit of Surtax liability, although I am not a beneficiary from this action. If a nettle of this kind is to be grasped—if we grant that there is any justification for it—it is much better that it should be done in one fell swoop than in a series of bites year after year. I have little doubt that if the Chancellor had raised the lower limit by £1,000 a year over the next three Budgets it would have been said that he was endeavouring to obtain the most protracted possible political advantage, whereas by taking the whole increase in one year he has exposed himself to the same criticism as he would otherwise have done while getting less political kudos for it.
  The Budget is the first one, in my recollection, under which we can expect
  1080
  to have a flexible rate of indirect taxation. I realise the advantages of this, but there is one question which I should be grateful if the Financial Secretary would answer. There are many industries, such as the aircraft industry, which sign contracts today for goods they will deliver in two or three years' time. In addition, they have wage escalation clauses in their contracts, so that if the basic wage rates increase by a certain amount, then the total price of the contract is escalated to some formula.
  Unfortunately, the imposition of the 4s. payroll tax will not be brought within the provision of the wage escalation clauses, and the tendency, therefore, will be for the manufacturer concerned to assume that the 4s. charge will be put on, in his basic pricing. If the 4s. tax is not put on, he may have endeavoured to sell at too high a cost, but if he ignores it, he will probably get bitten. It would probably be more helpful if we could find some formula by which this surcharge could be included in the wage costs and an allowance made for it in taxation, or perhaps in another way, to enable contracts which are subject to wage escalation clauses to be able to account for the 4s. tax.
  8.32 p.m.
  Mr. E. Fernyhough: The hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) said that there was a great gulf between the two sides of the Committee—and this debate has made that both obvious and apparent. He said that he would not be a beneficiary under this Budget from the Surtax concession. In that respect he will be one of the few exceptions on that side of the Committee. The vast majority of hon. Members opposite will, of course, benefit personally from this Budget. On the other hand, the vast majority of my hon. Friends will not benefit from this Budget, which is one of the great gulfs between us. Those of my hon. Friends who will benefit will, nevertheless, be voting against this proposal largely because they see the unfairness of it in present day circumstances.
  The hon. Member made an appeal for more protection for the agricultural industry. Of all the interests which have had a generous supply of public "lolly", the hon. Gentleman had to select the agricultural industry. That industry is

  1081
  like Oliver Twist; it is always asking for more. In the main the agricultural industry has a Government which is very friendly disposed to its interests, and all that some of us ask is that the Government should display from time to time the same measure of interest and sympathy towards some of our other industries which are passing through difficult times.
  One thing is very obvious from this Budget; there is not going to be an election this year. It is perfectly obvious that the Chancellor thinks he is likely to remain in that post a lot longer than have most of his predecessors and on that assumption has staked his claim. He is thinking ahead. He is looking towards Downing Street. He is assuming that because the Prime Minister is no longer the grand "pin-up boy" he used to be to hon. Gentleman opposite—perhaps because he allowed South Africa to go out of the Commonwealth—and because the Colonial Secretary is no longer in the running for Premiership because of the decency with which he has acted in Central Africa, he has the greatest chance of being the Prime Minister's successor.
  He has been demonstrating to the backwoodsmen, the real Tories, on his side of the Committee that he is a real Tory and, given the opportunity, will put a real Tory policy into operation. That is precisely what he is doing in the Budget. This is supposed to be an incentive Budget, but we had an incentive Budget in 1957; I remember the right hon. Member for Monmouth (Mr. Thorneycroft) introducing an incentive Budget, as Chancellor, in 1957, and I remember taking part in the debate. The consequences of that incentive Budget were that twelve months later we had an economic and financial crisis.
  Mr. W. A. Wilkins: And three resignations.
  Mr. Fernyhough: We are rather suspicious of this Budget. We are not at all certain that these incentives will work any more than they worked on the last occasion. On the last occasion the language which was used was addressed not so much to those in the export trade in particular as to the whole breed of managerial people who had to be encouraged. Those were the people who had to have incentives to bring about
  1082
  increased production and increased exports. The incentives had a very brief and fleeting success, and within twelve months the man who had introduced that Budget had to come to the House to ask us to agree to impositions which would tighten the reins, put on the brake and slow down the economy, because we were again in a bit of a jam.
  The present Chancellor expects that raising the Surtax level from £2,000 to £5,000 will lead to a great increase in our export trade and will give encouragement to those men who alone can do this job of exporting, but, as has been pointed out, many lawyers will benefit from this concession and, while I have no disrespect for lawyers, I do not know that they make a great contribution to the export trade. The hon. Member for Portsmouth, Langstone (Mr. Stevens) said that he was a very experienced accountant, and no doubt he is a very wise accountant. No doubt he pays Surtax, but I do not know what he does to boost British exports. If there is a strike of accountants, I do not know that the British export trade will suffer either directly or indirectly as a consequence. But he is one of those who are to be given an incentive.
  Mr. Diamond: Does not my hon. Friend realise that if there were a strike of accountants the whole economy of the country would immediately be brought to a standstill?
  Mr. Fernyhough: I am aware of the important strategic position which accountants hold throughout British economic life and how it would automatically come to a standstill if for some reason or another they lost the use of their right hands.
  There is another category—the film stars. Judging from the contracts they make for £100,000 and £200,000, I assume that they come within the category of Surtax payers. Will they make a great contribution towards increasing our exports? Then there are the rock 'n' roll singers, some of whom receive £1,000 a week. I am not a great lover of them, though my children are, and I cannot feel that they will make a great contribution to our export trade. There are also the gentlemen known as Mr. Clore and Mr. Fraser. I understand that they are in this category of Surtax

  1083
  payers. I do not expect that they are making any great contribution now or are likely to make one to our export trade. But every one of these people will benefit from the Budget. They will all have substantial increases in their personal incomes as a result of the Budget proposals.
  I say to the Economic Secretary to the Treasury and to hon. and right hon. Members opposite that it is something disgraceful, mean and utterly indefensible that in a week when the Government propose to relieve Surtax payers we should be discussing the imposition of additional charges on orange juice and other welfare foods. It is contemptible, mean and indefensible.
  Mr. Diamond: Offensive.
  Mr. Fernyhough: Yes, it is offensive to decency and good taste that in a week when we have had a Budget which will give substantial relief to Surtax payers the Government are bringing forward an Order which will enable them to increase the price of orange juice, cod liver oil and welfare milk for babies.
  Mr. Wilkins: That is Toryism.
  Mr. Fernyhough: Many of us argued very strongly a month or six weeks ago against the poll tax in the increased National Insurance contributions, but we were told that it had nothing to do with this Budget. Now we know that within a few pounds the amount that the Chancellor is collecting in increased Insurance contributions he is disbursing to the Surtax payers. The amounts are almost identical, but the Chancellor says that that is not so and that what the Government are giving to the Surtax payers they will collect by means of an increase of 2½ per cent. on Profits Tax.
  When we on this side of the Committee argue, as we have done many times, that the profits of big business go to relatively few people, hon. Members opposite tell us that we completely misunderstand the general ownership of British industry and that in the main industry is owned by very small shareholders, by little people. We are given figures to show how many shareholders there are in these large companies. If that assertion is true, what the Chancellor and the Government are doing is
  1084
  again to collect money from the little people in order to give it to the big people, to take from the people who are not so well-off in order to give to the people who are too well-off. But that is the argument that hon. and right hon. Members opposite have always used when we have raised this question about profits.
  The Budget shows the Government's complete lack of faith in the ordinary people of this country. It shows a tremendous faith by the Government in what I will term the extraordinary people of this country. I do not know from memory how many Surtax payers there are. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mr. Diamond) will tell me.
  Mr. Diamond: Three hundred thousand.
  Mr. Fernyhough: There are probably 20 million taxpayers. What the Budget in essence is saying is this. The future of Britain depends upon 300,000 Surtax payers. Whatever contribution the other 20 million are making, they are not half as important as the 300,000. Only the efforts of the 300,000 can help the nation out of its economic and financial difficulties. Only the 300,000 can, as it were, save us. No matter what the efforts of the rest may be and no matter how enthusiastic and willing they are, they cannot possibly equal the importance of the 300,000.
  That is utter nonsense. I believe it is the men on the farms, in the shipyards, in the factories and in productive concerns in general who have to be enthused and made to believe that they are important, otherwise there will not be the positive results which are very necessary if we are to overcome our difficulties. They are the people who create the wealth. I have always said that there is no wealth except that which comes from labour. We should soon see how important the 300,000 are if the other 20 million threatened to do what my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester mentioned in relation to accountants, namely, down tools. The wealth produced then would not be enough to provide any surplus to be disbursed to Surtax payers.
  I now turn to the payroll tax. If one reads the Chancellor of the Exchequer's speech carefully, it is obvious that he is

  1085
  very anxious to restrain public expenditure. The poll tax will be imposed upon all employers in respect of all employees covered by the National Insurance. I take it that that is right.
  The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Sir Edward Boyle): Will the hon. Gentleman say that again?
  Mr. Fernyhough: I take it that the poll tax will be levied upon employers of all who pay National Insurance.
  Sir E. Boyle: That is correct.
  Mr. Fernyhough: If the Chancellor of the Exchequer decides that the time has come to use this regulation, what would it mean? The Government will have to increase their own expenditure automatically. They will have to charge 4s. for every man in the Army, 4s. for every man in the Navy, 4s. for every man in the Air Force, and 4s. for every civil servant.
  Mr. Hale: Four shillings for every admiral.
  Mr. Fernyhough: It is amazing. There must be several million Government and local authority employees. If it means £1 million a week for the Government and local authorities, it will amount to £50 million a year increased Government expenditure. This will be incurred at a time when the Government are trying to damp down. The only way the Government can damp down is by themselves demanding more from the employers. This will obviously increase costs. The imposition of this 4s. will have just the same effect on exports as a wage increase.
  There is no need for the Government to do this. This is not a completely new idea. I remember that when the National Insurance Bill was introduced in 1947–48, the suggestion in the Beveridge Report was that we should increase or decrease the charge in accordance with the economic needs of the nation at the time. There was no need at all for the Government to bring in this new regulation. They could have accepted the principle that Beveridge laid down—an idea to which I think we as the Government at that time readily agreed. It was the idea that purchasing power should be withdrawn or released according to the economic needs of the nation at any given time. I think
  1086
  that would be a much more sensible proposition than what the right hon. and learned Gentleman has done.
  What he is saying, in essence, is in contradiction of the practice of the decent firms, which, when times have become a little difficult, appreciate the services which they had from their employees and do not want immediately to chuck them on the scrap heap. He is saying that there should be no sentiment of that kind at all in British industry, that no firm should have regard to the services which men and women have given it, should have no regard for their loyalty, but should immediately, if placed in that position, get rid of any individual without any regard for what that individual has done or the services he has given, and put him on the street.
  What is the purpose of this? The idea, it is said, is in order to make labour fluid. Suppose the Chancellor got 100 men from my own constituency tonight and drives them to Birmingham. Where do they go? If there were houses there, the problem would not be quite so acute. If Birmingham had the school places for their children, the problem would be not so acute. Everybody knows that it is monstrous to expect men to tear themselves up by their roots and transfer themselves almost to a foreign country, as it were, without having the facilities of a home available to them and school facilities being available to their children. Why should not the Government, instead of treating men like chattels to be moved here and there as if they were railway wagons, think in terms of planning our economy so as to take industry to the places where the men are, where services and schools are available, the areas where the men have been born and reared, the areas where they belong and where they have their roots? Would it not be much more sensible and more human than treating men as if they were railway wagons to be shunted from one end of the country to the other?
  I want also to refer to the other regulator which the Chancellor proposes to introduce, that concerning a 10 per cent. increase or decrease in Customs and Excise Duties and Purchase Tax to operate at the whim of the Government. This is something new. All that we can

  1087
  do is to put down a Prayer against the imposition of £200 million of taxation. It has been a longstanding historical Parliamentary privilege not to grant Supply until grievances have been remedied, but this is a new innovation. The Government are going to take £200 million of Supply after 1½ hours of debate. That is all we shall have on any Order laid by the Government in respect of this new regulator.
  Mr. Diamond: And no Amendments.
  Sir E. Boyle: I am glad to clear up this point, because we are now in the realm of Parliamentary procedure. The hon. Gentleman should certainly not assume that if the Government sought to use this regulator the debate on it would be confined to the same length of time as the debate on a Prayer, between ten o'clock and half-past eleven. I have not the slightest doubt—this would be a matter of discussion through the usual channels—that ample time will be given to hon. Members to discuss the necessary Order. I am sure that that would be the desire of the overwhelming majority of hon. Members on both sides.
  Mr. Fernyhough: The point is that we shall not be able to amend the proposals. Whether we have more than 1½ hours in which to debate the matter will depend on the generosity or otherwise of the Government. If they say that they are not prepared to suspend the Rule, then we shall be tied to 1½ hours.
  Mr. Dan Jones: It will be a mere formality.
  Mr. Fernyhough: This is creating a new and grave precedent. It has never been accepted that the Government should have Supply without hon. Members having the right of redress of grievances.
  Mr. Hale: Cannot we move an Amendment to leave out cotton?
  Mr. Fernyhough: As has been said, I am certain that there will be no possibility of amendment, and, unless the Government make it perfectly clear in the next two days that it is not their intention to confine discussion on the affirmative Resolution to 1½ hours, then we shall have no guarantees. Whoever
  1088
  may lay the order may not be as generously disposed in the allocation of Government time as the Financial Secretary.
  Hon. Members opposite have spoken about the confidence with which the Chancellor of the Exchequer introduced his Budget, saying how far-seeing a man he is. He has, however, left himself the possibility of error to the tune of about £600 million a year. There can be a plus or minus of £200 million with regard to Customs and Excise Duties and Purchase Tax. That can make a difference of £400 million in any period. In addition, there is the £200 million which can result from this new payroll tax of 4s. a week. This makes a total of £600 million with which the Government will be able to play, as it were, in any one year. The fact that they have planned matters so that they can have margins of error of up to £600 million a year with which to play shows how certain their forecasts are and how uncertain they are of the road which they propose to tread in future.
  I do not believe for a moment that the Government are half as confident about the future as many hon. Members opposite have suggested.
  Sir E. Boyle: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for allowing me to interrupt him again, because I think that this is a quite important point. The economic situation in terms of the pressure of demand can change very rapidly between the spring and autumn. It happened when hon. Members opposite were in power. I invite the hon. Gentleman to compare the speech which introduced the Budget of April, 1947, with the speech which introduced what I will call the noble Lord, Lord Dalton's, posthumous Budget at the end of 1947. There is nothing wrong about a Government being forced to take a fresh look at the economic situation in the autumn, when economic forces may have developed in a way which it was impossible to foresee some months earlier. This has happened to all Governments in turn.
  Mr. Hale: It has been subject to amendment in the past.
  Mr. Fernyhough: The point is that it was a separate Budget on which we had prolonged discussion, but here, by

  1089
  laying two orders, the Government are able to determine what the level of taxation shall be in any given year to the tune of £600 million, because they can increase it from minus ten to plus ten at one fell swoop. On top of that, they can impose the payroll tax.
  The Chancellor of the Exchequer yesterday expressed the hope that in the forthcoming year the public sector would not increase its demands by more than 3 per cent. What will happen to the local authorities in the next 12 months? The Financial Secretary to the Treasury has been at the Ministry of Education. He must know that within the next three or six months, the teachers are bound to get a substantial increase in pay. Not one out of 10,000 teachers is a Surtax payer, and yet we all know how important the teachers are and the part that they must play in shaping the future. Therefore, given this Budget, with its relief for Surtax payers, and given the need for additional teachers and the need to retain existing teachers, it is obvious that it will be difficult for the Burnham Committee to grant much less than £100 a year on top of the existing basic rates.
  If we consider the part which education plays and the demands that it makes on local rates, we are bound to acknowledge that an increase of that character would substantially increase the expenditure of the local authorities. That one fact in itself will go a long way towards the limit of 3 per cent. which the Chancellor is anxious to impose upon the increase of expenditure by the public sector.
  After the Budget is over, hon. Members on the Government side, as well as on this side—I do not blame them—will all be advancing their pet theories why more should be spent on various services—roads, the Health Service, and so on. If we have a large increase in educational expenditure which cannot be staved off, plus even minor increases for roads and various other services, how will it be possible for the Chancellor to restrict to 3 per cent. the increase in the public services if they are not to be stultified and allowed to stagnate?
  The only thing in the Budget that pleased me was the little bit of assurance that was given to the shipping industry. I am not pleading my own case. I have
  1090
  no personal interest in shipping. I am pleading the case of men whose lives are bound up with it. That is the purpose for which I am here. I have no share in the industry.[Interruption.] It affects not only my constituency. I do not represent the Clyde, Belfast or Merseyside. The problem is a national and not a local one. Therefore, we are entitled to ask what is being done.
  I am not satisfied with what the Chancellor of the Exchequer is doing in general, but we welcome the small, specific assurance which he gave. It will not solve our problems, however. Much more has to be done for the shipping industry, and more serious thought must be given to its future than the Government has given up to now.
  Members opposite talk about costs. They are always able to quote the case of some small continental shipyard which has beaten us for a little contract. They never quote the case of the Americans, however. American labour costs for shipbuilding are twice as high as the British. Yet it is the United States which is the greatest menace to the future well-being of the British shipping industry, because it is their flag discrimination and subsidies which make it impossible for our industry to flourish.
  The Chancellor has just left the foreign Office, and before that he was at the Ministry of Defence. During all those years he attended N.A.T.O. meetings, and the allies were united for military purposes. But it seems to me that economically they are trying to cut one another's throats because, of course, the two nations which have done most damage to British shipping, Greece and the United States, are both members of N.A.T.O. I hope that, in addition to military talks in N.A.T.O., in future we might discuss economic matters as well, and try to shout a little louder than we have done for the interests of this great industry of ours.
  We need exports. That being so, I hope that, in the days of the Russian man in space, we no longer think that there is any kind of strategic goods which we can keep from them that would further their military purposes. I apply that same test to China. What utter stupidity and nonsense it is for us, in these days, to believe that there is anything that we can keep back from the Communist countries which would

  1091
  enable them to strengthen their military position and without which we weaken them. We are cutting our own throats again by doing this, because we force them in these circumstances to produce goods they are unable to obtain from us, turning them into our competitors instead of our customers.
  The Budget shows a complete lack of faith in the British people. It believes that the future of our country is dependent upon what I would call a few supermen. We are no longer a nation of one people. We have gone back to Disraeli's time, when we were two nations. I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will not remain in his office for three Budgets if the two which are to follow are to be as unfair and as unjust to the vast majority of our people as this one is.
  9.9 p.m.
  Mr. R. E. Prentice: My hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Mr. Fernyhough) has made a wide attack on several aspects of the Budget, some of which I want to follow, but I begin by saying something about an aspect of the problem which featured in earlier speeches—the question of economic growth and the despondent attitude of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the President of the Board of Trade, and back benchers opposite generally towards it.
  Listening to the Chancellor yesterday, I thought "that he was simply saying that a faster degree of economic growth was one of many desirable objectives, and that he was not giving it any higher priority than did his predecessors. I felt that he was not recognising that our record, compared with that of practically every other industrial country, is bad and urgently needs improving. I thought that the President of the Board of Trade was speaking in a way even more damaging to the cause of economic growth in that he was deliberately trying to deride the priority which we on these benches give to the subject.
  He was making rather cheap cracks about what he called "growthmanship". I could not help remembering Mr. Richard Nixon making the same cracks in the United States. We know what happened to him and it seems that our Conservatives deserve a similar fate. The
  1092
  central fact is that in recent years every country in Western Europe, with the exception of Belgium, has had a better record than we have in expansion of the national product. The Soviet Union has a better record than any. The United States, whose record to some extent has been disappointing, has now obviously turned over a new leaf. It is significant that in Mr. Kennedy's first message to Congress, despite the fact that America is facing many problems including a balance of payments problem, he put expansion of the American economy as the first priority in his first paragraph.
  It seems that if the British Government do not change their attitude we shall be left further and further behind and become more and more a sort of economic backwater in an expanding world. We shall pay an increasing price for that, a price in terms of low pensions, in terms of slums, in terms of school buildings which are out of date, our position in the world and our inability to help the under-developed parts of the world in the way we wish to help, and also a price in the terms of the standard of life of the people of this country.
  This is a matter of the greatest possible importance. Yesterday the Chancellor ought to have issued a clarion call on these points. The President of the Board of Trade also tried to make a debating point. He said that on this side of the Committee we are inclined to compare our record with Germany and that Germany was a free enterprise country which did not adopt the sort of policies in which we on this side of the Committee believe. This sort of debating trick has been used before by Government spokesmen. The fact is that we have a bad record in this respect compared with practically every industrial country. A country like Germany, which is a free enterprise country, a country like France, which also is a free enterprise country but with a very advanced degree of economic planning, the Scandinavian countries with Social Democratic Governments and the Soviet Union with a Communist Government—countries of all political complexions are doing better than Britain with a Conservative Government.
  The President of the Board of Trade also asked us what we would do about the problem of growth. It is fair to

  1093
  say that it is obvious that the Government of this country, no matter who they are, should take the shackles off the enterprise of British people and enable the economy to expand in the way in which it naturally will expand if they do not rely on high Bank Rate, credit squeeze and matters of that sort. The lesson of recent years is that a modern industrial country in a scientific age will expand its output year by year. One of the main reasons why Britain has not done so in the way in which other countries have is that from time to time the Government have put the brakes on deliberately. The first thing which should be done is to rely on methods of policy which do not include putting the brakes on the productive enterprise of the British people.
  The second very simple step which should be taken is to declare an objective in terms of economic growth—it may be 5 per cent. or even something better—and say that this is a priority which we shall seek to achieve, and make our other problems come into line with that. The fact that that has been done in countries like France, Italy, Japan and elsewhere has meant that expansion has taken place. Thousands of people are making decisions large and small, industrial decisions, decisions on the value of investment on the level of training, which are geared to the Government's overall concept of economic expansion. The lesson is that free enterprise economy can expand in that way if the Government say that it is their priority that the expansion should take place.
  The third thing which is necessary is that the Government should show their determination to intervene in the economy at strategic points so that the expansion should go forward, so that we should have enough investment, and so that we should expand our training of skilled people and do the other things necessary to produce this growth.
  I agree with what my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) said this afternoon, that the proposals of the Chancellor were almost completely irrelevant to this central problem of achieving a higher rate of growth and an improvement in the standards of living in this country. I should, however, like to examine some of the proposals made by the
  1094
  Chancellor, in particular this concept of a payroll tax.
  I see from The Times this morning that the proceedings of a meeting of Conservative back benchers last night leaked to the papers rather in the way in which proceedings of the Parliamentary Labour Party have leaked to the Press. It seems that the Chancellor had a rough passage on this proposal.
  The Times said:
  "Nobody seems to have come out with any support for the proposed contingent payroll tax, and nobody seemed able last night to conceive of it as much more than a vague threat that may be enforced in hypothetical circumstances to make labour more mobile."
  Further in the story there is something which is even more unkind. It says:
  "In fact, some back benchers got the impression that he had not yet had time to think this device out to its logical conclusion.
  There is even a doubt about what this particular regulator is mainly intended to do."
  Certainly in his speech yesterday and in the speech of the President of the Board of Trade today the House was not enlightened on what this proposal was meant to achieve.
  I want to put certain questions which I hope will be answered during the debates this week. First, can this kind of proposal work as a flexible regulator on the economy? The point has been made in some newspapers this morning that, if the Chancellor is relying on the National Insurance machinery to collect this payroll tax, it takes so long to operate that if he is trying to apply it to a given situation his remedy will not work in time. It is pointed out that, if past experience is any guide, a change in National Insurance contributions involves a delay of three months or more before it can come into effect.
  I am not sure if that is a valid objection. It may not be, because when one speaks of previous experience of changing National Insurance contributions, the previous changes have usually involved the employee's contribution and also changes in benefit and they cause obviously a more complicated operation than a flat-rate contribution by the employer of 4s. per employee. Perhaps, therefore, this objection has no validity. I merely say that the objection has been made, and that the Committee ought to be told more about the methods to be employed, because if the criticisms are correct, if

  1095
  it will take three months to operate, this method will have very little value as a means of regulating the economy in the way which was suggested yesterday.
  My second point is that, supposing the imposition of a 4s. per week tax is made on every employee, and supposing it does have a large effect in the way that is intended, that is, that employers should devote more of their resources to capital investment rather than to their labour force, surely this will defeat its own object? The Chancellor said that this was a measure to be taken at a time of inflation to be a counter-inflationary measure.
  If it is a measure which has the effect of pushing up capital investment, that in itself has an inflationary trend. The usual purpose of the Government is to damp down investment in inflationary periods and stimulate it during periods when the economy is going through a sluggish phase. If this is to be an effective measure, it might to some extent defeat its own object, but I am inclined to agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins) that it will not be very effective one way or the other on inflationary trend.
  Even assuming that the Chancellor was able to achieve his general objective through this payroll tax, it is still open to some very serious objections. It is open to the same objections as the Bank Rate and other monetary methods which the right hon. and learned Gentleman is seeking to replace. It is essentially a blunt and not a selective instrument. As my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition said yesterday, it will apply to the whole country. It will apply to areas of heavy local unemployment as well as areas of full employment. Secondly, as my right hon. Friend pointed out, it applies to all industries, to those which are bound to have a big ratio of labour to capital as well as to those with a smaller ratio of labour to capital. It will, therefore, push up the costs of industries like mining, where labour is a big element.
  Mr. George Craddock: As this is most likely to cause a rise in the cost of production, does it not automatically follow that the cost will be passed on to the consumer?
  Mr. Prentice: I agree. What is more, because it applies particularly heavily to those industries where the labour force is large, it may push up the prices of those industries where a rise in price is most damaging to the economy. For example, a rise in the price of coal affects prices throughout the economy. This is not the sort of measure in which the Government can discriminate between one industry and another. Those points were made by my right hon. Friend yesterday, and I add two others.
  If the Chancellor is trying to introduce a measure which will encourage employers to go in for more capital investment, more automation and so on, he seems to have lost sight of the fact that there are many industries and services to which that cannot apply. The driving of a bus cannot be automated, and yet a tax of this kind will apply to transport undertakings and will have the effect of pushing up fares. The same thing will apply to many other services, with no benefit to the economy.
  I also want the Committee to consider this proposed tax in relation to the employment position of young people. Just before the Chancellor began his Budget statement yesterday, my hon. Friends from Scotland were giving the Minister of Labour a hammering about the youth employment problem of Scotland, particularly about the employment prospects of the bulge in school leavers later this year and in the ensuing two years.
  This is a social problem of the greatest possible dimensions. This year, five young people are leaving school for every four who left school last year, and there will be an even greater increase next year. Hundreds of thousands of extra young people will be looking for work in the next few years.
  I ask the Committee to consider the effect of a payroll tax of this kind on such a situation. Employers will be reluctant to take on new labour, and, before making anyone redundant, an employer will decide not to take on new labour. If this sort of measure is applied during the period when the bulge is spilling out on to the labour market, the first victims are likely to be the school leavers. There is already difficulty about finding jobs in Scotland

  1097
  and the North-East Coast and some other areas for school leavers before the bulge comes on the labour market, and measures of this kind could have the most unhappy social consequences for a whole generation of school leavers this year and next year and, to some extent, in the two years after that.
  In this matter the Chancellor has made entirely the wrong diagnosis. He has suggested that there is a chronic shortage of labour. I do not believe that generalisation to be true. There is a shortage of labour in some areas and a surplus of labour in others. In the next year or two, the surplus may be increased both because of the bulge in school leavers and the ending of National Service, and we may have an increasing unemployment problem in some parts of the country. In any event, the total number of unemployed is a figure about which the Government should not be complacent. For many years since the war it was below 300,000, but over the last year or so it has been between 350,000 and 400,000, a figure about which there is no cause for complacency.
  There is a chronic shortage of skilled labour. In many areas the shortage of skilled labour is a bottleneck. We have a shortage of skilled labour combined with the unemployment of many people without skill. This is a problem which may grow. With increasing automation and new skills developing, we may see this as an increasing problem. In the next twenty years or so it is likely that there will be great difficulty in finding jobs for the unskilled and that there will be an increasing shortage of skilled labour.
  Instead of proposing this tax, the Government should have proposed a levy on firms which employ skilled labour in order to create a fund out of which they would pay a rebate to firms with good apprenticeship training schemes and good schemes for training generally. This system has been working in France for some years and has had the effect of stimulating industrial training in France.
  The bulge in the school leavers is a problem which concerns employment, but it is also a tremendous opportunity for this country to train in a short period an extra number of people to become skilled workers. It is a once for all never
  1098
  to be repeated opportunity of increasing the skilled working population of this country. These measure should have been put forward in the Finance Bill this year. The Minister of Labour had some glimmering of the truth of this matter. Speaking at a luncheon recently, he suggested that industry might like to consider the possibility of a voluntary training levy to be administered by industry itself.
  The bulge starts with those leaving school at the end of this summer, and if anything is to be done, it should be done now by the Government and be part of the Finance Bill. I am sure that a move of this kind would be beneficial to the economy.
  I have two further comments on the Budget. First, it seems to me to be a very unimaginative Budget in that the opportunity was not taken to alter many of the rates of indirect taxation. One would have thought that a number of social problems could have been eased and assisted at this moment by changes. I will not develop that now, but these are matters to which many of us will return when discussing the Finance Bill. When one thinks of the plight of the passenger transport industry, there is a very strong case for relieving that industry of the tax on diesel oil, vehicle licences and so on. There is the growing problem of bus routes being curtailed, and a growing crisis in regard to the rates of pay of those in the passenger transport industry.
  One would also have thought that something would have been done to reduce or remove Purchase Tax on gramophone records and musical instruments. I should have thought that something could have been done to remove the tax on safety footwear and clothing in the industry generally. In his last report the Chief Inspector of Factories has drawn attention to the growing number of industrial accidents, and the need for people to use specially designed safety footwear and clothing, and it seems anomalous that the Government should continue to tax these items.
  I conclude with a general comment upon the central proposal to relieve Surtax payers. I agree with what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Stechford, that there may be a case for

  1099
  tax relief at least for the lower ranges of Surtax payers, looking at the merits of that proposal in isolation. But one of my criticisms of Government measures is that very little has been done for those in the lowest taxation ranges. Help has been concentrated upon those who are very much higher up, in the Surtax scale. Many of us would have found no objection to a relief of Surtax if it had been accompanied by a capital gains tax, or had been paid for by a general increase in the national product, which would have yielded an extra amount to the Exchequer. What hon. Members on this side of the Committee find repugnant is the fact that these Surtax concessions are related to the whole range of extra social taxes imposed by the Government in recent months.
  We must consider this question in the context of the Health Service charges and the new graduated pension scheme, which is a form of tax upon the middle range of wage earners, and in the context of the shabby treatment of pensioners, especially those on National Assistance. When we do that we are forced to the conclusion that the Budget is merely part of the Government's programme for redistributing our wealth; that it is a Conservative Budget in the worst sense of the word, in that it is deliberately designed, along with the other measures to which I have referred, to redistribute our wealth in favour of those upon whom the Conservative Party rely for their financial and electoral support.
  This is a bad Budget. Hon. Members on this side of the Committee believe in the concept of social equality. We do not say that everybody should be paid the same wages. When we talk about equality we do not mean uniformity. We believe in different rewards, but we believe that the differences should be justified by real differences in skill or responsibility, and should not be so great that the essential dignity and status of men and women, as men and women, are destroyed by the class differences and differences of wealth which disfigure our society at present. It is because those differences are increased by this Budget and the measures related to it that most of us feel that it is a bad Budget and that we must fight it by all the methods open to us.
  9.33 p.m.
  Mr. David Price: Today's debate opened with the sparkle of die right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson), who fascinated the Committee with his usual versatility as the Chan Canasta of the Commons. It is my purpose that the debate shall not end with a turgid whimper. Having taken part in Budget debates for the last six years, I have come to the conclusion that one of the persistent difficulties that we experience as a nation in facing our economic problems is our continued failure to agree upon economic priorities. We have too many economic aims, all worthy in themselves, without having a sufficient sense of priorities.
  Let us consider a number of the aims put forward in this Committee, and generally agree with. They are so numerous that they make nonsense of the conception of priorities. We aim at economic growth. We have the aim of a higher standard of living. We draw back and ask how we are to achieve that. We then consider our balance of payments position, and we have the aim to improve that. We have the aim to foster our reserves and the aim to increase our exports. All the time we require full employment, and we want an increased percentage of the national product to go to capital investment. Meanwhile, we ask for stable prices.
  We all want increased public expenditure, but it is equally true that we shall not agree on what precise sector of public expenditure since each one of us has his pet scheme. We all ask for reduced taxation, but we should disagree about the particular fields in which we individually would like to see that reduction. Nevertheless, we all agree on the general aim of a reduction in taxation. Some right hon. and hon. Gentlemen talk about redistribution of income, yet we may even argue in which direction that should take place. Those are just some of the economic aims—but the question is: which of them shall have priority?
  I am an unrepentant expansionist, but where I differ from the views of the hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) is that I realise that our growth is dependent on our ability to earn our way in the world. The hon. Gentleman made reference to France as an example of where, allowing the balance of payments consideration to go to the wind

  1101
  and not bothering anything about stable prices, there had been sound economic growth. True, there has been an impressive growth in France, but let us remember that France feeds herself. Even paying due attention to what my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) said, we must remember that this country cannot feed herself. Moreover, anyone who knows the facts about France will recognise the very high price in social injustice paid through the degree of inflation from which the French have suffered. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Old-ham, West (Mr. Hale) talks about what the rentier in Britain has suffered from 3½ per cent. stock, but that is nothing compared with the rentier in France. Let us remember the price paid by French society for that rate of growth.
  I believe the key lies not in anything that was said yesterday, but in a paragraph on page 10 of the Economic Survey, which states:
  "Endeavours by Government and industry to foster the growth of the economy will succeed only if they are also designed to improve the country's competitive power. Growth and competitiveness can never be separated."
  This. I believe, should be the key to all our economic priorities. Growth and competitiveness can indeed never be separated, and if we can agree on that we might be getting somewhere.
  Mr. Prentice: The point I wanted to make was this; the hon. Member made a special comparison between the French problem and our own and the President of the Board of Trade this afternoon compared Germany with ourselves. The point is that the British record is exceptional compared with the success of almost every other industrial country.
  Mr. Price: I mentioned France because the hon. Member for East Ham, North quoted it in aid of his argument. If I had the time I would be prepared to argue on any occasion with the hon. Gentleman through the particular conditions of any country he wishes to name. That does not mean that I am smug or content. The hon. Gentleman knows that I play no rôle of Taper or Tadpole to the Patronage Secretary or the Chancellor.
  We must consider the nature of our highly exposed island economy with the rising nations of Asia and Africa, who are beginning to manufacture the raw
  1102
  materials which feed our industries. We must concentrate on the capital intensive industries whose products have a high added value on the cost of the raw material we have to import to feed those industries.
  There are two features of the fiscal system to which I was should like to see my right hon. Friend the Chancellor put his mind during the forthcoming year. One is the method of industrial rating which puts the bias entirely against the capital intense industry and in favour of the labour intense industry. The second is that I would like him to give further consideration to allowing companies to determine their own rate of depreciation, a point which was touched upon by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Huyton.
  Secondly, I am a little disturbed at the over-free use by both Front Benches of the word "productivity" as if the only consideration in productivity is the use of labour. Productivity is the use of all resources. I want to see in the Economic Survey and in the speeches of the right hon. Member for Huyton some consideration of the use of capital, because it is my view that one thing from which we have suffered in certain industries is an unproductive use of capital. Over the years I want to see an increase in our capital investment, but I also want to see our capital used efficiently and effectively, and too frequently, within the knowledge of all hon. Members, that is not being done.
  The hon. Member for East Ham, North mentioned the need for more skilled men. How right he was. I believe that the shortage of highly skilled men is one of the biggest brakes upon the expansion and growth which many of us would like to see. I believe that he is right to point out—I wish that he had developed it further—the need for trade unions and managements alike to take a modern view of apprenticeship. I speak with a little authority and a little personal experience in these matters. The rules about apprenticeship, the age at which one starts and the length of the apprenticeship may be appropriate to a few of the old bicycle shops in the back streets of Birmingham, but they are quite unsuited to progressive modern industry, and they ignore entirely all the development which has taken place in

  1103
  recent years in the technique of education and instruction.
  As the right hon. Member for Huyton said, we need more scientifically trained men, but we need them not only in their scientific role. We need the scientific spirit to infuse the whole of management and, above all, to infuse the Civil Service and Government, where I am afraid that I find it a little lacking.
  We need better selling techniques. It is curious the way in which the Briton, and particularly the Scotsman, have an ability to go to Africa and Asia and, during a career in the Colonial Service, to learn up to ten almost impossible dialects, but show a singular stubbornness about learning a beautiful language such as French or Italian. I believe that we must take our languages far more seriously and that this is very germane to increasing our exports.
  I want to see an improvement in transport, particularly in the docks, and I hope that the Minister of Labour will bring both sides of the docks industry together to discuss how they can ensure that the conditions of employment and of the introduction of machinery are in terms of the 'sixties and of the space age and not of the dockers' strike for the dockers' tanner in the 'nineties.
  To sum up my view, I believe that we need more incentives and more deterrents, and I believe that there is looming internationally the best incentive and the best deterrent for our economy—the jolt for which the hon. Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Roy Jenkins) was calling: that is when we face the decision of joining the European Economic Community. I believe that this will inject just that degree of competition in our economy which we need. I believe that it will provide the new dynamism which we need. I hope that my right hon. Friends are in no way lacking in courage and that if President Kennedy, in conjunction with the Prime Minister, is able to persuade President de Gaulle to take a slightly more constructive view, my right hon. Friends will produce a new form of entente cordiale, and that we shall go into the Common Market. I tremble for this country's position twenty years hence if we are excluded from this new and exciting economic and political association of nations.
  1104
  We are all concerned about exports. That has been the theme of the debate. Particularly are we concerned about the rôle of the small and medium-sized business. My hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls) asked for fiscal incentives to export. I believe that this is not "on", because we have made a great deal of effort to try to persuade other countries to give up these forms of export incentives, and above all because we have put our name as a nation to many international agreements which preclude them. Whatever may be done by other countries, I hope that we have enough honour left to try to stand by the treaties to which we have put our signature.
  The real incentives to exporters are two-fold. The first is when one cannot break even on the home market. There is nothing like it as an incentive to export. The second is where there is an incentive to make more profits but I believe, and I have smelled it a little in this debate, that there is a national attitude towards selling which is rather unhealthy. It is what I would refer to as an unholy alliance of the aristrocratic Right and the intellectual Left in the general conception that selling is a little dirty and that it is not done by "us", it is done by "them". I am one of "them" who sell and I believe that we must have public support for our exports. I look to the day when this nation will be as enthusiastic about the export effort in a particular year, or as depressed if it has not gone up, as our Victorian forebears were about the condition of the Royal Navy.
  I believe that in the Budget my right hon. and learned Friend has made an important contribution to the means whereby we regulate the economy in what is called a mixed economy. We know the regulators in a full Socialist economy, and I refer to the Soviet Union. We also know the ones which are available in conditions of laissez-faire, which the nation has rejected as socially and politically undesirable.
  Mr. George Lawson Mr. George Lawson (Motherwell) rose—
  Mr. Price: No, with respect, I am going on.
  We need more incentives and deterrents. We also need more instruments available to the Chancellor of the

  1105
  Exchequer of the day and to the authorities to regulate the control of the economy. I do not mind saying to my hon. Friends that I am not frightened of the word "planning", provided that we do not mean planning in the detailed sense that we experienced in 1945–51. I mean planning in the sense of putting signposts ahead indicating the general direction in which we think the economy should go, and which should be adjusted year by year. Those are the sound steps which should be taken by a Government in what is called a "mixed" economy.
  In the Budget the Chancellor of the Exchequer has proposed experimentally two new methods of regulating the economy. Firstly, there is a special surcharge or rebate on the main Revenue duties and Purchase Tax, with the object of stimulating or restraining demand. If this works marginally—and we hope that it will work marginally to avoid the great fluctuations which we are all agreed we do not want—it must work quickly. I therefore welcome the suggestion that the Chancellor should take powers to use the regulator outside the context of an April Budget.
  Secondly, there is the payroll tax. One's support for that is a little more qualified. I think that we will need to know more about it in detail. I was attracted by the view expressed some months ago by the Economist that we should have a payroll tax which would be variable in different parts of the country, the simple distinction being made that it should not apply to development areas, because it is ridiculous to spend public money to try to attract industry into areas of high unemployment and then to tax it when one's object is to try to remove the pressure of demand for labour resources in areas of over-employment. The problem of getting a more even distribution of our labour round the country is still very pertinent to the whole problem of securing expansion without inflation.
  There are further fields in which we need experimentation. We need better statistics, particularly on estimates of stock and work in progress. I personally would favour more public statements about the forward commitments in the spending departments. We must try to get similar regulators in the international field, particularly in the field of international
  1106
  liquidity. The Economic Survey said:
  "… the expansion of world trade could be threatened by the imbalance in world payments: concerted action by both surplus and deficit countries is necessary to deal with this."
  As a result of the Prime Minister's talks with President Kennedy I hope that Ministers and officials will try to deal with this and find regulators which can be turned on and off quickly, because the whole essence of operating on the economy is to operate marginally, which means operating in time.
  I hope that when my right hon. Friend is considering our accounts he will consider publishing the full reserves of the country and not merely the gold and dollar reserves, because that gives a very false picture. It is as if a bank in giving its annual financial statement to its shareholders published only the cash in hand and did not publish the total assets. I have never seen in any statement by the Treasury under a Government formed by either party the sum which Her Majesty's Government have invested in American industrial equity, but it is very substantial.
  I profoundly agree with my right hon. and learned Friend's statement that the Budget should remain the first instrument as the regulator of the economy. Therefore, we must look at the total effect of the Budget, which very few hon. Members who have preceded me in the debate have done. I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend on his courage in asking for an above-the-line surplus of £500 million, leaving an overall deficit of less than £100 million. I have at time been critical of the amount of money the Government have hoped they could borrow each year. The cumulative overall deficit over the last ten years has amounted to £2,524 million. Has it been safely borrowed? I believe not.
  In the circumstances given us in the Economic Survey, I believe that any responsible Chancellor of the Exchequer must have taken an anti-inflationary view of his budgetary position. I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend on his courage, when all the pressures upon him have been in the opposite direction.
  As for below-the-line expenditure, I welcome his proposal for a new method of accounting. A number of us

  1107
  have asked for the system to be examined. I hope that he will consider a far wider use of work study on capital projects in the public sector. I do not mean this in any spirit of aggressiveness towards the public sector. I merely offer it from my own experience of having used it in one small corner of the private sector, where we found it most efficacious.
  In the circumstances, my right hon. and learned Friend was not only brave but right in deciding that he needed to increase taxation by £80 million. I believe, too, that he fulfilled what I regard as the two necessary conditions of considering how to increase taxation. The first is whether the particular economic activity to be taxed can prudently bear it. Hon. Members will remember the advice of that great French Finance Minister, Colbert:
  "The art of taxation consists in so plucking the goose as to obtain the largest quantity of feathers with the least amount of hissing."
  Secondly the Chancellor of the Exchequer should put increases on economic activities where the secondary effects will be least harmful.
  The Television Advertising Duty is easily defensible. In view of the superiority of many television advertisements over many of the programmes, it might be better named a "Television Entertainments Duty".
  As for the increase in the Motor Vehicle Duty, the number of private cars has increased from 2½ million in 1951 to 5½ million in 1961. One can hardly say that that is a field where there is not room for a certain buoyancy of revenue.
  Heavy oils have been free from tax since 1947. In any case, anyone familiar with the oil refining industry knows that the problem in expanding the activities of refineries is how to sell the petrol and the middle distillates. The increase in demand comes more for the heavy than for the middle fractions. Therefore, this will help the industry, although doubtless it will squeal, to maintain balance in the operation of the refineries.
  Now a brief mention of the Surtax change. I believe that this is a transfer payment from the individual on to things; that is to say, from individual managers, executives and professional men on to corporate bodies, and I believe
  1108
  it is a right move. I ask hon. Members who suggest that Surtax payers are a very select and prosperous body to examine the gross income of the manager of a chemical factory in Great Britain compared with that of the manager of a chemical factory in Soviet Russia. Time does not allow me to develop these points too far, but I will just mention that there has been little comment on the fact that Surax has been unchanged since 1920, when it was a rich man's tax. I am sufficiently old-fashioned to think that in industry the first job one has is to choose one's boss, and I want to work for a contented boss and not an embittered boss. If my boss is embittered because he thinks he is over-taxed, I would rather work for a boss who is paying rather less tax.
  In conclusion, my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has in my estimation presented a sober review of our economic affairs. In my judgment, he has drawn the correct conclusions from the available facts. He has been wise to be cautious in restricting the overall Budget deficit to £69 million. He has been imaginative in his proposal for new economic regulators, but we are still feeling our way towards the discovery of the best means of regulating a mixed economy. His tax changes are bold—bold in providing an incentive where it is most required, and bold in providing social justice where it has been most lacking. What is sauce for the trade union goose is sauce for the management gander.
  Of course, there are those who will be disappointed. There always are, and there always will be after any responsible Budget, for, as Edmund Burke warned us:
  "To tax and to please, no more than to love and be wise, is not given to men."
  My right hon. and learned Friend, unlike the right hon. Member for Huyton, is, I know, content to be a man and does not aspire to be a god. That is the basic difference in political philosophy in economic matters between the two sides of the Committee.
  Whereupon Motion made, and Question, That the Chairman do report Progress and ask leave to sit again—[Mr. Whitelaw.]—put and agreed to.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again Tomorrow.

  RIVERS (PREVENTION OF POLLUTION) [MONEY]
  [Queen's Recommendation signified.]
  Considered in Committee under Standing Order No. 84 (Money Committees).
  [Major Sir WILLIAM ANSTRUTHER-GRAY in the Chair]
  Resolved,
  That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make further provision for maintaining or restoring the wholesomeness of
  1110
  the rivers and other inland or coastal waters of England and Wales, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any increase attributable to that Act in the sums so payable under any other Act, and the payment into the Exchequer of any sums falling to be so paid in consequence of the provisions of the said Act.—[Sir E. Boyle.]
  Resolution to be reported.
  Report to be received Tomorrow.

  EDUCATION (HANDICAPPED CHILDREN)
  10.0 p.m.
  Mrs. Eirene White: I beg to move,
  That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Handicapped Pupils (Certificate) Regulations, 1961 (S.I., 1961, No. 476), dated 16th March, 1961, a copy of which was laid before this House on 23rd March, be annulled.
  The reason for our praying that this Statutory Instrument shall be annulled is not because we are seriously opposed to it. On the contrary, we think that it is a quite useful measure as far as it goes. However, it provides the occasion for us to ask some questions about the treatment of handicapped pupils, particularly about their ascertainment and the methods of ascertainment which are in force.
  As I understand it, the chief point of the Regulations is that in certain circumstances children will have to submit to only one medical examination whereas at present sometimes they have to undergo two medical examinations. The other quite important reform contained in the proposed new Regulations is that in future parents will have a valuable right which, I understand, they have not possessed before. In the past, parents have been able to appeal to the Minister if they considered that their child had been wrongly ascertained and had been allocated to a special school or occupational centre. The parents had no statutory right to appeal if, in their view, their child required such special education but that education was not granted.
  In so far as these new Regulations give parents an additional right, I think that they are to be very much welcomed. Nowadays, when the general attitude towards the training of handicapped children is much more rational than it used to be—it is all part of the general advance in the treatment of mental illness, defect, and so on—it is important that, if a parent feels that the opinion of the medical officer concerned was perhaps mistaken and that the child would benefit by some special form of education, the parent should have the right to ask for another opinion and to
  1112
  approach the Minister. From that point of view, we welcome the proposed new Regulations.
  Before consenting to them completely, however, we ought to ask the Minister to give us some more information about precisely what happens to children who undergo the process of ascertainment with which we are concerned.
  Mr. Roderic Bowen: Why does the hon. Lady say that if a parent objects to a certificate he will have the right to take the matter up in order to bring about a different result?
  Mrs. White: As I understand it, in the new certificate in the form contained in the Regulations before us the medical officer may give one of two opinions. He may state categorically that in his opinion the child is not suffering from any disability of the mind or body so as to require special educational treatment. That is a form of certificate which is different from the one previously used. By putting in this statement categorically it provides ground for a formal appeal by a parent against the decision of the examining officer. That ground was not formerly available. That is a change which is to be welcomed. One wants to ask the Minister questions about the whole subject of ascertainment.
  Within the categories of handicapped pupils are ten groups. I do not propose to deal with them all tonight. A number of categories affect only those who are physically handicapped in one way or another. Difficult as it may be to provide adequate treatment for all these children, the main difficulty with parents mainly arises, not over those who are physically handicapped, in whom the handicap is generally obvious, but about those who are mentally handicapped. It is, therefore, primarily about them that I wish to speak tonight.
  These children may be regarded as educationally subnormal, or they may be regarded as ineducable, which I consider to be a most unfortunate term.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education (Mr. Kenneth Thompson): We no longer use it.
  Mrs. White: I am delighted to hear the Minister say that he no longer uses it, but the phrase has been official language in the past. If we get that cleared out of

  1113
  the way tonight so that the expression is no longer used by anybody, that in itself will be a step forward.
  In recent years, there have been a great many discussions among those who take an interest in these children about the admission of children to special schools, and whether a statutory ascertainment is necessary or desirable or whether, if it could not be entirely dispensed with—that would hardly be practicable—it could at least fall to some extent into disuse and that voluntary admission to special schools should be very much encouraged.
  I do not profess to speak with any specialist knowledge of the matter and, therefore, I must rely upon those who specialise in the education of children requiring special provision. I have been particularly interested in a survey that was carried out last year, of which, I am sure, the Minister is well aware, by the Guild of Teachers of Backward Children, the results of which I have no doubt that the hon. Gentleman has seen. It was interesting to find that a number of those who were consulted, including medical officers of health, directors of education and headmasters of special schools, felt that the voluntary admission of children to special schools should be very much encouraged and that much less reliance than heretofore should be placed on statutory ascertainment. It would be valuable to have the Minister's opinion on the matter.
  There have also been discussions concerning the kind of examination which takes place and for which the certificate would be used, and whether it is not in many areas still unduly medical rather than educational in its emphasis. Again, inquiries have recently been made into the way in which the examination is conducted, how far it is done by a medical officer alone and to what extent an educational psychologist is brought in. In some areas, I believe that the main examination is undertaken by an educational psychologist rather than by a medical officer.
  It would be interesting to know whether the Ministry considers that there should be provision for authorities with relatively small populations who are not likely to have an educational psychologist on their staff or within easy reach. I think, for example, as the hon. and learned Member
  1114
  for Cardigan (Mr. Bowen) will appreciate, of some of the rural counties in Wales which are a long way from a main centre of population and whose staffs would be unlikely to include somebody with special educational psychological expertise.
  Has the Ministry considered the possibility of arranging for a consultant service for such authorities? Many of us are concerned with the position of the small number, although nevertheless important in their own individual worth, of handicapped children in these rural areas.
  Mr. Sydney Irving: Is my hon. Friend aware that in certain areas the final decision is taken not only either by the medical officer or by the educational psychologist, but by a conference which includes the head teacher, the medical officer, the education officer, the welfare officer and all the people who are interested in the child's future? Is not this wholly desirable and a practice which should be extended throughout the country?
  Mrs. White: I am delighted at that intervention by my hon. Friend who, I hope, will be able to develop that theme, because this question of moving from a simple statutory ascertainment towards the kind of joint consultation that he has suggested is obviously in line with modern thought. Again, I would like to know the attitude of the Ministry towards all this and what it is trying to do to encourage this more up to date attitude towards the problem.
  Mr. Speaker: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Lady, because I enjoyed the intervention of her hon. Friend as much as she did, but I am wondering about the scope of this debate, about which I have a duty. It appears to me, in my ignorance, that these are Regulations which make an alteration in the form of the certificate. I am afraid that I must confine the debate to matters relevant to that.
  Mrs. White: This certificate, Mr. Speaker, is in itself something of great significance, because if the certificate is passed in the form proposed it means that a child on whose behalf it is made is then to be sent to a special educational establishment. It is therefore, surely extremely important to decide

  1115
  whether this is a proper form of certificate, and whether it is to be awarded in proper circumstances or not.
  One has to decide, for example, whether a medical examination is sufficient. You will observe that the certificate concerns the name, date of birth and address of a child submitted for medical examination. One of my arguments is that a medical examination by itself is not necessarily sufficient, and that other considerations arise which are not, in the narrow sense of the word, medical.
  Mr. Speaker: As the House knows. I do not want to be unduly restrictive, but this appears to be a set of Regulations which modify slightly—the phrase used is "slightly modify"—the form of the existing certificate, and what is at issue is the modification between the old and the new certificate.
  Mrs. White: There are, with respect, various other matters which are so closely allied to this that we could not pass this form of certificate without being thoroughly satisfied that it was adequate in the light of present knowledge and practice. For example, before you returned to the Chair, I made the point that one of the specific alterations made in the form of certificates was to give a parent the right, which he did not have in the previous form, of appeal to the Minister if his child was not granted special educational provision.
  I was suggesting that one of the reasons why this new attitude was praiseworthy was precisely because the whole context of this ascertainment is changing, and that if it is approached in the modern way, this right of the parent will be very valuable. I was also raising the question whether, in the view of some experts, such ascertainment provided for in the certificate is necessary. If it were not necessary, the certificate would not be required. I hope I carry you with me that far in my argument, because this whole question of ascertainment, which is not merely an ascertainment at first instance, can arise at other points in the career of a school child. There can be de-ascertainment as well as ascertainment.
  This, again, raises the whole question of the context in which this process is
  1116
  carried out, and of whether a medical officer by himself is the right person to carry out that ascertainment, or any de-ascertainment that may come about later on. As I say, it is extremely important to know just what the term
  "… disability of mind or body so as to require special educational treatment"
  involves. The House is entitled to know that.
  I ask that for this reason, having looked at some of the figures of children about whom as a result of the use of the existing form of certificate which we are about to amend—as a result of the existing form of ascertainment—a most peculiar situation seems to have arisen. One finds that children who presumably even under the existing procedure are sent to special schools range according to the children to be found in those schools from those with intelligence quotients of 30 up to 115. I am quoting from the National Union of Teachers survey of educationally sub-normal pupils carried out very recently.
  That seems an astonishingly wide range of intelligence for children who, I presume, were covered by the existing form of certificate. The Minister might give some idea why this astonishingly wide range of intelligence appears to have been covered by the certificate. If it were not so covered, perhaps he will explain why these children are nevertheless in schools for E.S.N. children.
  I have some other figures which were obtained in the survey conducted by the Guild of Teachers of Backward Children. Although the figures are not quite so extreme, nevertheless they show that no fewer than 48 per cent. of the schools in that survey had children with I.Qs. of above 70. That, of course, is nothing like as high as the extreme figure which I quoted—and which astonished me—from the N.U.T. survey. In any case, that is a very high proportion.
  It is perfectly clear that this form of ascertainment so far as children in the E.S.N. schools are covered—and the Parliamentary Secretary may explain how many are not covered by the certificate—shows a very wide range and a fairly large proportion of children of a rather higher intelligence quotient than one would expect to find in E.S.N. schools. I suspect the reason is that there is inadequate provision for such

  1117
  children in ordinary schools and they therefore find themselves in E.S.N. schools whereas there ought to be more provision in the ordinary schools. If there are too many in the E.S.N. schools, we can assume that a number in the E.S.N. schools are not getting the kind of education they should have in special schools because the places have been taken by rather more intelligent children who should be provided for in small classes in the ordinary schools.
  I do not know whether the Parliamentary Secretary can tell us anything more about the proportions of children who are being dealt with under this ascertainment certificate which we are discussing. I think I am right in saying that the Minister's official calculation, on which he works, is that approximately 10 per cent. of the total school population is to be regarded as to some degree subnormal.
  I think I am also correct in saying that 1·2 per cent. is the accepted official figure of the proportion which should be dealt with in special schools. I think the Parliamentary Secretary will agree that that proportion is contested by certain specialists. Dr. Whitmore recently suggested that it should be 1·5 per cent., and that agrees with earlier estimates by Sir Cyril Burt, the Scottish Council for Educational Research, and others.
  I do not want to go beyond the Regulations we are discussing. All I would say is that although there is provision for a considerable increase in school places for the children who will be dealt with under these proposals, nevertheless, even when it reaches the 42,000 E.S.N. places in 1962, which is the Minister's estimate—and I shall be glad to know whether the Minister thinks this figure will be reached—it will provide for far less places than the probable number who ought to be in special schools. It is true that it is not very far short of the 32,000 plus the 12,000 waiting list given in the latest figures, but I repeat that that number is below the proportion which the experts say should be treated in some special educational way.
  There are many other subjects which we would dearly like to raise, but I bow to your Ruling, Mr. Speaker. I have given the Minister a good deal on which
  1118
  he can give the House some useful information.
  10.21 p.m.
  Mr. Roderic Bowen: I intervene only in the hope of obtaining some clarification in relation to the position under these new Regulations if they come into force. One of the reasons which has prompted me to intervene is that I suspect that my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White) appeared to think that under these new Regulations parents of children in the category we are discussing, children who might require special educational treatment, will have additional rights, or some additional protection.
  If that is so, I hope that the Minister will make it clear in what respect it is the case, because it appears to me, and I hope that I am wrong in this respect, that the Regulations will not in any way affect the rights or duties of the local education authority, the parents, or the Minister.
  On the face of it, the Regulations appear to revoke the Regulations relating to the certificate at present in existence—these Regulations having been in force since 1953—and to provide for a new form of certificate in which there is not only a negative expression of opinion but a positive one as well. That is to say, the medical officer will say not only whether the child is suffering from a disability, but whether the child is not suffering from a disability.
  I agree that that form of certificate is more satisfactory, particularly when it says that the child is not suffering from a disability, because in most cases that will be a source of gratification to the parents of the child involved. From that point of view this change in the form of certificate is to be welcomed.
  Will this change bring about any alteration in the position of the parents in relation to the local education authority and the Minister? During the last few moments I have looked at Section 34 of the Education Act, 1944, and it is clear that whether the medical examination has resulted by reason of the intervention of the local education authority under subsection (1), or by reason of the request of the parents under subsection (2), at present a certificate to the effect that the child is suffering from a disability can be

  1119
  cancelled by the Minister by virtue of the powers given in subsection (6). If that certificate is cancelled, the child will cease to receive special educational treatment.
  As I understand it, the opposite does not apply. That is to say, assuming that a certificate is issued by a medical officer to the effect that the child is not suffering from any disability of mind or body so as to require special educational treatment and the Minister cancels that certificate, it does not follow that, because the Minister has cancelled the certificate, the child will then receive special educational treatment by the local education authority
  That is based on a certificate given by a medical officer of the authority involved, and the most that would be likely to happen as a result of cancellation of a certificate by the Minister would be that the authority would be asked to look at the matter again, and the question of another certificate being issued would then arise. If the second certificate were in the same terms as the first, what remedy would the parents have?
  Mr. K. Thompson: It may help the hon. and learned Member if I ask him to consider in what circumstances my right hon. Friend would cancel the certificate, as he puts it. It would not be except upon the best medical advice he could obtain, and it would be with that medical advice in support that any correspondence he subsequently had with the local education authority would take place. I have no doubt that, the relationships between the Ministry and local authorities being what they are, most local authorities would take careful account of what that letter from my right hon. Friend said in conveying this information to them.
  Mr. Bowen: The hon. Gentleman has still not dealt with this very important difference between where a certificate providing that a child is suffering from a disability is cancelled and where a certificate providing that there is no disability is cancelled. In the case of the first, subsection (6) comes into operation and there is legal force to it. In the second case, the most that can be said is that the Minister would use his influence with the authority and hope that his influence would produce
  1120
  the right result. The parent has no rights in the matter. That is why the position by this change in the certificate in relation to the legal rights of the parent will be precisely the same as it is at the moment and precisely the same as it has been since 1953.
  The type of case I have in mind is where there is a dispute between the authority and the parent about whether a child needs special educational treatment. The dispute may well arise where the parents themselves have asked for a medical examination under Section 34 (2). The authority's medical officer would issue a certificate that the child was not suffering from a disability. The certificate would go to the Minister who would cancel it under subsection (6). The parents are then left in the position of having to rely entirely on the Minister being able to influence the authority to revise its opinion on a medical matter.
  Mr. Ronald Bell: The position is that under the Education Act, 1944, the parents are entitled to the provision of a normal education for their child, there being no certificate in respect of it.
  Mr. Bowen: Certainly, but I am dealing with a case where, the Minister having cancelled the certificate, the basis of the cancellation would be that the initial certificate was wrong and that the child was in fact in need of special educational treatment.
  I do not want there to be any confusion about this. A parent asks for a medical examination under Section 34 (2), and a medical examination takes place and a certificate is issued by the local medical officer to the effect that the child is not suffering from any disability. Under subsection (6) that certificate can be cancelled by the Minister. There one has the position where the child has been examined, a certificate has been issued that the child is not suitable for special educational treatment and the Minister has cancelled the certificate. Obviously, the proper thing to be done is that the child should be re-examined in view of the Minister's cancellation and a different certificate issued.
  All I am saying is that it is quite clear that parents' rights in the matter are totally unaffected by these Regulations and there is no difference between the position where a certificate has been

  1121
  issued saying that the child is suffering from a disability and the position where it is not suffering from a disability. I wanted to clear up that point.
  I reinforce what my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, East said about the problem of sparsely populated rural areas where the number of cases dealt with under these provisions is very small indeed. I remind the House that the definition in the 1944 Act of a medical officer clearly envisages the invoking by local authorities of special assistance in this regard. The reason why I say that is that in the 1944 Act a medical officer is defined as a duly qualified medical practitioner employed or engaged, whether regularly or for the purpose of any particular case, by that authority.
  With all respect to local medical officers, who carry out their work excellently, I should like local authorities to make greater use of specialist consultant services when they have really difficult cases to decide. There are ten categories in which children may be classified in this regard, and I should have thought that some of them required the assistance of a consultant or specialist to help the local education authority to arrive at a proper decision.
  10.33 p.m.
  Mr. James Boyden: I wish to put a number of questions to the Parliamentary Secretary relating to the certificate.
  First, does he expect the number of children ascertained and the number placed in special schools to be increased? The Ministry thinks that 15,000 children are without places, but in some quarters it is felt that the figure is probably 19,000. In any case, the present Minister's view on this is very conservative compared with pre-war surveys. Are these Regulations purely formal, or will they have a decisive effect on the number of children which the Ministry thinks ought to be in special schools?
  To put it another way, do the Regulations foreshadow a new attitude on the part of the Ministry towards making better provision for E.S.N. and deaf children and a tendency towards generally making a more dynamic approach to the problem? In the Ministry's last report there are several references
  1122
  to the problem of deaf children. I do not want to go into the whole problem and will merely say that the Minister will be well aware of this very serious matter and must be far from satisfied with the provision which is being made. Is this certificate an attempt to make a more precise organisation of deaf schools? Is it associated with a recruiting drive to increase the number of teachers of the deaf? In my own region, for example, is greater provision to be made for this category of handicapped children?
  I want to raise another point in relation to overcrowding. Do the Regulations affect the Ministry's definition of overcrowding in special schools, as laid down in 1953? Perhaps the figure has altered a little, but in the last Ministry report it was stated that there were 268 educationally subnormal classes—
  Mr. Speaker: I am sorry, but I cannot follow the hon. Member's question as to whether the Regulations affect the Ministry's definition of overcrowding. If he can tell me why he is in order on this point I will listen to him, but if he cannot I hope that he will desist.
  Mr. Boyden: The same Regulations seem to be concerned. The Handicapped Pupils (Certificate) Regulations, 1953, are revoked by these Regulations, and the Regulations affecting overcrowding are also No. 34/53. I wondered whether the two Regulations were connected.
  Mr. Speaker: My knowledge is not enough for me to be definite, but I should be very surprised if the Handicapped Pupils (Certificate) Regulations defined overcrowding.
  Mr. Boyden: The effect of the Regulations may be to cause overcrowding, in which case it would have a bearing on the situation.
  Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member is doing better, but he must bring himself within order.
  Mr. Boyden: I hope that you will forgive my relative inexperience, Mr. Speaker. If the alteration of this certificate will cause a greater number of children to come forward, and the Ministry is thinking of taking up a more dynamic approach to the matter, will arrangements be made for the increased

  1123
  training of teachers of handicapped children? I have asked the Parliamentairy Secretary what is being done about this on several occasions. It seems that the present provisions for training are most inadequate. Has the Minister a more expansive programme for training these teachers? He knows that the birth rate continues to rise, and that the problem is bound to grow, in the natural course of events. Is the Ministry looking at this matter, and will the Minister seriously grapple with this problem in all its aspects?
  10.37 p.m.
  Mr. John Dugdale: I want to say a word about deaf children rather than handicapped and mentally subnormal children. Will there be a sufficient number of auditory centres to ascertain whether full use is made by a child of its natural hearing? A child may often be sent to a school for deaf children at a time when, if it had been ascertained how it could use its residual hearing, it need not have been sent to such a school. That is still possible. There are some places, such as Birmingham and Glasgow, and, of course, London, which have these training centres and which can discover whether a child is suitable for a school for handicapped children. With enough training a child may be able to go to an ordinary school instead of a special school.
  If the number of these centres can be increased it may be possible to decrease the number of special schools for deaf children. That would be of great assistance, because they are exceedingly costly. They do not cost as much as my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) described the Admiralty schools at Manadon and Dartmouth as costing—where, we understand, there is one teacher for each pupil—but, for all that, they cost a good deal, because of the ratio of teachers to children, and if the children can be taught to use their residual hearing so that they do not have to go to these schools it would be of great assistance.
  The thing that children need more than anything else is not so much accurate scientific testing as an untold amount of sympathy, and if they have that many may turn out not to be as deaf as they seem.
  10.40 p.m.
  Dr. Horace King: These Regulations deal with perhaps the most tragic and yet the most hopeful part of our education system. Every hon. Member, I am certain, has met mothers who have received one of these certificates, or its predecessor, and has taken pains to point out, as the Association of Parents of Backward Children points out, that there is no reflection on a parent in having a child who is backward for any reason; there may be sorrow but there is no disgrace. Healthy parents may produce handicapped children.
  The Regulations ask the medical officer to do a very complex job. I do not think that it is beyond the capacity of any medical officer to ascertain a physical handicap and to decide that a child is blind or deaf or partially deaf and can go to a school for the blind or the deaf or to one of the wonderful new schools for the partially deaf. Once a certificate has been made out, it is practically certain that the blind ox deaf child or the partially deaf child will go to the right type of school, because such schools exist not only at primary and secondary level but also for various kinds of secondary education. One of the great achievements in educational development is the work which we have done for blind, deaf and partially deaf children in special schools under specially qualified teachers. I recall the work of our late friend, Edward Evans, in this great field of education.
  But a different problem arises when a medical officer fills in Part 2 of the form if he is dealing with disabilities of the mind. He must decide whether the child is mentally retarded and whether the educational provision under these Regulations should be in a special class in an ordinary school—and it is interesting that we have long abandoned the idea that teaching backward children is for inferior teachers; it is now regarded as a highly specialised job, as is recognised by the Minister and by local authorities.
  If the child's mental capacity is below this, or if there is emotional maladjustment, the medical officer is asked to recommend that the child should go to a special school. If the child is below this level and is intellectually or emotionally incapable of profiting by education

  1125
  at any school at all, he has to suggest possibly an occupation centre. I think that this diagnostic task is so complex as to be beyond the medical officer.
  I know that he co-operates with the education authorities, and I take the opportunity to mention our experiment in Hampshire where we have set up a diagnostic school to which children about whom we are doubtful are sent for a short period during which they can be diagnosed, and the information which we want from this certificate can be more accurately obtained over a period of observation than by a single examination. Such diagnostic schools will, I hope, increase in number.
  There is the fantastic problem of the spastic child who has no control over his muscular movements. There is a barrier between his brain and his muscular movements of his body. I remember speaking about this in the House some years ago. We are beginning to learn that behind that barrier which exists between the brain and muscular movement there may well be a very good brain, and it may be that many spastic children are merely physically handicapped in their motor faculties and that what we recorded previously by the known intelligence tests as lack of intelligence overlooks the fact that there may be a real intelligence which cannot get through and respond to such tests. This is a problem which must present great difficulties to the medical officer when he is trying to work out whether the spastic child is fit for any kind of special educational treatment.
  But the biggest problem—and this is the question which I put to the Minister—is what to do with the certificates when we have them. If there is a form filled in by the medical officer certifying that the child is recommended for a certain kind of educational treatment, has the child a right to that treatment? Has the parent a right to insist on the Minister or the local authority providing such educational treatment, just as every parent has the right to demand that the Minister or the local authority should provide—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member, but I am having difficulty in following him about this. The consequences of the procedure following the certificate do not
  1126
  seem to me to be relevant to the changes in the form of the certificate, which is what we are debating.
  Dr. King: I realise that we can speak only about the certificate itself. Does the certificate—and did the previous certificate which it replaces—give to the parent the right to what is recommended by the medical officer in this form?
  In the ordinary schools of England there are children whose parents have received such a form. There are parents who have had at home for two or three years children in respect of whom they hold certificates from a medical officer stating that they require one of the special forms of education which the medical officer is asked to enumerate. The gap between the certificate and the special education of handicapped children—between the dream and the reality—is still vast.
  10.45 p.m.
  Mr. William Ainsley: The handicapped pupils' certificate, according to these Regulations must be signed by the medical officer for the local education authority and must state the disability of mind or body from which the child suffers. I should like the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education to confirm that the medical officer's opinion does not stand for the whole of the child's educational career. Many parents are not aware that they can appeal to the Minister. It should be made more widely known that parents can appeal to the Minister even against the medical officer's decision.
  When I was chairman of the local education authority in my area I had to deal with many of these cases. One case moved me tremendously. I approached the medical officer about it because, in my humble opinion as a layman, there was some semblance of intelligence in the child's mind, judging by the way it handled picture books and identified the pictures of different animals on coloured blocks. The medical officer, however, assured me that his certificate could not be challenged by anyone. I am glad that we are now moving a little away from that position, and I want all parents to know that they can appeal to the Minister. I should like to know whether when a medical officer makes a decision there is any

  1127
  means of obtaining a second or third medical or psychiatric opinion.
  Two years ago I had the pleasure of being invited to see 150 of these handicapped boys and girls who had been brought into the City of Durham from all parts of the county. I was greatly moved by the sight, and recently I have been asked to accept the honour of being vice-chairman of an organisation which is doing very good work for these children. As a layman I feel when I see these boys and girls that a great deal could be done to make them into useful citizens. I should like an assurance from the Parliamentary Secretary that it is possible to make repeated application for further medical and psychiatric evidence bearing on their welfare.
  10.50 p.m.
  Mr. Ronald Bell: I imagine that the changes introduced by this Statutory Instrument are of a rather formal character and that the point before us this evening is a narrow one. It occurs to me, however, that the general scope of the certificate may be a little wider in future than in the past, because the initial part of the certificate prescribed in the Schedule to the Regulations avoids any explicit reference to Section 34 of the 1944 Act, so that the certificate is made a rather more general comment upon the ability of the child in either a positive or negative sense than was the old certificate.
  To that extent, it seems to be an advantage in that respect, as well as in the one which has already been commented upon, that the new form of certificate allows the medical officer to say not merely, if it be the case, that a child is suffering from defect of mind or body which requires special treatment, but also, if more fortunately it be the case, that the child is not suffering from such a defect; so that in many cases it will be the parents who ask for the child to be medically examined to see whether he can be normally educated. Under the earlier practice, what happened was either that a certificate was given saying that the child could not enjoy a normal education or that nothing was given. That is not altogether a satisfactory outcome.
  If on the result of the examination a medical officer decides that a child is not
  1128
  suffering, to use the words of the new certificate,
  "from any disability of mind or body so as to require special educational treatment"
  —and that goes wider than merely Section 34 of the Act—that is a comforting reassurance for the parents to have. It may even strengthen their hand in insisting upon the education authority finding the child accommodation and instruction appropriate to his mental abilities.
  Those who have taken an interest in this matter, on both sides of the House know that the real problem is so often to find accommodation and treatment for the child suitable to his possibilities, mental and physical. I was interested in the references which have been made to deaf children. I do not want to carry on the debate on the Regulations beyond its proper limit, but in view of the change between the new and the old certificate it can be said that this is a rather critical point in this difficult matter.
  I have known some tragic cases, as, I dare say, other hon. Members have, of children whose difficulties were not correctly diagnosed in the early stage and who had completely normal minds behind the curtain of deafness which often produces symptoms easily confused with those of mental disability, and where a failure, because of something which may have been medical in origin but which often is not medical, to provide them with suitable accommodation and treatment for their defect has had the most unhappy results.
  In most parts of the country, there are many deaf children who are not incapable—I cannot remember the exact statutory words—of profiting from education in school in any medical sense but who have not been able to obtain accommodation in any school. Sometimes that situation has gone on even up to the age of nearly 14. A child may have been shut off from any kind of help for his mind either because there was not a proper diagnosis on the original certificate or, much more often, because no suitable accommodation existed to look after him.
  I do not know whether the new form of certificate will have this result, but I should think that it will have some effect in the direction of strengthening the hands of the parent whose child is either described by the certificate as not suffering from a defect or in the second paragraph,

  1129
  in which the defect is described, is defined as suffering from a defect of that character.
  It will strengthen the hands of the parent in forcing the education authority to say, "We will, in accordance with the certificate, find this child accommodation at an ordinary school because he comes under the first part of paragraph 2 of the new certificate," or "We will find accommodation for him in a special school because he has a defect which is described in the second part of that paragraph."
  I know that my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary is sympathetic on this point. This new certificate is a real advance on the old one technically, and it will be helpful to the parent, but in addition to the narrow point, will he also bear in mind, from the tenor of this debate—even when it has strained against the bounds of order—that the opinion generally felt on both sides of the House is that there is also an unsolved general problem of accommodation for certain kinds of mentally retarded children, and, perhaps over and above all, for those who suffer the disadvantages of deafness?
  10.56 p.m.
  The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education (Mr. Kenneth Thompson): May I offer first two remarks by way of preface? The first is that I am always flattered by the assumptions upon which the hon. Lady the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White) bases her speeches. They seem to rest upon a firm, but I regret to say, unfounded belief, that I am in constant touch with anything produced by any authority on any aspect of any part of education. I must be a constant source of disappointment to her if I cannot comment on all the statistics which she supplies for our delectation.
  Mrs. White: All I am doing is assuming that the hon. Gentleman has as wide a source of information as we on the Opposition benches have.
  Mr. Thompson: Of course—
  Mr. Sydney Irving: Does not the hon. Gentleman realise that there is such a variety of progress in this field, and such a range of opinions, that a much closer survey and a greater collation of
  1130
  opinions would be helpful both to the Ministry and to others interested in the problem?
  Mr. Thompson: What I had intended to be a complimentary remark was cut off before I could complete it. I wanted to say that if, whenever she thought it a good thing to concentrate on any part of this great and complex matter, she prepared me beforehand, I could give her greater satisfaction.
  My second point is that since so much of what has already been said strained, as my hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell) said, the bounds of order, I hope, if I sin in attempting to reply, that you, Mr. Speaker, will allow your attention to contemplate some of the other failings of mankind while I am dealing with as much as I can.
  The Regulations themselves cover a very narrow point and need not engage the attention of the House for very long. The change springs from the passing of the Mental Health Act, 1959, which amended, in part, the Education Acts of 1944 and 1948. We took the opportunity provided by this change to make it possible for a single medical examination of a child to be available to serve either one of two possible purposes.
  The House will know that the procedure through which a child comes before a medical authority starts, as a rule, when his teacher begins to notice that he is not keeping pace with his fellows in a normal class. That is the origin of the process. The education authority is, as a rule, then informed by the head teacher of the school. At that stage, some education authorities will send a child to an educational psychologist if they have the services of one at their disposal. Others will send the child direct to a medical officer, the purpose being to find if it is a fact that the child is in some way mentally different from the ordinary children in the class and, if so, the extent of that difference and what should be done, following that kind of ascertainment.
  If under the old Regulations it had been found that the child was—"ineducable" was the word the hon. Lady used, "unsuitable for education at school" is the phrase we use today—he or she would then become the responsibility of the local health authority and,

  1131
  prior to the issue of this form of certificate, another medical examination would have to be carried out. The simple purpose of this Regulation is that one medical examination shall be applicable to a child who reaches the medical officer either by way of the health authority or the education authority in order to save distress and embarrassment to the child, the parents and the school alike. I think that the House will commend that as meeting the convenience of everyone concerned.
  The form has two other important changes embodied in it; important in the sense in which we have been speaking about this matter this evening. First, it gives the parents this certificate which says that the child is not suffering from a defect. This is not a new statutory right given to the parent, as the hon. and learned Member for Cardigan (Mr. Bowen) reminded the House. It does not give a new power into the hands of parents. The parents have a right of appeal to the Minister against the certificate issued under this section of the Act, but this is not a new right. What it does is to hand to the parents a certificate that says either that the child is suffering from a defect, which in itself is of value to the parent in certain circumstances, or the child is not suffering from a defect.
  It is not always the parents who do not want their children to have a certificate issued against them who are involved in this process. There are many cases in which the certificate is asked for by a parent who wants it for another purpose. Where those parents go to the local authority for reasons of their own, which may or may not be good ones, and say, "It is our belief that our son"—or daughter—"is suffering from a defect of mind which makes him unsuitable for education in an ordinary school," the local authority will arrange for this inspection and the medical officer or educational psychologist may decide and certify that the child is not in fact suffering from such a defect. With that certificate in his possession the parent may then approach my right hon. Friend for that decision to be queried.
  My right hon. Friend does not cancel the certificate. He does not say, "This is wrong". What he does is to carry out
  1132
  the kind of examination I suggested to the House in my earlier intervention and then use his influence—which is not without some force—with great delicacy—with the local education authority. Such is the harmony prevailing between the Minister and the education authorities, that there is not in his experience a great deal of difficulty in obtaining the right solution to the problem.
  I hope that that deals with the presentation of the form itself. The House will have observed that we have taken away from the statutory part of the form the printing of the categories of disability. This is clearly a better use of this machinery since occasionally it becomes necessary to vary slightly the description of one or other of the categories. Had we made it part of the statutory form, that would have required re-submission of the Regulations from time to time and we think that it would meet the wishes of all concerned to arrange that without coming before the House.
  A number of questions were asked which bore to a greater or lesser extent on the precise form of the certificate, and I hope that the House will allow me to deal with such of them as was not blatantly out of order, since I would not dream of endangering myself and meriting your condemnation, Mr. Speaker.
  I do not propose to enter into a discussion about whether the figure is 1·2 per cent. or 1·5 per cent. I have no doubt that education experts can always find enough to argue about between these differences of interpretation and differences of emphasis. All I want the House to know is that this certificate will be used in circumstances which today have produced a situation where accommodation in suitable schools can be provided for most of the children suffering from most of the handicaps; with the principal exceptions of those who are either maladjusted or mentally defective in one degree or another. Most of the others, including the deaf children to whom one or two hon. Members referred, can be found places with very little or no waiting time involved.
  I have seen, and taken an interest in, the provision that is today available for children who are known to be deaf. I share the deep concern which hon. Members have expressed about the provision

  1133
  made for these children, and about the urgency, particularly in the case of deaf children, of early and precise ascertainment; about the importance of using the abundance of new skills and highly-developed techniques available today for encouraging the use of those residuary powers that are possessed by some of the children; and about the need to use the other skills instead of hearing where that has completely gone. I pay great tribute to the patient and skilled work with these children in the schools that I have had the opportunity and privilege to visit.
  I doubt whether there is very much more that I can say to the House in answering some of the questions put to me without embarking on an abuse of your patience, Mr. Speaker. I should like the House to believe that we are aware that there is still a long way to go before it will be possible for all the children who might need special education treatment as a result of some degree of mental deficiency to be ascertained under this certification process.
  On previous occasions I have given the House the figures of the accomplishments of my Department during the last ten years or so. The hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) chided me with failing to maintain the rate of progress. I think that he based his criticism on the fact that there still remained a figure which seems to be surprisingly constant. He must not deduce from that that no progress is being made. The area over which the net is cast today is becoming wider, understandably and rightly so, and the rate at which new provision is becoming available is not in any way to be derided because of that fact. We are providing new places for these kinds of children at the rate of rather more than 2,000 places each year.
  This will still leave us with a difficult problem to face in the three years which follow the building programmes that I have announced to the House and which comprise about £2¼ million annually until the end of 1963. But in the years immediately following that period we expect the rate of provision to be even greater and I am very hopeful indeed that it will be possible to see the end of this problem before many years have passed after that, basing that rather
  1134
  imprecise forecast on what we know of the figures at present.
  It is not possible to be more precise, because as we go on providing more and more places for these children in more and more schools with more and more teachers—and the figures were given in answer to a Question put by the hon. Lady yesterday—we will still have medical officers and local education authorities increasingly anxious to bring more children into this education process who are at present outside it. I hope that they will, because the methods now available for bringing these children to the fullest possible development of their talents are extraordinarily beneficial to the children.
  I hope that the children, parents and local authorities will continue to realise that it is an advantage and not a handicap for a child to be brought into these schools and this system of education, where appropriate, and that they should make full use of all the provision there is. I hope that the House will now be good enough to approve these Regulations.
  Mrs. White: Will the hon. Gentleman say something about the diagnosis and categories which I mentioned and the apparently extraordinarily wide range of intelligence of children in E.S.N. schools?
  Mr. Thompson: That is one of the matters to which I obliquely referred at the beginning of my remarks. Clearly, there will be factors other than the measurement of I.Q. in the decision about what educational treatment a child should have. It is those other factors that probably cloud the validity of the I.Q.—particularly in the example of a high I.Q. cited by the hon. Lady. Another factor is that some authorities may have made more progress than others with their provision for E.S.N. children and may therefore be able to take in pupils with a slightly higher I.Q. Other authorities will hold to the view that these children should be not in special schools at all but in special classes in ordinary schools. We are bound to get a great variety of children going into the special schools for very different reasons. I hope that that goes some way in answering the hon. Lady.
  11.13 p.m.
  Mr. Frederick Willey: I am sure that the House need not apologise to itself for discussing these Regulations this evening. This is not an unimportant certificate which we have been discussing, but a certificate which is the badge of a humane and civilised society. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White) for having promoted the debate and—afflicted by the impartiality which besets me at this time of the evening—I thank the Parliamentary Secretary for his reply, which will be useful to those responsible for the administration of the Regulations.
  I agree with the Parliamentary Secretary about the necessity for sympathetically administering the certification. I was very struck by what my hon. Friend the Member for Dartford (Mr. Sydney Irving) said, and we recognise his experience and knowledge of this subject, which was confirmed by what was said by the Parliamentary Secretary. I hope that in any advice given about the Regulations and the certificate it will be constantly emphasised that sympathetic consideration is vital and that the cooperation of parents should be obtained, for that co-operation is more essential than anything else.
  I agree with what the Parliamentary Secretary said in reply to the hon. and learned Member for Cardigan (Mr. Bowen). There is no dispute about what the legal position is and I have no wish to challenge it. This is an occasion on which it is far better for the Minister to make representations to those who are responsible for certification. That, too, would fall within sympathetic and humane administration of the Regulations.
  Having heard the discussion, I think that, in the light of the points made about the diagnosis itself, we ought to do more to see that we make this patently as clear and definite as we can, and we ought to call in aid all the ancillary services which could help to ensure that the diagnosis is right, and to convince those who are affected by it that it is right.
  Finally, I just touch on the point which the Parliamentary Secretary apparently
  1136
  felt a little apprehensive about. He felt apparently that I had been chiding him unfairly. We are at cross-purposes. I would not deny for a moment that progress has been made and is being made. What I do not want to condone, and I am happy to conclude that it may not be so, is complacency. We are living in a new world so far as special schools are concerned. We recognise what is being done, but I am sure that the Parliamentary Secretary would join me in recognising that it is discouraging that the waiting list is not being reduced. I do not want to pursue this, because it may just be within the bounds of order, and I do not want to transgress. The fact is that the waiting list is what we have to pay attention to. It is a human problem that faces us.
  Mr. Speaker: How on earth can a change in the form of a certificate be related to the numbers on the waiting list? I am sorry, but I have a duty to discharge.
  Mr. Willey: I heard the Parliamentary Secretary chiding me on this. I do not wish to pursue it further. It was in reply to him that I called attention to the fact that this illustrates and demonstrates the problem we are trying to solve. As long as we have this facing us, we must feel a real anxiety about the adequacy of what we are doing.
  So far as the Regulations themselves are concerned—to put myself painfully in order, Mr. Speaker—the debate has demonstrated that they are a marked improvement on the earlier ones. Many doubts that might have been felt about them have been removed during the debate, and in the light of this I am sure that my hon. Friend, the Member for Flint, East will be willing to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.
  Mrs. White: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  ADJOURNMENT
  Resolved, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Noble.]
  Adjourned accordingly at eighteen minutes past Eleven o'clock.

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Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR On the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Worcester
The Lord Borwick—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his father.

AID TO DAIRY FARMERS
2.36 p.m.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: 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 what is the approximate amount of money given to farmers mainly concerned with dairying under the Agriculture (Small Farmers) Act, 1959, and what percentage of the total given under that Act this represents.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD (EARL WALDEGRAVE): My Lords, I regret that separate figures for payments to dairy farmers under the Small Farmer Scheme are not readily available for the United Kingdom as a whole. But in England and Wales, according to our estimates, approximately £2¾ million have been paid out under the Scheme to farmers whose main enterprise is dairying. This represents some 60 per cent. of total expenditure to date. Over 22,000 farm business plans have been approved, attracting nearly £15½ million of grant, but, as these schemes take between three and five years to complete, only a proportion of this grant has been earned so far. Sixty per cent. of total grants approved would work out at something over £9¼ million.
My Lords, these are figures for England and Wales. Over the United Kingdom as a whole, the total of grants approved on nearly 33,000 plans is
520
about £23 million, of which some £5¾ million has been paid out.
THE DUKE OF ATHOLL: My Lords, I should like to thank my noble friend very much for the great detail into which he has gone in giving me that Answer, and, at the same time, ask him one or two supplementary questions. First, I wonder whether Her Majesty's Government are satisfied that this money is making the farms truly economic. Secondly, are they satisfied that 60 per cent. of this scheme should be going mainly towards the production of more milk—which, according to the latest White Paper, is already being over-produced? Thirdly, do they not think that it might have been better not to have reduced the M.A.P. grants from their 1959 levels in order to pay for this scheme? Lastly, is it the Government's policy to stop the natural amalgamation of small farms by continuing this scheme indefinitely?
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, if I can remember those questions, the Small Farmer Scheme plans have to be approved by our advisory staff, and I think it is true to say that they would not approve a plan which was not truly economic. That is the answer to the first question. The second question was: Is this Small Farmer Scheme, with its emphasis on milk, incompatible with the Government's policy in regard to milk in general? My Lords, we have for many years, of course, been discouraging any general expansion of milk production but we recognise that each individual farmer must do what pays him best, and we accept that with many of these small farms this means an increase in mill; production. What we aim to do is to reduce high-cost milk production, but it does not follow that small farmers are high-cost farmers. There must always be room for expansion by efficient small farmers, even when total production is declining.
The third question was about the M.A.P. grants. I forget exactly in what terms the question was put, but we cannot earmark economies on those grants for the Small Farmer Scheme. Fourthly, the Government are not in favour of stopping the natural amalgamation of small farms where that seems the right and proper thing to do.

STATIONERS AND NEWSPAPER MAKER'S COMPANY BILL
Read 2a, and committed to a Select Committee.
WHITE FISH AND HERRING INDUSTRIES BILL
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without amendment.

"MEALS ON WHEELS" SCHEMES
2.38 p.m.
BARONESS SWANBOROUGH BARONESS SWANBOROUGH rose to call attention to the need for an extension of "Meals on Wheels" schemes as a contribution to the care of the homebound, and to urge that local authorities should be authorised to provide kitchens and other equipment and facilities for voluntary bodies operating a "Meals on Wheels" service; and to move for Papers. The noble Baroness said: My Lords, historically, "Meals on Wheels" started with five meals delivered to old people living alone at the end of the war period, when it was hard to cope with rationing and with the difficulties of cooking. Those people who were trying to help such old persons consulted with the clerk to the local authority, obtained the rations and cooked the meals in their own kitchens, carried them in pannikins to the persons who required them, and thus helped solve a very small local problem. This was more than fifteen years ago, and proved so successful that more schemes sprang up, and the "Meals on Wheels" scheme, as it is known to-day, was born.
At the beginning, there was no name for the scheme, and there was doubt as to what its possibilities would be. The person receiving the meal had to warm it before it could be eaten, because it was impossible to deliver it hot. It then became clear that the recipient who was bedfast, or housebound, often found real difficulty in getting the meal warmed. In consequence, pannikin covers were made from old felt hats, or bits of quilts, or any material available at a time of strict rationing. Out of these materials was made a mufflike contraption which would keep the meal warm, or at any rate not congealed. From these very small trial
522
runs has come the "Meals on Wheels" service of to-day, which, so far as the Service to which I belong is concerned, delivers at the rate of 2½ million a year; and the rate is steadily mounting in numbers weekly.
The "Meals on Wheels" services of Great Britain are operated by a number of voluntary organisations. Naturally I can speak only for the organisation to which I belong, and I can give figures only for the one with which I am connected. I would in no way lay claim either to kudos or to responsibility for the rest of the schemes, but I have no hesitation in speaking of the Women's Voluntary Services—the W.V.S.—because the tables of the survey made for the Nuffield Trustees show that the W.V.S. are wholly responsible for 77 per cent. of the schemes, and actually operate in 86 per cent. of them. This gives a good cross-section of experience, and a great deal of knowledge, which has been painfully achieved and heavily paid for. Because of the nature of the work, a great deal has to be learnt through practical doing, and useful deductions have been reached only through actual day-to-day handling of the subject.
The Motion I am venturing to put forward in your Lordships' House to-day endeavours to get for the organisations operating this service the tools with which to do the job. We are convinced that, with sufficient equipment, the number of meals could be quickly stepped up and a much greater number of persons served. Volunteers and organisation are available, but the equipment and the premises are all too often lacking. From the point of view of voluntary organisations, it would be of infinite value if local authorities were to have some arrangement by which "Meals on Wheels" schemes could be simultaneously assisted, both under the National Assistance Act and under the National Health Service Act, in order that each and every scheme could be used to best advantage to help meet the needs of the sick and the handicapped, as well as those of the aged.
Section 31 of the National Assistance Act, 1948, states that
"a local authority may make contributions to the funds of any voluntary organisation whose activities consist in or include the provision of recreation or meals for old people".
The majority of "Meals on Wheels" schemes are operated under this Act for the benefit of people of pensionable age who for some reason or other are unable to provide adequate meals for themselves. These grants are provided from the rates, and for this purpose a local authority may be a county, county borough, county district or metropolitan borough, in England and Wales, or a county, town or district council in Scotland. The fact that two authorities, county and district, may contribute to the same scheme works well where there is co-operation between the two authorities; but in some cases it can lead to "passing the buck" and to parsimony. There can be a divergence of opinion between the county and the district. There can be a doubt in the mind of an authority both as to its rights and as to its responsibilities.
At present, local authorities, either county councils or district councils, or both, vary in the nature of the assistance they give. Some subsidise meals; some provide equipment; some buy and maintain vans. Some pay mileage allowances for cars; some equip and maintain premises where cooking can be done. In the case of the London County Council, for instance, they provide all the subsidies, and the metropolitan boroughs provide the equipment; in other counties, county and district councils share the cost between them.
So far as voluntary organisations can discover from their negotiations with local authorities, there is no clear ruling as to whether Section 31 enables local authorities to incur capital expenditure to provide kitchens, vans, et cetera, for voluntary bodies operating "meals on wheels" schemes, and in any event, under this Act, they are authorised to provide "meals on wheels" only to old people.
Under Section 28 of the National Health Service Act, 1946, a local health authority may make arrangements for the prevention of illness, the care of persons suffering from illness, mental defectives, or the after-car of such persons. Under subsection (3) of the section, local authorities may contribute to voluntary organisations formed for any purpose as aforesaid. The powers given under Section 28 vary from those
524
in the National Assistance Act, in that "local authority" means in this case only a county or county borough; or, in Scotland, a large burgh. And meals can be supplied to people of any age, if they are sick or likely to become sick for want of proper provision. Some of the old people who receive meals under the National Assistance Act would, in consequence, be disqualified from receiving meals under this Act.
Expenditure under this Act ranks for the general grant which local authorities receive to cover various services, under the Local Government Act, 1958. Thus county and county borough councils can now give grants to voluntary bodies for meals for people who need them for health reasons, without referring back to the Minister. The terms of Section 31 of the National Assistance Act, if strictly adhered to, would preclude the "Meals on Wheels" scheme which receives such a grant from serving a person who is either bedridden or homebound through illness and who is under pensionable age. It means, therefore, that "meals on wheels" can be provided for aged people, but not for those people who, by virtue of having the meal, would not need to be sent into hospital or who by the fact of having a meal available to them could come out of hospital sooner than they otherwise would. This does not apply, of course, to meals which are net subsidised by local authorities, but so far as the W.V.S. are concerned. 73 per cent. of schemes are subsidised by local authorities, though sometimes it is a very small subsidy—anything from 2d. to 1s. 6d. per meal. I am unable to give the figure of the grants given in regard to equipment by local authorities and of the percentage of them.
The scheme is difficult to operate from all points of view. From the local authority angle, the ability to provide a subsidy towards the meal itself is a comparatively easy thing to arrange in committee, but the question of a grant towards the cost of insulated equipment in which to carry the meal, for premises in which to cook the meal, or for transport to help with the distribution of the meal, presents a more complicated problem and one which may hold up a new scheme from getting into operation for many months.
The scheme is even more difficult for those who operate it. There are the

525
basic problems of food, in its purchasing, preparing and distribution; of transport, in its producing, timing and routing; of recipients, in their contacting, checking, authorising and maintaining, and of finance, in its obtaining, employing, checking and controlling. The ways in which local authorities help the work are so varied that central authoritative advice, would be most useful in helping to clear doubts and encourage forward movement. All those who spend much time in working on the mechanics of these schemes would like to pay tribute to the wonderful way in which, in many cases, local authorities have backed up the "Meals on Wheels" service and we are convinced that they have done so in spite of having to act in extremely difficult circumstances.
What I believe is urgently needed is to get the gap in local authority legislation closed. If this could be achieved; if it were possible for Her Majesty's Government to arrange to have the doubts and confusions removed, and the situation made clear as to the support to voluntary organisations which can be permitted, then I feel that the interpretation of this welter of existing local authority legislation could, and would, be used to real advantage. Those of us who are closely linked with the problem and see in it one more aid to home care, as opposed to institutionalisation, would be happy to know that Her Majesty's Government were prepared to communicate to local authorities advice on capital expenditure in regard to equipment, vans and kitchens—to be given or loaned to the voluntary body undertaking the job—as well as in regard to mileage costs, subsidising the meal and replacing equipment.
Personally—because I believe wholeheartedly in local government—I should be more than happy to see equipment, premises and transport owned by the local authority and lent to the voluntary body. I feel that this could be very valuable, in that it would vest in the local authority the obligation of constant inspection, which must be inherent in those who hold the local responsibility. I have recently, in the last few weeks, attended a large number of meetings of W.V.S. responsible members throughout England, and it is interesting to find that the great majority of their local authorities would wish to delegate
526
the responsibility to voluntary organisations, even if they were given powers to operate the scheme themselves. There will always be those authorities, of course, who will want to assume the right to operate the scheme themselves and who will feel able to undertake the financial obligation. Indeed, to-clay there are a very few who are operating in this way through Private Acts of Parliament.
For several years in the service to which I belong, we have felt that our immediate objective should be in the nature of four million meals a year. That has, of necessity, been an approximate figure, based on observations we have been able to make, and on deductions we have been able to draw from the general information available to us and from the figures which we keep in our own service. Therefore, as a service, we were very interested when we were informed by the National Corporation for the Care of Old People that the Nuffield Trustees had agreed to finance an inquiry into "Meals on Wheels" schemes. I must admit to your Lordships that I am one of those unrepentant people who do not believe in mass media surveys: I am slightly too understanding as to how figures can be used, to be convinced by the way they are used on me! But there is no question at all that the survey recently published contains some remarkable tables of figures which, if read by those who understand—and I must repeat, "by those who understand"—can give some very interesting indications of what we should look for as to the needs of the future.
The tables undoubtedly demonstrate, as all of us have always claimed, that the number of meals should increase. But I would draw your Lordships' attention to the fact that the figures are already nearly three years old and, moreover, that those figures have given base to a statement made by those who collated them which has already been disproved. The recommendation reads, as I understand it, that voluntary organisations would not be able to undertake further expansion and that, in consequence, the responsibility for the provision of "meals on wheels" should be placed on the local authorities. This statement was made from information gathered two and a half years

527
earlier, and facts have proved that it was a completely and utterly incorrect forecast.
The facts are that during the last week of June, 1958, 28,662 meals were delivered by the W.V.S., and during the last week of 1960, the figure had risen to 48,096. The number of schemes operated in 1958 by the W.V.S. was 347, and in 1960, 580. This would demonstrate that the scheme can be expanded through voluntary organisations, but this expansion cannot go forward at the rate it should do if the equipment with which to carry on the scheme is not available. In the 580 schemes we operate to-day, we are delivering 2½ million meals a year. The number of meals delivered in 1956 was 1,072,590; in 1957, 1,244,167; in 1958, 1,518,751; in 1959, 1,885,898 and in 1960, 2,308,770.
Few people can realise the infinite trouble and care that had to be taken in order to raise that number, little by little, to where it is to-day. These figures are kept centrally by the organisation to which I belong, being sent in by every locality via the region, and the backing in difficulty and the overcoming of troubles and problems has been a labour of great intensity and one which has required much patience. The meals are produced in a variety of ways. The sources include industrial canteens, school kitchens, cafés and cooking by volunteers in their own kitchens and, ideally, in a "meals-on-wheels" kitchen. Meals vary in suitability, and it is generally felt that only where there is a kitchen which is specially provided can the cooking and the menus be planned entirely to suit the recipients. We endeavour to provide as balanced a meal as possible, having regard to the likes of the recipients and, of course, to the cost. It is not possible to cater for exact medical diet, but a great deal of trouble is taken to give the persons who want it the sort of food that will be adequate and right for them.
At the start a number of schemes were delivering too few meals per person per week, and this was emphasised in the survey made for the Nuffield Trustees. The situation since then has improved, but there is still much room for further expansion. Owing to the hygiene regulations which were enforced in 1956, it
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became imperative that meals be delivered at a certain temperature and, in consequence, it was necessary to acquire insulated equipment, which is very expensive. Insulated equipment has proved the answer to the delivering of the hot midday meal, and it is of paramount importance to have the right equipment if you are to deliver the hot means to the recipient.
Meals are delivered in a variety of ways: by car, by van, by bicycle, on occasion by pram, in one or two instances by wheelbarrow and sometimes on foot. The major cost of the whole scheme lies in the distribution, and this means transport. And in this regard it is interesting to note that an analysis of our own methods of delivery of "meals on wheels" shows the proportion of vehicles employed to be 50 per cent. vans and 50 per cent. private cars lent and driven by volunteers. Generally speaking, the vans are much more used in built-up areas and take up to 40 meals per round, which can be delivered in the required space of time of approximately one and a half hours. But the more scattered rounds are generally done by private cars, carrying twelve meals each, in equipment specially devised. The need in rural areas, where good neighbourliness exists to a greater degree, cannot be compared with the need in larger cities; but, nevertheless, it does exist. Routing has in every event to be carefully planned and supervised, and instructions have to be written out clearly and carefully, having been worked out with the utmost thought and with real care being taken in regard to both mileage and to check on waste.
Recipients are contacted through the health and welfare services of the local authority, including health visitors, district nurses and home helps; and througi hospital almoners, doctors, National Assistance Board officers, and those people who are in a position to recommend where investigation should be made—in fact, anyone whose work takes him or her among the elderly, the sick and the infirm in their own homes. I many areas all names received are passed to a department of the local authority, which means that they can keep in touch with the individuals and enable them to be assisted by any of the welfare services of which they are in need. The "meals on wheels" organiser has the responsi-

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bility of reviewing the lists at stated intervals to ensure that nobody remains too long on the list if he or she no longer qualifies for the meal.
Voluntary organisations throughout Great Britain help financially, by giving equipment, as well as by assisting with transport. Industry and commerce have helped tremendously by either subsidising the meal, if obtained from the factory canteen, or subscribing towards a van or presenting a van outright. Members of women's organisations have helped not only as volunteers, but financially; and in this way, whether it be in driving or in delivering the meal, in cooking or in the staffing of the kitchens, in helping with the accounts or in peeling the vegetables, the contribution of Abe different volunteers who are ready to work within the community becomes something tangible in a service for those who require it.
My view is that if "meals on wheels" can be made into a real domiciliary service we can look to a future in which it will be unnecessary for as many people to be institutionalised as are at present, and in which those who wish to remain in their own homes will be helped to do so and to see out the rest of their lives in their own homes with their "bits and pieces" about them. We are in an age when people are looked after in so wonderful a way, due to the discoveries of science, that life is extended longer and longer. But it seems to me—and I say this with great sincerity—that mere extension of life without participation in living and the enjoyment of those things that make living worthwhile is not the only object one should have in mind. I should like to be able to think that, by supplying sufficient domiliciary services to those who require them, we can give to the persons who really need it an opportunity of living their lives out in that place in which they would like to be, instead of its being decided for them that, because their ageing bodies have reached a certain stage, they must live out the remainder of the time that that extension provides in a place which they neither wish to occupy nor desire to end their days in.
I have had some experience in the field of voluntary service, and I would affirm that to-day more voluntary service is being given in the country than ever before; and I would also state, without fear of contradiction, that
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that voluntary service is being given by a greater number of people than before, in a greater variety of ways. If I am right—and I very much hope I am—then we need have no fear as to how voluntary workers will be found in the future. But because we live in an age where streamlining is the order of the day, and where the orderly progression of work on a planned basis is expected, it is necessary to integrate the service of volunteers into the work of local authorities. The scheme is complex to handle, because it entails so many things: the checking of the recipient; the delivery of the meal; the content of the meal; the period of time over which the meal should be delivered, and the finance and the continuity. Yet all of us who are engaged on this work love it because we are constantly realising the fact that it seems to reach the human being who really does need the assistance it brings.
The volunteers themselves are an interesting collection. Amongst the drivers you will find an ex-postman or a no-longer-serving admiral; a man who used to be on the delivery van of the coal merchant and a policeman or a fireman working off-duty days; women of leisure and women of no leisure; academic and housewife, professional and very humble, making the time by real self-sacrifice to do the job. Some of them work regularly; some of them work once a week and some work once a fortnight. And the same applies to the "mates" who deliver the meals. You will find side by side a person from a very comfortable, and indeed sometimes luxurious, home working as the "mate" to an old-age pensioner who is extremely hard up but has the liveliness and the attraction of being a member of the Cockney fraternity and, therefore, of being able to provide a very special contribution.
The volunteer who works on this sort of scheme is one who becomes dedicated very quickly because of the type of service she or he is giving. As they see the recipient and realise the situation in which that person is placed, they immediately begin to feel that there is nothing they would not do to help; and, because they are briefed to take note of what could be done in addition to the delivery of the meal, little by little a very great

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deal of individual service can be provided to the individual recipient. However brief the visit, it is often an important factor in the day of the person receiving the meal, who may be alone for the rest of the 24 hours. Members delivering the meal obviously cannot stay to talk, but they are able to see what is wrong and report back to the centre so that appropriate follow-up can take place. And whether that follow-up be a regular visitor or books to read; a little gift of flowers or a doctor to call, reporting on a person who is obviously in need of attention or, most often, a district nurse to come and appraise the situation, a tremendous amount of local work is done with a minimum amount of fuss and flurry.
I have often been out on a round as a "mate", and once when we were delivering meals in the East End of London the recipient was an old and far from clean man. He looked at me and in a very irritated voice said: "You are six minutes late"; and then, giving me a second and even more disgusted look, he said: "And you are the wrong one, anyway". This quite obviously shows that there is a regularity in the delivery of the meal, and it also shows that there exists a "right one" to whose coming the old man really looked forward. If this be so; if, in fact we, the men and women who are working on this scheme, can in due course make something which is good enough to serve the people, I believe that a very useful domiciliary service could be added to the valuable ones that are already functioning.
Many of us, looking into the far distance, see on the horizon a life for people Where there will be little need for institutions and much opportunity for living and dying in one's own home. This is a hope which demands much work and very careful approach, as well as a great deal of patience in that approach. What we hope in the long view is that ultimately the home help will come in and do the domestic work for such people as are unable to look after themselves. She, in turn, would be backed by the "Meals on wheels" service, bringing a hot midday meal to those who are homebound or bedridden. This would, of course, be in support of that most wonderful of all people, the district nurse, who is the most reliable
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and the most loved person in the community, and who comes second in value only to the doctor.
If this vision is right and could be implemented, then the comforts which, through a variety of circumstances, life may deny to the sick or the ageing person can be supplied in the community in a way Which would make life livable right up to the end instead of making it a heavy burden and a tragedy for so many people. It has been put on record for all time by a great master of the fates of the world that this country would undertake and carry through a seemingly impossible task if the tools were forthcoming. We, the workers in "Meals on Wheels", can do no more than humbly imitate him and ask for the tools. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.
3.12 p.m.
LORD LATHAM: My Lords, I am greatly pleased to have the opportunity of supporting the Motion which has been moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Swanborough, in a moving and impressive speech. She has raised a question which is one of the problems affecting the inarticulate aged. The "Meals on Wheels" Service is another attempt to meet one of the problems of old age. In the later nineteenth century, and early in this century, conditions were such that they could perhaps be described as the age of poverty and wretchedness. The problem then was not so much age, because in those days, which have been described as consisting of "dark and Satanic mills," on the whole people did not live long enough. Now, of course, happily, and very creditably to this country as well as to others, the span of life, as the noble Lady has said, has been much extended. But problems emerge, and now in many cases the problem that faces us is the poverty of age. Instead of being able to enjoy that sense of security and serenity in the eventide of life, for many thousands of old people it is in a very real sense—and one must unhappily admit it—a mere extension of wretchedness and loneliness: many of them unable to prepare the meats which they need; many of them without relatives and friends; homebound and alone. And loneliness can be a very terrifying circumstance.

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Fifty years ago, the then Prime Minister of this country, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, said that there were 11 million people living below the poverty line; and in those days the poor had a mortal fear of the workhouse. Now, many of them fear life itself. As I think the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, said on one occasion, we have reached the stage when it is difficult to afford to be old, and that, unhappily, is the case with many of the aged in this country. "Meals on Wheels" is a service to provide, as the noble Lady has said, food and maintenance at the homes or where the people reside, other than, if it can be avoided, in institutions. These meals are mainly provided, with assistance from local authorities, by the local voluntary old people's welfare organisations and, notably by the Women's Voluntary Services, of which the noble Lady is the renowned head. But the expansion of this service, which is so valuable, is held up, I understand, for want of funds, equipment, and other necessary elements and requirements.
As I gather, the purpose of this Motion is to urge the Minister to grant powers generally to local authorities to assist and subsidise (if you care to use the word) voluntary organisations in carrying out this service. The noble Lady referred to the situation in London. As I understand it, "Meals on Wheels" services in London operate in each of the 28 metropolitan boroughs, but not in the City of London. The services are mainly provided by voluntary local old people's welfare organisations and, as I have said, by the Women's Voluntary Services and the British Red Cross. Under the powers of Section 31 of the National Assistance Act, 1948, the London County Council subsidises all dinner meals supplied by approved voluntary organisations to old people living within the administrative county, and there is a scale of subsidy. The borough councils exercise their powers in this behalf under Section 31 of the 1948 Act, making contributions towards the general cost of running the meals services—namely, to meet the cost of transport, wages, hot containers and other equipment, precisely those elements which are needed, and which were referred to by the noble Lady.
The borough councils of London have power to do this under Section 31, which runs as follows:
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"A local authority may make contributions to the funds of any voluntary organisation whose activities consist in or include the provision of recreation or meals for old people."
The conjuncture of those two elements in life is perhaps rather entertaining. The "local authority" in this section includes the London County Council, the City of London and the metropolitan boroughs. During the financial year ended the 31st March, 1960, a total of 877,000 midday meals were supplied to old people in London under the scheme, including those which were served in luncheon clubs. As a tentative estimate, it is thought that those served under the "meals on wheels" scheme represented rather more than half that total. But one thing should be said, I think: that the London County Council estimated expenditure under this head for 1961–62 is some £50,000. It should be clearly understood that "meals on wheels" for old people must be distinguished from the delivered meals provided for many years past by "Invalid Meals for London". This is a voluntary body which provides special-diet meals for invalids of all ages, and for many years it received a grant-in-aid from the L.C.C., through its health committee.
As I understand it, there have been conversations between the local authority associations, the London County Council and the Minister with a view to giving all local authorities the same powers as are enjoyed and operated in London, including power for the local authorities to provide directly meals for old people. It was proposed in these conversations, as I am informed, to amend Section 31 of the National Assistance Act, 1948, to which I have already referred, under Which the borough councils of London and the L.C.C. at present operate, so that it applied to all local authorities. Discussions took place. There were apparently differences of opinion as to whether the Minister could reasonably ask that his approval should be sought in regard to the measure of charge to be made in respect of the meals supplied to persons already under benefit from National Assistance and in other cases. The local authority associations and the L.C.C. took the view that that was not a matter in which the Minister could properly claim to exercise control, and, so far as I can ascertain, the discussions broke down, and

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nothing has been heard by the local authorities' associations or by the L.C.C. for about twelve months.
The position therefore remains that the local authorities are without this power. I suggest that, in a matter of this kind, the Minister should resume these discussions without delay and should not allow some peccadillo of status or administrative rights, or that kind of thing, to stand in the way of meeting the pathetic needs of these old people. After all, we must not allow these people to suffer and go hungry because of administrative disagreements. I have taken part in many administrative disagreements, but I hope that I have never been regardless of considerations of the kind which exist in respect of these old people.
What is the use of building one-room accommodation for these aged persons, at great cost, if the occupant is to go hungry because he or she is homebound? The consequence can, of course, be that these unfortunate people are driven into institutions, whereas, quite properly, in this country we are moving away from institutional provision. To take only the material point of view, the cost of providing accommodation in institutions is immense, and for the want of a, relatively speaking, small expenditure of money by the local authorities this additional cost of providing either single-roomed houses or flats, or institutions, would be avoided.
I hope that as a result of this Motion, and the discussion which is to take place in your Lordships' House this afternoon, the Minister may be moved to agree that local authorities should have the power to subsidise and provide equipment and transport, and things of that kind, in connection with this service, and that they should be encouraged so to do. It is a humanitarian service to these aged people among us who are homebound, so that they may eat in their own homes, as the noble Lady has said, and, with the aid of the other welfare services properly and very worthily provided by this country, may live out their remaining years in comfort and in happiness. I sincerely hope that the Minister will take a humanitarian view of this problem.
3.28 p.m.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, before adding what few words I am going to
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say in support of the Motion so well moved by the noble Baroness, I feel that I must first declare a certain interest in regard to myself. In the first place, I am one of the Governors of the National Corporation for the Care of Old People, which was the body working under the Nuffield Trustees who arranged for the survey on "meals on wheals" to which the noble Baroness referred.
The second interest I have is that I was until the end of 1959 the Chairman of the body to which the noble Lord, Lord Latham, has referred, Invalid Meals for London, which has now become the responsibility of the London County Council. We did not take part in the survey to which the noble Baroness referred, for several reasons which I should like just to mention to your Lordships. In the first place the Invalid Meals was an entirely different service. We employed a wholly-paid staff: we served a large variety of special diets to people and we did not confine our attention to old people. Therefore, it did not seem a really comparable service to the "meals on wheels" which we have been hearing about.
The third interest I should declare is that I was until last year the President of the County of London branch of the British Red Cross Society, which again supplies meals in a number of boroughs of the County. There is one thing on which I think we shall all agree: that the "Meals on Wheels" service is the third great pillar in the tripod which serves to keep people in their own homes, the other two being the Home Help Service and the Home Nursing Service. If there is not a good meals service as well, it is difficult for those other two bodies to do their work properly. That is why I think one must give such great praise to the voluntary organisations and, in particular, to the W.V.S., for the way they started the "Meals on Wheels" service, and have maintained it and continue to give such a fine and expanding service.
But I should like to change the line of the debate a little and put to your Lordships some views of my own about the way I think the meals service should be run. I did, in fact, commit myself, with the assistance of one of my colleagues on the Invalid Meals service, in a short article which I wrote in the

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British Medical Journal in the summer of 1958, and, so far as I can see, nothing has occurred since then to make me change radically the opinions I gave then. It would seem that there are two categories of persons who require meals in their own home. One, quite a short-term service, would deal with people who have been sick and require a meal to be brought in while they recover their strength—they may have been in hospital or sick in their own homes. It can be a great advantage if a short-term meal service is available so that they can recover before once again beginning to shop and cook for themselves and their families.
The second, which is really the more important, concerns the long-term cases. Again, I think they can be divided into two categories, the first being those who require for a long time, may be permanently, some special diet to keep themselves fit and to prevent their health breaking down and their having to require treatment or long admission to hospital. They would be people suffering from diabetes and gastric complaints and others who sometimes find it difficult to prepare suitable meals in their homes. If they could get a meal, provided by some body, which would comprise a suitable diet, it would be a good thing for them. Then there are the types of people who, because of frailty and infirmity generally, find it difficult to provide suitable meals for themselves in their own homes. From what I have said, your Lordships will see that I have in mind a comprehensive service which should be available on five days a week comprising both special and normal meals. It does not mean at all that every person taking a meal will want one on five days a week, but it should be available for those who do.
When one comes to the old people, I think it can be said—indeed, the noble Baroness mentioned this—that some will require special diets to fit their own particular wishes or diseases. One most interesting thing which emerged during the last full year when I was concerned with the Invalid Meals service, the year 1958, was that about a quarter of the people who were served with meals were under 65, which is quite a large percentage of the total. We also found that about half of the people over 65 who were recommended for meals by their
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doctors or by hospitals required some kind of special diet. Some diets were not very complicated, others were quite difficult and complicated, such as diabetic diets for diabetes, diets for people with gastric trouble, various diets for heart diseases and so forth. So there is a good case for saying that a meals service requires some sort of medical background. In a great many cases people would be recommended to it by their general practitioner.
I do not want to be too insistent on the medical side, but. I think there must be a medical background to it. As the noble Baroness said, the meals must be recommended by a responsible person with some knowledge of the requirements of the individual concerned. At the same time, in conjunction with the services there should be someone having some knowledge of nutritional values and experience in planning well-balanced diets. I am sure the noble Baroness would agree with every word I say in that respect. The voluntary organisations have continued to provide this very good service for a long time. It is now expanding, but one wonders whether, as the noble Baroness said, it can continue to do it for much longer without some assistance from the local authorities.
I should like to support the noble Baroness in her plea that the local authorities should be empowered to provide equipment and encouraged to work with the voluntary organisations. At the same time, suppose there are parts of the world—after all, parts of the world vary; they are not all perfect—where it was not possible to obtain volunteers. Then, I think the local authority should be able to employ people to carry out some such service as I have suggested. At the present time one trouble as I think the noble Lord, Lord Latham, mentioned, is that there is a certain difficulty about the somewhat rigid lines of demarcation between Section 28 of the National Health Service Act and Section 31 of the National Assistance Act. Section 28 of the National Health Service Act enables local authorities to look after the care and after-care, among other things, of people who have been sick, or to prevent them from becoming sick, whereas under Section 31 of the National Assistance Act a local authority can contribute to the funds of a voluntary organisation supplying meals.

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That we have heard before, and I do not want to go into it again, but I wonder whether it would not be more satisfactory for all concerned if a comprehensive meals service, such as I have described, were to come under Section 28 of the National Health Service Act. I think it has been provided by one or two local authorities under those powers, and one would like to see that power encouraged among other local authorities, because it brings the whole thing under the health committee of the council. Surely the provision of meals is primarily a health, rather than a welfare, function. If that is not a matter of general agreement among your Lordships, certainly it is my own opinion and I think it should be looked at in that way.
If I remember aright, a Private Member's Bill was introduced twice into another place to enable the National Assistance Act to be amended. I am afraid that Bill did not get very far; I do not think it even received a Second Reading, but I am not quite sure about that. It certainly did not proceed further than that stage. One is rather sorry that nothing more was done to take its place. I think I am right in saying that there was at one time some suggestion that Her Majesty's Government would introduce legislation to enable local authorities to provide meals—under what powers I do not know, because no Bill has ever appeared. I think the noble and learned Viscount, in answer to a Question by myself—
LORD LATHAM: My Lords, if I may intervene, I think it will be found that the Government intended to amend the National Assistance Act, 1948, in order to confer this power, but they have not done so.
LORD AMULREE: I am grateful to the noble Lord.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, if I can assist noble Lords about this, I think that what the noble Lords are referring to is a Parliamentary Question in another place addressed to my right honourable friend at that time—that is to say, in November, 1959—in regard to which the then Minister of Health gave an undertaking to study the possibility of bringing in legislation for this purpose.
LORD AMULREE: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord for reminding me of what occurred. That really covers most of what I wanted to say. I should like to conclude by continuing my plea that the service should be a part of the National Health Service, because of its enormously important preventive effect. It helps people to get fit in their own homes; it prevents people from collapsing, physically and mentally, and having to be removed to hospital, and it will take care of them when they come out. It will enable a larger number of people who want to be discharged from hospital to be discharged. Frequently they cannot be so discharged because the services are not available for them when they wish to go to their homes. As the noble Baroness said, the service can be a very costly one, and therefore it should be possible for people who can contribute to the cost to be asked to do so; but a large number of people are unable to do so and they should be provided with such meals, too. With those few words, I should very much like to support the Motion of the noble Baroness, and I trust we shall get a favourable reply from Her Majesty's Government.
3.40 p.m.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Swanborough, has raised an important matter to-day, and a very worthy cause, for it affects the daily lives of those who are less fortunate than ourselves and who, in the main, have reached the twilight of their existence. The Motion refers to those who are homebound, often because they are physically handicapped by weakness or blindness and also, in many cases because they are alone. Although I have not yet reached the age when one lives entirely on one's memories, I can appreciate the fact that loneliness can be one of the worst ailments of old age. That, coupled with the need of the aged for care and attention, are the reasons why I warmly support the noble Baroness's Motion to-day.
As other speakers have mentioned, Section 31 of the National Assistance Act, 1948, empowers local authorities to make grants to any voluntary organisation towards recreation or meals for old people; but the operative word in that section is "may" and not "shall".

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I hope that to-day's debate will serve the purpose of highlighting in the minds of all members of local authorities the great importance of "meals on wheels" and also—and I think this is an important point—the valuable part that this service can play in the daily contact that exists between the voluntary worker and the recipients of these meals. The Outlines of a Survey on the Meals on Wheels Service published in October of last year gives a number of facts, figures and statistics, and I am glad that it stresses, too, the social value of this service. Can one be surprised that the Governors of the National Corporation for the Care of Old People should state in the foreword to their Report that a service of this kind should be available to all those who need it, when it is mentioned in this Report that over 25 per cent. of the recipients of these meals have no other visitors whatsoever during five days of the week: and these are all homebound elderly persons? Can one imagine the loneliness any person can feel, to be alone and homebound for at least five days in every week? I believe that that is a very important aspect of this service.
I do not agree, however, with all the recommendations of the Report. The noble Baroness mentioned one, but I should like to quote a particular paragraph with aspects of which I do not agree:
"It would seem that the possibility of voluntary organisations being so expanded as to meet the full demands of all older people in need of 'meals on wheels' is doubtful since the number of meals needed would be a minimum of four times the number at present served."
I think one can discount those remarks if one considers very briefly the figures given by the noble Baroness, in which she showed the rate of increase in the number of meals supplied by the Women's Voluntary Services, which I believe is the most important voluntary organisation in this country. They serve 77 per cent. of all the "meals on wheels" and contribute to a further 9 per cent. of the other meals supplied to recipients of the service.
On the other hand, there are parts of the Report with which I am in complete agreement. I am very pleased to see that the Report mentions the fact that most local authorities are prepared to give some aid to voluntary "meals on
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wheels" schemes, for instance in the form of subsidy. But it would seem to be more difficult to obtain from local authorities capital grants for transport, equipment and kitchens. I understand that while, in the London area, the amount of subsidy provided by the London County Council to the metropolitan boroughs is 1s. per meal, Lambeth Council, for instance, pay only 10d. towards the meals, the recipient paying another 10d. I might add that an extra 2d. provided by the local authority (that is, the Lambeth Borough Council) would assist the voluntary organisation to provide meals of better quality, quantity and variety.
In that area the meals supplied by the voluntary organisation are obtained from the Vauxhall Café. Your Lordships may be surprised that I mention the name of a commercial undertaking supplying these meals, but I do so because it is a commercial undertaking; and I spoke to the proprietor and was most gratified to see that she was a person who takes great interest in her work and, with only 1s. 8d. for each meal, does her utmost to provide first-class meals. To me they seemed very appetising. For instance, on the day I visited this restaurant there was fried fish and chip potatoes, as well as a pudding, being served for the "meals on wheels" service.
LORD LATHAM: Did the noble Lord have a subsidised meal?
LORD MERRIVALE: No, I am afraid I did not, but I should have been very pleased to partake of such a meal.
LORD LATHAM: Somebody was amiss!
LORD MERRIVALE: Last month, for instance, the total number of meals delivered in that area by the voluntary organisation—that is, the W.V.S.—was 2,356. That may be only a small portion of the total number of meals supplied, but it shows the number of meals that are supplied all over the country by the 580 schemes provided by the W.V.S.
I should not like to weary your Lordships with personal experiences, but I wish to refer to a few visits I made to the elderly recipients of these meals. I should particularly like to mention four visits I made. All of them were to old

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people between 70 and 80 years of age. One poor old lady, living alone, could not come to the door because she lived on the first floor and the flight of stairs was too steep, and, in spite of the fact that she walked with the help of a cane, she was very unsteady on her feet. When I called she was a little disappointed that it was not her regular W.V.S. caller, but, all the same, she was delighted at the opportunity to speak with somebody who could take an interest in her welfare and in her wellbeing.
Another poor old lady living alone in a top-floor room pathetically explained to me that she was blind that day; that was the day I called. She tried on both of her pairs of spectacles which were on the table, because, although she told me there were days when she could see a little, on that day she could not see at all. She had tried both pairs of spectacles but could not see at all. It was pathetic, seeing this old lady who wished to see but could not; and she lived alone on this top floor. Another elderly person I visited was delighted to have a visitor, and she was particularly keen on showing me her room where she had accumulated an assortment of personal effects throughout the years. I could not help but notice some framed photographs of soldiers. She told me that they were photographs of brothers of hers, now dead.
Finally, I would mention one more elderly person I visited, because she was living in a basement; and a very dark basement, too, I might add. As one crossed the threshold of the front door, in spite of the fact that it was midday it was completely dark inside. Although when one went into the kitchen it was not quite so dark, it was still a very depressing place to live in. What struck me was that when she opened her cupboard to fetch a plate it seemed a depressingly bare cupboard, and, after that, when it was pointed out to her that she also needed a spoon, she seemed very hesitant as to where that spoon was. My Lords, I mention these facts purely to show, and I hope I have stressed (although your Lordships are no doubt well aware of it), that these elderly people do need help. They need people to take an interest in them and they need people to visit them. They
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also need to have somebody to speak to and to feel that somebody can take an interest in their wellbeing.
It is particularly sad when one is dealing with people who are incapacitated. It is bad enough to be poor, but if also you are homebound it must be a very sad thing to end your life in that manner. Therefore, I think that anything we in this House can do towards urging Her Majesty's Government to stress this fact to local authorities should be done. Although I well know that they must be aware of the fact, as they cater for these elderly people, anything we can do should be done, and I must say that I hope the maximum will be done.
In conclusion, I trust, as I have just said, that Her Majesty's Government will give their full support to schemes demanding capital grants for the acquisition of the appropriate equipment whenever it is required; that is, for transport facilities such as have been asked for by the noble Baroness, and kitchen facilities and cooking facilities provided by the local authorities, whenever it is practicable. In some areas it may not be practicable at all, owing to shortage of space, but there must be areas where space could be allocated for kitchens to be set up so that these voluntary organisations could operate them on a voluntary basis. I mention that I should like to see the voluntary organisations operate these schemes, more so than the local authorities, because I think there is then personal contact between those who are served and the voluntary worker, somebody who is doing it purely out of feeling for his or her own countrymen or countrywomen. It is not a paid job and the voluntary workers do it because they feel they want to help others who are not so well off as themselves or who are in a more sorry plight. That is why I think that when somebody is doing it for a salary one cannot get the same personal feeling into the job. I sincerely hope that local authorities will appreciate that fact.
LORD LATHAM: My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord would agree that the servants of local authorities are not entirely bereft of human characteristics and human desires.
LORD MERRIVALE: No; I would not in any way believe they were at all:

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it would not enter my mind in any way whatsoever. But I feel that one is more inclined to take an interest in someone else when one is not doing it for a salary. My Lords, with those few remarks—rather disjointed remarks, I am afraid—I warmly support the Motion of the noble Baroness.
3.58 p.m.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Merrivale, has been out and seen for himself what this problem is like, and I am very glad that he should have been and should have told your Lordships, because he is absolutely right. It is a very real human problem, and when you go and see what is happening in these homes where "meals on wheels" are being served you realise not only the value of the meals but the value of the warmth of human contact and friendship which goes with them. He reminded us that the Motion refers to the homebound. It does not make a ha'p'orth of difference if those people are homebound because they are old or because they are sick and not old: the problem is the same, except where a special diet is required, as the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, has reminded us. Special diets may be required by people who are old or young, whether they are under or over 65, and these are, therefore, really two separate problems.
One problem is that of the person at home requiring a special diet because he or she is diabetic or suffering from heart trouble or gastric trouble, as the case may be. That is a more specialised and more difficult problem. The second group are the homebound folk, whether homebound because they are getting old and very frail, or because they are suffering from some awful chronic disease of youth. Of course there are a number of folk like that who may be homebound in their 30's or 40's or 50's, and just as much in need of help and meals at home as are the old folk.
The great issue which the Motion puts before us—it is one which I think we ought to look at quite clearly—is whether this work should be done by voluntary organisations or by the local authorities. This is an exceedingly difficult problem to resolve, because both do excellent work. Sometimes one has a feeling that it is the voluntary bodies that do the better work, and sometimes vice versa. Let me give a few instances.
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We have the situation of the Queen's Nurses—the home nurses to whom the noble Baroness referred. In some cases they are still run by Queen's Institutes, with a 95 per cent. grant from the local authorities; in other cases the local authority have taken over the Queen's Nurses and run them as a home nursing service, as a part of their public health services. Now it is very difficult to make an objective decision as to which is the better. I have a sort of "hunch" and feeling that I liked best the old Queen's Nursing Service, but I may be wrong. I know that there are many areas where nothing would have been done without the local authority's effort, and it would be quite wrong to stigmatise either the voluntary organisations or the local authorities as not doing the job. But I think that, where the job is being done, and is being increasingly well done, to take it away from a voluntary organisation for any reasons of statutory tidiness is a great mistake. I think that the W.V.S., and the other voluntary organisations, on a much smaller scale (because the great bulk of this work is done by the W.V.S.), have proved not only that they can do the job, but that they can do it increasingly, as is shown in the Report from the National Corporation for the Care of Old People.
Incidentally, this Report is based on a survey carried out by an organisation which I helped to build during the war—the Government Social Survey. This organisation was commissioned by the Nuffield Survey to do this excellent investigation, and the field work and the conclusions of this investigation are extremely interesting and extremely valuable. However, this Report has tacked on to it some recommendations which, as the noble Baroness, Lady Swanborough, has said, have been proved false by events. It so happens that the sociologist who did this job did not realise that the voluntary organisation could expand to deal with the situation as it has done.
One of the things I tried to find out when I read this Survey was what was the total demand for "meals on wheels". I think that at the time the Survey was being carried out there were about 20,500 people getting "meals on wheels". The Survey calculated that, assuming there was in every area an organisation giving "meals on wheels"

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and that in those areas where there was no demand there existed the same demand as in the other areas, about 38,000 people would need "meals on wheels" throughout the whole country. I was very interested to hear what the noble Baroness, Lady Swanborough, had to say to-day, when she said, I think, that they have reached 48,000 meals a week. That is a very good achievement. Again, if your Lordships read this Survey, you will see that most "Meals on Wheels" services can manage only one meal a week, which is a great pity. The work must grow from that; the number of meals supplied must become two, three or four a week—and I am sure that it will. I am sure that it is simply a matter of building it up and getting it going. I think that the growth which has been achieved in the past two years is so spectacular that it would be a shame if the voluntary organisations were to feel that the better they did the work the more likely they were to lose it. That is a terrible and sad state of affairs, and is no incentive to do it well.
Now the Motion asks that
"… local authorities should be authorised to provide kitchens and other equipment and facilities for voluntary bodies …".
I wonder if this is really needed, or whether, in fact, the power is not already available, provided that the Act is interpreted liberally. I do not think fresh legislation is needed. I think that what is needed is a "tough" directive from the Minister of Health or the Minister of Pensions, as the case may be, saying that it is within the local authorities' power, of course, to provide kitchens, transport, containers and so on. I think that that is all that is required.
One last point, my Lords. Judging from this Survey, the noble Baroness has had greater difficulties in certain types of areas. It looks as though it is hardest to get recruits for voluntary services not in the very poor areas but in the moderately poor areas—I see that the noble Baroness indicates what I take to be dissent. But I think that these areas are a "tough nut"; and if she has succeeded in the Islingtons as well as in the even poorer boroughs, then I think it is an amazing achievement. I hope—in fact I feel sure—that she and her organisation will be directing their attentions to making sure that they have
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achieved a nation-wide coverage, with a pin-pointing of the bad areas and the difficult areas. So, my Lords, we all wish her well, and the service which she and her colleagues have done so much to create. We wish the local authorities well, and we hope that they will all do as well as the best of them is doing now. If they do that, then I do not think there will be any great difficulty lover the future of the "Meals on Wheels" service, and I am sure that old people everywhere will be appropriately grateful.
4.7 p.m.
LORD AMHERST OF HACKNEY: My Lords, I should like wholeheartedly to support the Motion moved by the noble Baroness. I do so for two main reasons: first, because I think we are all convinced that the "Meals on Wheels" service makes a useful contribution to the care of the housebound; and, secondly, because where voluntary bodies are carrying out a worthwhile job and are carrying it out efficiently I feel that they should be given every possible encouragement.
On the question of the need and usefulness of the service, we have heard a lot to-day; and, of course, there is a lot in the Report on the "Meals on Wheels" service, and many examples have been given. I think that one quite interesting figure in the Report is that, of the recipients, 50 per cent. of the women do not get, on the days when they do not get the "Meals on Wheels" service, what the Survey considers to be an adequate meal. Of course, the importance of this service has again been recognised in Circular No. 10 of 1961, issued by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, in which, in paragraph 13, on the subject of the provision of meals, local authorities are advised to consult with the voluntary bodies when building houses and accommodation for old people. That shows the importance which the Government attach to this side of the work.
As has been said, however, the schemes in existence cover only a small part of the population. The figure of the need has been given as being 6 million, and it has been said that in 1958 only 1¼ million meals were provided. The figure has, of course, gone up very considerable since then; but even so we all know that there are large areas which

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are not at present covered. So the pro-lem that faces us is bow those meals are to be provided. We must, I think, differ from the survey when it says that the voluntary bodies were at that time extended more or less to their limits. The noble Baroness has given many figures to show how wrong was that forecast—and very striking figures they are.
Although the rise in the number of meals has been so spectacular, there are the difficulties which have been mentioned. One is not surprised that the voluntary bodies are coping with them so well, because it is, I think, quite extraordinary how many people there are in this country who, when there is a really worthy cause, are prepared to give of their time, particularly to serve it. After all, when you give a pound, how much it hurts you depends very much on how many pounds you have. But time, for all of us, is limited; and therefore I think time is one of the greatest things a person can give in service to his neighbours. I feel that the local authorities who are being assisted should be given every encouragement to supply the tools for which the noble Baroness has asked.
There is a tremendous difference between the attitudes of local authorities. As the noble Baroness has said, many provide practically the whole cost of the service. There are some who make only a token contribution, although most of them, I believe, are willing to subsidise the actual cast of the meal. Some make grants which cover the equipment as well. But the difficulties are not in the personnel, the volunteers, but in the organisation and supply of meals, in transportation, and in providing containers. I notice from the Report that in 1958 about one-fifth of the meals were cooked in the kitchens run by the various organisations; another one-fifth of the meals were obtained through the schools meals service. The schools meals service presents certain difficulties in that at certain times of the year, during the school holidays, the meals services close down. But, of course, the need of the old person, or the person who is otherwise unable to get a meal, is just as great during school holidays as it is during term times. Therefore there must be a very good case indeed for the organisation itself, whether the W.V.S. or
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the Red Cross, to run its own kitchen. As the noble Lord, Lord Taylor, has said, it seems that the power for local authorities to supply the equipment is there: what is needed is a definite clarification from the Government of what the powers are.
My Lords, I do not want to add any more to this debate. It is a most important service about which we are talking. It makes use of a great fund of voluntary service, and it is in the interests of the housebound. It is a service which I feel, without any disrespect to the local authority services, can essentially be run on a voluntary basis. I feel that in making a contribution to the equipment of this service local authorities will be doing two most important things. One, as has been said before, is that they would be allowing old people, and people otherwise not able to do so, to live in their own homes. At the same time, by enabling those people to remain in their homes the local authorities will be saving a great deal of money which they would otherwise have to spend to maintain them in institutions. So it seems to me that this Motion, both from the point of view of the old people, the people who need help, and from the point of view of the local authority, is really good, sound common sense. I therefore support it wholeheartedly.
4.17 p.m.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, I wish to make only a few general observations, because I believe this debate has been fairly exhaustive. In the first place I would say this. I am sure the country will be very surprised, as have many of us here been surprised this afternoon, to learn that it is necessary at this stage to iron out the administrative difficulties Which the noble Baroness has so ably described. Personally, I confess I am shocked, and for this reason. In another place, year after year, we have discussed the hospitals bill for the Health Service. I think honourable Members on both sides of that House have endeavoured to make constructive contributions which they believe will enable the Minister to reduce the cost. I, with the concurrence of the last two or three Ministers, have emphasised the need to decentralise the Health Service so far as the hospitals are concerned. The cost of maintaining a patient in a hospital is so

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great that it has been clear to all those concerned with the administration that, if hospital costs could be reduced, then it would effect a considerable saving.
I think the honourable Members on both sides of that House have arrived at the conclusion that, if a comprehensive domiciliary service could be established, consisting of a general practitioner, a district nurse, a home-help and a meals service, then this considerable pressure on the hospitals from the aged would be reduced. And here I would remind noble Lords that there is only a thin line between senility and a pathological condition. If the aged are neglected, invariably they become pathological, and then there is pressure on the hospitals by the relations. This is happening in every part of the country. It is one of the daily problems of the general practitioner, and it is a poignant problem for the relations. It is a very important matter to them, and they feel that the general practitioner should accede to their request, whereas the general practitioner knows that the hospitals are full. Consequently, year after year we have emphasised in these debates in another place the importance of a comprehensive domiciliary service. Last year we had yet another debate, and on each occasion the Minister of Health has accepted that this approach is the right one.
May I remind your Lordships that the cost of a hospital bed varies from £12 a week to £30 a week, according to the type of hospital? Therefore, when the noble Lady tells us of this modest request for a subsidy to be given universally—modest in the light of the colossal cost of the hospital service—it is truly amazing to learn that there have been administrative difficulties. My noble friend Lord Latham has informed the House that the County Councils Association has written him to say that
"… nothing has been heard from the Minister about the question of meals for old people in the past 12 months."
This astounds me.
Your Lordships will recall that during this year the Minister of Health has thought it necessary to impose extra health charges which the aged have found onerous—that, I think, nobody will deny. We have been told that it
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has been necessary to impose these health charges, because the cost of the Health Service is so great. Yet this afternoon we have heard put forward from both sides of your Lordships' House the means whereby the pressure on the hospital service could be reduced. And twelve months have been passed and no approach has been made by the Minister to the local authorities. I hope that in consequence of this debate this grave omission of the Minister will be rectified immediately, not only in the interests of the sick but also in the interest of the taxpayers, who are called upon to pay the large sum of money for our Health Services.
Perhaps it is a little unfortunate that this has been an ad hoc debate on the aged with regard to meals, because I am sure that the noble Lady will agree with me that the problem of the aged is not only one of meals. In a debate a few weeks ago, the noble Lord, Lord Beveridge, made a poignant speech describing the loneliness of the aged. I think that happiness for the aged, and for all age groups, can be achieved only if their personal relationships are satisfactory. Not only has this been discussed in your Lordships' House and in the House of Commons; there have been debates upon this throughout the country, and the newspapers have given a great deal of attention to it. The Daily Mirror, which has a wide circulation, dealt with it as "A frank report about a blot on our conscience."
Many people have been stimulated to come forward and help in this problem, like the noble Lord, Lord Merrivale, who must be congratulated on the visits which he has personally paid to the sick and aged. One excellent secretary of a Council of Social Service has told me that she has had grammar school girls, members of the Rotary Club and all kinds of people volunteering, but she emphasised that it is necessary to match the visitor to the old person. I would say to the noble Lady—and I am afraid that on this point I must disagree with her—that when she said that in the domiciliary service, which we are all anxious to help, it might be the home-help who would have to return to cook a meal—
BARONESS SWANBOROUGH: My Lords, the noble Baroness misunderstood me. I said that the home-help could be

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supported—in other words, on the days the home-help was not there, meals could be supplied by "meals on wheels". Financially, it would be too extravagant for the home-help to produce a meal every day.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, I think that this is an important point, because this debate may be read by members of voluntary organisations throughout the country. The point I want to make is that if we are to solve the problem of the aged, there must be somebody who is regarded as a friend by the aged person and who does not necessarily visit in a technical capacity. In view of the fact that the aged are sometimes a little stubborn, are very proud and difficult to approach, and that perhaps the person who brings a meal may be the only one who can storm the citadel of the lonely person in his or her room, the "meals on wheels" visitor might report on the kind of person who would be acceptable as a regular visitor. Even when the noble Lord, Lord Merrivale, who is a handsome man, goes to see an old lady, she looks at him and says that she does not want him and would prefer the W.V.S. lady. I am glad that the noble Lord took that affront in such a nice manner. I think he will agree with me that it is necessary for the aged to have somebody to visit them whom they will regard as a friend and who can help to plan their lives with regard to other visitors.
We must not be concerned only with the physical sustenance of the aged but equally with the provision of, let us say, spiritual pabulum. We could learn much from the East, where it is recognised that social security for the aged is related to the need for close association with the family unit. I do not often appeal to the Churches, but I feel that perhaps the Commandment, "Honour thy father and thy mother", might be expounded a little more in pulpits. I do not believe that in those days this was simply a religious exhortation; it was part of the social code of the East, which would ensure that old people received the kind of protection and care which they crave.
While we have a Welfare State which, in my opinion, is primarily concerned with material provisions, we must take every opportunity to emphasise the over-
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riding need of every person for satisfactory personal relationships. I think that many of the people who are lonely would even be prepared to exchange a meal for a visit from somebody who could be understanding and thoughtful, and who preferably would he a relation. I believe that the question of meals for the aged is only one part of a much wider problem.
4.29 p.m.
VISCOUNT GAGE: My Lords, this has been an unusual debate in that practically every speaker has said the same thing. I also wish to say the same thing but, having some responsibility for local affairs in the county in which the noble Baroness, Lady Swanborough, lives, I feel that in self-defence, if for nothing else, I should say to her that in Sussex we use the "meals on wheels" service fairly extensively. Over 20,000 meals were delivered in that county last year, the cost of the meal being between 1s. 3d. and 1s. 9d., and the amount of subsidy, including mileage grants, being about 6d. a meal.
I agree that, if Parliament is going to put on to local authorities the task of looking after the aged, it would be wise if it gave local authorities a considerable measure of discretion as to how they should do it. As has been said, we can build communal homes and provide home-helps and we can subscribe to voluntary bodies who provide these meals. It is quite true that a communal home is by far the most expensive and, according to modern science, as we have heard, it is the least desirable. By far the best thing is for old people to be surrounded by their own things and to receive help in their homes, and this "Meals on Wheels" service is a good way of providing such help.
But its efficiency varies from place to place and from time to time. I feel that local authorities should be given discretion to assist in various ways. It is natural that the Government should want to put in some form of safeguard to prevent abuses from creeping in, and I think that anything in the nature of free or subsidised meals supplied off the rates is something in regard to which safeguards are required. Nevertheless, if we apply the safeguards in too strict categories, we may do so in a way that makes it difficult to fit human beings into those cate-

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gories. There is a distinction between people needing medical care, who come under the hospital board, and people who need care and attention, who come under the welfare services, and a distinction between the health services and the welfare services of the county council. And there is the question of who pays, as between the county council and the borough council.
The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, said that he thinks the power may be there, and the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, complains that the power is not there. I do not know who is right; but what I do know is that the matter is too complicated at present. In my county we may be a little stupid, but we have difficulty in wading through this jungle of regulations and law. I think these things should be made clear. I have no special knowledge of the legal side of this matter to suggest how it should be done, but I hope that my noble friend will give us some encouragement that we shall be given a little more discretion to help in this way.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, before the noble Viscount sits down, can he say whether his county council give grants for capital equipment to the voluntary bodies, or only subsidies for individual meals?
VISCOUNT GAGE: That is one of the points. I think capital equipment has been used by the education authority, but the food was more suitable for the young than the old. I do not think that we find it possible to provide that.
EARL WINTERTON: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend to make it clear that when he talks of the County of Sussex he refers to East Sussex and not West Sussex? They are two separate administrative counties. I believe that we in West Sussex have a "meals on wheels" service.
VISCOUNT GAGE: I hope they have. I said that the noble Baroness, Lady Swanborough, lived in East Sussex. I apologise for not differentiating between the two.
4.34 p.m.
VISCOUNT BRIDGEMAN: My Lords, I apologise for having come so late to the debate and, for that reason, for intervening, but I do so at the suggestion of
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the noble Lady who moved the Motion: She, who, if I may say so, wherever practicable, must be obeyed. I am not going to break the excellent sequence which my noble friend Lord Gage tells me has been followed, that everybody has said the same thing. My noble friend Lord Gage is one of our acknowledged experts on local government matters and, as we have heard, he has given an accurate picture of what the problem looks like from the local government level. Coming from Shropshire, I should like to add my plea to what he, coming from Sussex, has said—namely, that the local authorities should be given flexibility by the Minister in the handling of this problem. If I may say so, the problem is more urgent in Shropshire than in Sussex, because there we have country districts with remote cottages far away in the hills. It is a problem which is very hard for a civil servant who commutes from Surrey or maybe Sussex to understand in the way that we understand it when we are snowbound in the hills in the winter. Therefore, our need in Shropshire for flexibility is even greater than that which has been voiced by my noble friend in regard to Sussex.
At this stage of the debate I do not want to go into details, but simply to draw attention (I hope this has not been done already) to two principles which I think are followed out if the "Meals on Wheels" service is promoted and extended. The first principle is that old people or those who are in need should be attended to in their homes rather than be brought into welfare homes and institutions in the towns. Again, I come back to the country. It is one thing for an old lady to be taken from a house to the welfare home down the road; it is quite another matter for an old lady to be taken from her home in the country, before it is absolutely necessary, to a town which she does not understand, to spend the rest of her life in unfamiliar and maybe unpleasant surroundings. In a county like Shropshire we feel that problem acutely. While much more needs to be done, I feel that the answer to that problem is, to a great extent, provided by the service of "meals on wheels." Not only does it provide greater satisfaction to those whom it serves, but if one looks at it from the cold and calculated local government angle I am sure that it is better

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value for money. Therefore, from both those angles, I feel we should support Lady Swanborough's plea for an extension of the "Meals on Wheels" service.
Then, as long as that "Meals on Wheels" service is operated by the W.V.S., I think that is carrying out another principle, which I would not say is accepted everywhere but is one that I strongly support—namely, that wherever possible a social service of this sort should be undertaken by a voluntary body and should not have to be handed over to the State. I cannot believe that this kind of service, which is so largely personal, is not best done by people who know the district and give their time to the work, maybe making some sacrifice in so doing. If that is so, then the right combination for this work is the voluntary worker in the Women's Voluntary Services going round to the people in their own homes and dealing with the personal problems of the people to whom she takes meals: but—and this, I think, is the right relationship between the voluntary organisation and the State—supported and backed financially in that, with all the encouragement that can be given, by the local authority. The local authority, in its turn, should be provided with the necessary funds, partly by rate-borne expenditure, no doubt, but partly also by a grant from the Government, not merely to assist the finances but as a token that the Government themselves think that this is the right way for the problem to be tackled, are interested in the problem being tacked and are anxious to see this vital part of the social services carried out as it should be carried out in these times. I therefore give my full support to the Motion moved by the noble Lady.
4.39 p.m.
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, there is undoubtedly more than enough material for one debate within the main subject of "Meals on Wheels". So much has been proved in the course of to-day's speeches and in the pages of this Report, the remarkable work of Miss Amelia Harris. There is no call for me to digress, in the course of my reply, from the specific subject under debate. I would only, in opening, ask your Lordships to consider the undoubted boon of a "Meals on Wheels" service
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as part of what can be done, and should be done, for the comfort of elderly people or people otherwise immobilised and enfeebled, in our own society.
We see the Government's responsibility as existing in three co-ordinated forms. First, there is the provision of suitably designed housing, in the form of bungalows, flats or flatlets, with the service of a resident warden where necessary. An entire debate was devoted to this aspect in another place at the beginning of last month. All I intend to mention to-day are the figures for special housing for the aged. The number of one-bedroom dwellings completed in 1951 was 11,000; in 1960 it was 27,000. The White Paper, Housing in England and Wales, re-emphasises the priority which we give to this demand. Secondly, there is the assistance given through the domiciliary services: home nurses, domestic help, health visitors, sitters-in and others, such as chiropodists, who make life easier for those who, through age or physical incapacity, are limited in what they can do for themselves.
Thirdly, what most concerns us to-day, there is the Government's accepted duty to do all a Government can to ensure the co-operation between the statutory services I have described and those voluntary services provided by people, in whom we have every reason to feel pride as our compatriots: those who, out of the goodness of their hearts, will help in this work by visiting, helping With shopping, bathing, laundering and providing "meals on wheels". The vast majority of those engaged in this kind of work are giving their services free; some without organisation or system, as between neighbours, but many, of necessity, organised—and highly efficiently organised. Not every organisation founded on goodwill has been able to match its goodwill with efficiency. Those engaged on "Meals on Wheels" services, and on the whole wide range of personal services to the elderly in their own homes, back up their generosity with an impressive degree of efficiency. I do not think I should be considered out of order if, at this point, I pay my own tribute, among many, to the W.V.S., that body of which the noble Baroness is the leader and inspiration. The "Meals on Wheels" service is only one of the many to which that body and others

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dedicate themselves, and all they undertake is supremely well done. It is that particular service of "Meals on Wheels" with which we are concerned to-day.
The recent Report concerning that service has come in for some mild criticism from the noble Baroness to-day, and I, thank heaven!, am not here as any sort of adjudicator on that issue. One thing we are all agreed upon is that the service needs expanding, and we are all seeking the best means of expanding it. Noble Lords have asked, quite reasonably, what the Government are going to do about it; and the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, asked, rather more suspiciously, what had happened to the Government's good intentions declared at the end of 1959, and what we have done to encourage the good intentions of a Member of another place who has twice introduced a Bill to amend Section 31 of the National Assistance Act, 1948. The sequence of efforts, all in the same direction, has been as follows. Mr. McLeavy, the Member for Bradford, East—my own county of the West Riding, I am happy to say—introduced his Bill in 1957, and it reached its Committee stage. He has now reintroduced a Bill identical to the original one, as amended in Committee, which has not yet come forward for Second Reading. I think I am right in saying that it was introduced under the Ten-Minute Rule.
In the meantime, on November 10, 1959—the occasion which the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, has in mind, I think—my right honourable friend, the then Minister of Health, gave an assurance in another place that the Government proposed introducing legislation on behalf of the elderly, with two inclusive purposes: first, to enable local authorities to use their privately run accommodation, and, secondly, to make direct provision of meals. Since then, we have had the very helpful Report of the Government Social Survey, to which great reference has been made to-day. My right honourable friend is now considering, in the light of discussion and of the Report, what will be the best way to give effect to that particular undertaking, and there is no doubt that your Lordships' views as expressed to-day will be of great help in the framing of legislation for "meals on wheels".
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As the noble Baroness and others have pointed out, there is at the moment some confusion as to what powers the local authorities have under existing legislation to assist voluntary bodies. The main enabling Act is the National Assistance Act, which authorises district councils, as well as counties and county boroughs, to make contributions to the funds of any voluntary organisation whose activities consist in or include the provision of recreation or meals for elderly people. These powers are widely used. In addition a few local health authorities (counties and county boroughs) have included the provision of "meals on wheels" in their arrangements under the National Health Service Act, 1946, for the care of persons suffering from illness or its after effects.
I think that the phrase "suffering from illness or its after effects", is the limiting factor which prevents all cases from being dealt with under the National Health Act. That is what I understood to be the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Amulree. I will make myself quite clear on that: I think that that is the limiting factor which would prevent that particular section of the National Health Act from providing an authorisation for all cases. There are, if it is true, discrepancies as between local authorities throughout the country, and I may say, in case it is of any help, that if a local authority requests the Ministry's views of its (the local authority's) powers under an Act of Parliament, those views are always willingly given. Some local authorities, as we were reminded by the noble Lord, Lord Latham, such as the London County Council, have resolved this confusion by private Acts of Parliament of their own.
The noble Baroness, Lady Swan-borough, as well as my noble friends Lord Amherst of Hackney, Lord Gage, Lord Bridgeman and others, have asked us, with everybody's interest in mind, to have the doubts and confusions, where they exist, removed and the situation made clear as to what support can be permitted or authorised. I feel sure that what the noble Lady wants is something more than a mere interpretation of existing law. What we should all like to see is some advance upon what is possible under existing law. My Lords, this undertaking has already been given by the Government. I can assure the noble

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Lord, Lord Latham (who has explained to me that he cannot be present) that there is no need for my right honourable friend to resume discussions on this subject. He is, in fact, in active consultation about it, and will to-morrow be absorbing, gratefully I know, the advice and encouragement given by your Lordships during this afternoon.
Perhaps I might take a minute or two in setting out what I see as the questions and considerations involved, on all of which we have had guidance and other assistance this afternoon. Our starting point is that the provision of meals to older and other frailer people is one of the welfare services which can contribute most to an independent life in the community. At the sane time, meals for sick persons at home also enable patients who might otherwise be in hospital to be treated in their own homes. The economic advantages of this were driven home by the noble Lord, Lord Amulree, and by the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill. The work already done by the voluntary bodies has already shown something of the scope which still exists; it has also shown their willingness and ability to meet the demand. The advantages of a voluntary-staffed service have been stressed by noble Lords to-day. The noble Lord, Lord Taylor, can often convince me of almost anything, but he could not convince me in this to-day because I was already convinced. It seems to me something of which we can be particularly proud in our country, that it is probably easier to get people who will do these jobs for nothing than it would be to get paid workers. It is hard work, the sort of work that could appeal only to someone doing it for its own sake.
I have seen a little, scarcely worth mentioning, of the work of the W.V.S. "Meals on Wheels" service. My right honourable friend has seen a great deal more. During the past months, whenever he has had time, he has been out on the runs of "meals on wheels", acquainting himself at first hand with the problems of the service in different parts of the country. Even I, on a short run near my home, watched the joy with which the arrival of the "meals on wheels" is received, the joy that it brings into the lonely household; the visit, as it were, of a friend; the standing jokes,
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the standing anxieties to be allayed with a reassuring word; the standing grievances to be soothed over with a sympathetic word: in each small household a different joke, a different anxiety, a different individual grievance—the landlord in one, relatives in another, even the Government, I daresay, in some households more than usually out of touch with affairs.
LORD STONHAM: Or better informed.
LORD ST. OSWALD: I mention the value of the visit not to obscure the value of the meal or its appreciation, which is very considerable, and here I am in complete agreement with my noble friend Lord Merrivale. To those of us who have known hunger, even over short periods, the benison of a hot meal attentively served is apt to be a long-remembered pleasure. I was a little surprised to react in the Report the suggestion that the food gets progressively colder during the run. On the run which I witnessed and took part in, the Hotlock system of food cabinet was being used, and in point of fact the food got hotter as it was going round, due to the effect of the burning charcoal in its compartment. I understand that this is the most popular system being used for delivering "meals on wheels". The quality and suitability of the meal must, of course, vary according to the method of providing it, and the difficulties of a regular provision vary also according to whether the meals come from a school kitchen closed between terms or from some other source. I can see the argument and the desire for providing separate equipment and premises, as well as vehicles, for the "Meals on Wheels" service. The noble Baroness can be sure that we will take that into account.
The question has been mooted in the Report as to whether the demand, now generally recognised as being very large, could be met in the main by the voluntary bodies supported, in terms of capital equipment as well as running subsidies, by local authorities. The noble Baroness has replied very positively that it could produce, and has produced, persuasive arguments; and having seen the noble Lady's organisation at work in other fields I am well convinced that when that organisation says it can do something it means that it can. Certainly the

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need for expansion comes as no news to her, or to her organisation. I am aware that long before this Report was asked for her organisation had assessed the need at some 6 million meals a year, the same figure as arrived at by Miss Harris. They had also set their own target contribution at 4 million meals, at which point they would be able to look about and see how many more were required. On present proportions that seems to me very fair, because the W.V.S. is the largest though not the only organisation providing this service. There are also the 1,600 committees of the Old People's Welfare Committee throughout the country, and the Red Cross, which might also expect to expand given proper encouragement, and of course I agree that this encouragement must be directed to giving more meals to those already receiving meals, as well as to finding and providing for more recipients.
The results of even a relatively small assistance in terms of aid are really quite remarkable. I have only one first hand example which I collected on Friday in Yorkshire. A new van is about to be presented as a gift from the Lions' Club—a club of young businessmen of which I confess I had never heard before. They have raised £700 which they are presenting to their local W.V.S. branch, and this second van will have the following effects: it will enable persons at present receiving one meal per week to have two, if they wish it; it will enable meals to be served in areas not covered at present, and certain old people who enjoy the visits of "meals on wheels" members will have the opportunity of speaking for a longer period to the person who visits them.
My noble friend Lord Amherst of Hackney has asked how areas not at present served were to be covered, and that is one of the questions under consideration by my right honourable friend. What is very clear is that in these schemes, either to begin them or to enable them to function, the co-operation of both local authorities and voluntary bodies working in harmony and in mutual respect is an essential feature. My noble friend Lord Gage brought out that point, and it is abso-
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lutely undeniable. This harmony exists in almost all parts of the country, to the great benefit of those in need and those who wish to help them. I was happy, though not surprised, to learn that since the Report was published Hertfordshire has established a "Meals on Wheels" service and has asked the W.V.S. to run it. This bears out the findings of the noble Baroness as expressed to-day.
There are two main reasons why the voluntary organisations do not like to act as their own recommending bodies. The first, and perhaps the less important, is that they can be taken advantage of, so that the limited service they are able to give may be stretched in a less necessary direction. The more important reason is that they can provide only one service, whereas the probability is that someone in need of "meals on wheels" is also in need of other services which only the local authority can provide. Moreover, as the service expands more help will be needed from the local authorities—in publicity and in listing those who require the service, as well as in subsidies to support the action taken. At present, I am told, 73 per cent. of the W.V.S. "meals on wheels" are subsidised as regards the food and cooking, but only a very small proportion as regards equipment and vehicles.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, may I interrupt the noble Lord for one moment? I think he is answering our question. He is saying, in fact, is he not, that the local authorities have the power to give equipment and premises, as well as vehicles, and that a proportion are doing so under the existing legislation.
LORD ST. OSWALD: What I am saying is this, and I think it has been brought out in the debate. Some local authorities interpret one Act or another as enabling them to do this and others do not. That is the confusion which I think troubles the noble Baroness, and which would trouble anyone interested in this subject. I am not entirely answering the noble Lord's question, as I always try to do. I am not enough of a Parliamentary lawyer to know. But the fact is that some local authorities consider that the terms of the Act do give this power; others are more doubtful. That is why I said that those

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in doubt were free to go to the Ministry and ask its view, though I think not many do.
LORD TAYLOR: That is a most extraordinary situation. The local authority can go to the Ministry and the Ministry will give its guidance, but Members of your Lordships' House ask Her Majesty's Government for guidance and we cannot be given it. It is absolutely "nutty" to me.
LORD ST. OSWALD: If the noble Lord finds it extraordinary that I cannot give him guidance on every nuance of Parliamentary law, he does not know me as well as I thought he did.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, I am sorry that we have interrupted the noble Lord, but this is the very essence of the question. If what the noble Lord says is the position, why was it that the County Councils Association informed the noble Lord, Lord Latham, that the Minister had failed to make any approach on this question for a year? If there is this ambiguity, why has not the Minister taken action on a very important matter?
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I hope that I have made one thing plain: although more than one noble Lord claims that nothing has been heard from the Ministry of Health on this subject for more than a year, a great deal has been heard inside the Ministry of Health; and, as we have seen, information is still coming in. This Report has come out and has been carefully studied. Your Lordships' debate this afternoon will be studied and, as I also mentioned, my right honourable friend has been studying on the ground itself what is required to be done. If confusion exists in any degree at the moment it is most important that any future legislation should not repeat that confusion. I have said, as have others, that it is in these two respects, in vehicles and in equipment, that the local bodies require most assistance. I should like to say that the return which the volunteers make for such support is beyond computing. The very fact that someone is giving his or her services free brings a ray of light, a sense of uplift, into a lonely person's life.
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Before concluding, I should like to add one more reference to this problem of loneliness, on which Lord Merrivale, Lord Taylor and Lord Latham have all spoken most movingly. We are all liable to grow old—in fact, the only alternative that I know of is to expire; and I do not suppose that many of your Lordships are thinking in those terms. Old age inevitably brings a liability to loneliness, which some escape through the possession of younger relatives, younger friends, or perhaps of a young heart. It also brings a liability to uprooting—and to some this is even worse than loneliness.
There are degrees of uprooting. To move to another home which you can still invest with your own personality, taking your "bits and pieces" with you, in the phrase of the noble Baroness, may be only a short retreat. But when it comes to moving into some sort of institution, that is seen by many elderly people as a kind of surrender. I have seen this at first hand on my own estate in Yorkshire. A dictatorship might not respect or even countenance such impractical sentiment. But we, I think, must not only respect it but cherish it, because it is part of the spirit of our people, part of ourselves.
Recognising that most elderly people wish to live independently in their own homes for as long as they can, the Government's task is to help the local authorities to assist and encourage this, alleviating the physical and mental disadvantages as best we can between us. Within the means that have to be employed to this end, the "Meals on Wheels" service has a great importance and must be greatly expanded. We are persuaded that it can be expanded most effectively and economically by allowing the voluntary organisations to make their maximum possible contribution to it.
As this debate has illustrated, there has lately been a striking expansion in the provision of this service by the voluntary organisations, and this expansion is continuing. I am quite certain that it will go faster and further if the doubts attaching to the powers of local authorities under the National Assistance Act are removed, and if it is established that they can provide capital and equipment to the voluntary bodies en-

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gaged in this work. That is certainly something which any future legislation on this subject should achieve. I hope that our recognition of this fact will give some comfort to the noble Baroness.
5.4 p.m.
BARONESS SWANBOROUGH: My Lords, this is the first Motion I have ever moved, and it was with great trepidation that I undertook it, but I must agree with the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, that in fact comfort has come with his words, and I should like to thank him and all the speakers in the debate most wholeheartedly for their contribution to it. I would say to the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, that I feel that when he is investigating that question of the limitation he mentioned in regard to Lord Amulree's point it will be necessary to remember the prevention of sickness as well as the continuation of the treatment coming after sickness.
The interpretation he has given us of the contribution to the independence of life, the prevention of hospitalisation and the value of the individual on visit as well as the meal, is really the essential of the scheme that we have been discussing to-day. There is no question but that if we were to deliberate on all the different services required for the aged it would take us not just one afternoon's debate but a much longer time, and those of us who are anxiously trying to do what we can in this field would welcome such a debate very much indeed.
I hope most earnestly that the Report referred to several times to-day will not be taken as an obiter dictum in any way at all, because, as I have tried to show, with slight sarcasm and definite figures, a number of the statements in that Report are not as realistic as they could be to-day. One of the points brought up was that about one meal a week. That has been altered out of all recognition since nearly three years ago, when the inquiry for the Report was made. I beg your Lordships to understand that because a thing is printed it should not be taken as a new version of the Bible, and as a substitute for consulting those people who perhaps know something which has been gained with a great deal of trouble. I have tried this afternoon not to speak on behalf of my own organi-
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sation—I feel that that would have been unfair and completely incorrect on my part—but I have had to use the illustration of the figures which are available to me. There are no national figures at this moment that can be quoted. Therefore, when I have mentioned the W.V.S., I have done so in order to prove a point, but, I hope, not to gain an advantage.
Lord Latham, who is well conversant with this scheme, brought up the point about fear of life itself, which I think is the background of the whole of the work for old people; and the question of the local authorities' association and the L.C.C. is one which, of course, is very forward in all our minds. Lord Amulree, being extremely man-like, just swept over the difficulties of diets and wanted them for all over the country. I echo his wish, but I am not a good enough housekeeper to promise him the answer. Lord Merrivale, with great understanding, has given us his views on loneliness and the need for care and attention, using those words in a different connotation to-day from that in which those of us who usually work with local authorities understand them to be used. He made one most useful contribution in saying that the operative word in Section 31 of the Act was "may" and not "shall".
I feel that Lord Taylor, as he always does, has brought the actual facts livingly before us in explaining how he sees the question of "meals on wheels"; but when he says that either the local authorities or the voluntary organisations should be empowered to take on "meals on wheels" I think perhaps he is making a mistake in the analogy of the district nurse. I agree that it should be "either/ or", but none of us has brought this matter down to a financial level, and it is the financial level which must ultimately come in on the question of "meals on wheels", because if the scheme should prove too expensive it would destroy itself. The expenditure on most of the schemes is from a combination of different funds: the county council, the district and so forth.
What Lord Amherst of Hackney said is a vital point on my plea. If we could have a clear view of what can be done communicated to the local authorities, then voluntary organisations, with the support of local authorities, could get

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better coverage, and the difference in attitude between one local authority and another would be eliminated. Clarification and simplification would make all the difference to us all. The noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, contributed in a way that I wish I could have done. I am entirely in agreement with her, because of course the visitor coming in succession to the person who has brought the "meal on wheels" is just as important as the meal. That visitor must be a human being, not someone who comes because they have to but because they want to, someone who will spend themselves generously and energetically in the service of the person they come to visit. I, like the noble Baroness, look forward to the day when domiciliary care can be more thoroughly provided for those who who need it, and less institutional care will be required. I am proud to feel that someone from East Sussex in the shape of the noble Viscount, Lord Gage, agrees that if local authorities could have the full instructions it would be much easier to go forward in assessing whether or not the grant should be made to voluntary organisations.
The noble Viscount, Lord Bridgeman, from scattered Shropshire wanted flexibility. My experience is that Shropshire takes and does not wait to be given. The two principles—leaving old people in their own homes and securing the finance—are the two basic ultimates which have to be watched, and finance is the most difficult of all. But ultimately the success of any domiciliary service must be in the integration of the voluntary worker into statutory responsibility; whether the responsibility is vested or statutorily conferred is not, I think, so important at this stage. Voluntary service to-day should be in a shape in which it can be tied up to local and central government in such a way that the human interpolation of man's and woman's contribution can be added to the financial backing and legal understanding of those in command.
I would say to your Lordships that since I have been in your Lordships' House I have learnt one thing to a tremendous extent: that is, the courtesy of the House itself. That has never been shown more than it has been to-day, both in support of, and in the kindness I have received in connection with, this Motion,
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in the generosity of what has been said and in the way the whole debate has taken place. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion.
Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

THE FIRE-FIGHTING SERVICES
5.11 p.m.
LORD STONHAM LORD STONHAM rose to draw attention to the serious situation arising from the decline in the strength of the firefighting services; and to move for Papers. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I wish to discuss another very important service on wheels by drawing attention to the serious situation arising from the decline in the strength of our fire-fighting services. Our fire-fighters are fit, highly trained, disciplined men who at any moment are ready to spend their skill, their courage, and if necessary their lives, in our service. Not surprisingly, the Fire Service is held in the highest public esteem. Its standards are such that it is seldom, if ever, criticised. We have always regarded the fireman as a friend in need. Now he is in need—in need of justice and fair treatment. And if he does not got it, then soon our fireman friend will no longer be there when we need him—because the numbers of firemen are seriously declining at the very moment when their duties and responsibilities are being sharply increased.
Most large brigades work the concessionary 56-hour week—a long week—but in London it is still 60 hours; and in some rural areas the regular firemen are working as many as 80 hours a week. On the basis of a 56-hour week, which is the concessionary working week, including an allowance for training establishments, we need just under 23,000 firemen in England and Wales. Last December there were only 20,347, which means a 12 per cent. shortage over the entire country. But the point is that the shortage is most acute in large towns where fire risks are greatest. Many of the largest brigades, in fact, have never achieved their full strength since the local authorities took over the National Fire Service twelve years ago. Chief officers have tried everything in their efforts to get enough young men of the

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right kind. Education and physical standards have been lowered, and the lower age limit has been reduced to eighteen years. Even desperate remedies like cadet systems have been proposed as a means of attracting enough recruits. But all to no avail.
Month by month the numbers decline. London, for example, is 21 per cent. below strength on the 56-hour basis. I know that a lower percentage figure than that is sometimes quoted, but that is because London is still on the 60-hour week. In fact, it is quite impossible for London to allow their men to work the 56-hour week at present unless they send four men out on a fire tender, instead of the customary and proper crew of five. At December 31 last the metropolis was down to 2,330 men (that includes headquarters staff and recruits), and in the first nine months of last year those 2,000-odd men dealt with 26,000 fire calls. That is a rate of 34,000 calls a year. The really alarming thing about the future is that a very considerable proportion of our fire-fighters all over the country are former auxiliary firemen who stayed on after the war to keep the brigades going, and also Service men who were recruited actually before they left the Services. Recruiting agents were sent to Europe, Burma and other war theatres to persuade men to join a fire service on demobilisation, on the promise that they would get the same terms and conditions as the police; and a good many of them did join.
All those men will be retiring within the next four or five years, and if we do not begin to recruit their replacements now it will soon be impossible to maintain minimum fire cover. Indeed, some brigades, as I shall show, will cease to function. For example, apart from normal wastage, one-third of London's force of 2,300 men consists of A.F.S. men, who will leave by 1967. Middlesex, with an establishment of 1,310, is already 180 short; but of the 1,130 on the books, no fewer than 900 (that is, over three-quarters) will go by 1966. Essex, with an establishment of 1,057, is to-day 185 men short, and about 250 of the total are A.F.S. men due for retirement. Kent, with only 650 men out of an establishment of 800, has 200 A.F.S. men, and nearly one-third of their active strength is due to retire in the next five
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years. To quote the case of one London borough, West Ham fire brigade, which is 14 per cent. under strength at the moment, has not recruited a single man during the last twelve months, and faces a certain 28 per cent. shortage by 1965. That is roughly the position of the whole country, because within five years one quarter of the present serving firemen will have gone on age grounds alone.
These facts prove beyond dispute that unless speedy and drastic action is taken to remedy the situation, minimum fire cover will be impassible to guarantee. Already in many areas pumps are being taken off the run in quite a disturbing number of cases, and this tendency will increase. The consequences to life and property can only be imagined. The volume of work constantly increases. In 1950, eleven years ago, the total of fire and other calls all over the country was 80,000. In 1959, which was a dry year, there were 240,000 calls—three times as many. That year was, perhaps, exceptional. But even under the weeping skies of 1960 there were 160,000 calls.
Moreover, we continue to load new duties on the Fire Service. For example, the civil defence firemen can be trained by regular fire officers and firemen only at week-ends. If they are not available as instructors, then that part of the Home Office civil defence plans goes completely by the board. Then, with very considerable agreement on all sides of the House, we passed the Factories Act requiring fire officers to inspect and advise on prevention and safety measures. There is the Shops and Offices Bill, which so rightly strengthens fire precautions. But in London alone the Shops and Offices Bill will impose on fire officers the duty of making 100,000 additional inspections—I repeat, 100,000. That would be a major task for a full strength brigade, but an impossible one for an overworked, undermanned force.
These new duties require new training, and on the recommendation of the Home Secretary's Central Fire Brigades Advisory Council hundreds of officers are to do residential courses on the new Factories Act. Then there is the Radiation Hazards Sub-Committee, which is trying to deal with the new risks firemen have to face. But to use radiac instruments, to build the fire prevention-fire extinction services of the 1960s,

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requires many more young men who, apart from the traditional qualities required of the fireman, must be capable of absorbing the new training. As things are, it is impossible in many brigades to spare the men to go on training courses. The Advisory Council, of course, are doing a good job of building the theory of a new fire service, but men are needed to put it into practice. Unquestionably, plans for a comprehensive fire protection service will be so much waste paper unless we can quickly get the right type of men, in the right numbers.
My Lords, there is no doubt that one of the main barriers to recruitment is the too low rates of pay. Before the war there was no difficulty. The disadvantages of shift work, discipline and danger were offset by the certainty of a job in days when there was a good deal of unemployment, and the certainty of a pension. Moreover, the rate of pay for firemen, identical with that of policemen, was, at its maximum, 43 per cent. above the average earnings in industry. Today, compared with average industrial earnings of £15 3s. per week, the fireman gets £11 rising to £13 8s. 6d. maximum—and this for a 56 or 60 hour week, compared with 44 hours, or less, in industry.
The fantastic argument is sometimes put forward that these low rates are justified because a fireman is not fighting fires every minute of his 60 hours. It would be just as valid to argue that soldiers should be paid only when there is a war on; that the police should be docked when their catch of burglars and motorists is not up to the norm; that shop assistants should not be paid while they are waiting for customers, or that railway signalmen should be paid only when they are actually passing trains through their section. Even so, I have heard that argument over and over again.
The fact is that for the whole of his 60 hours the fireman is in the station on instant call. When the call comes he has to be out of the station in less than 60 seconds or there is trouble. As I was coming to the House this afternoon, just up from the fire station in Bishopsgate a fire tender came along, clanging its bell; and within seconds it was followed by another. That was about a quarter of a mile away from the station. A chap
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was still buttoning up his tunic, but he was on the tender. That is the case. They work their 60 hours all right, and it is 60 hours at a second's notice. If the fireman was in industry, 16 of those 60 hours would he overtime, first of all at time and a quarter, then at time and a half, and then at double time, long before he got up to the 60 hours.
Then there is what I regard as a great iniquity in those brigades where men are working 72 or even 80 hours; and this applies, generally speaking, to the nucleus of full-time firemen in mainly rural areas, who are supported by voluntary part-time firemen. A man is working 72 or 80 hours; what reward does he get? For regular shift systems requiring more than 60 hours, which in industry would call for overtime rates of at least 10s. an hour, a fireman gets the insulting reward of 1s. 6d. per hour—1s. 6d. per hour after 60 hours. Small wonder they cannot get recruits!
Another major difficulty is that the Fire Service has lost parity with the Police. In 1920, following the 1919 Desborough Committee on the Police, we had the Middlebrook Committee on the Fire Services; and that Committee recommended that firemen should be treated more generously than other local-authority employees, and no less generously than the police. Thereafter, for 30 years, national rates of pay in the Fire Service were identical with those of the police, and firemen enjoyed the same rent allowances. When police rates changed, fire service rates moved with them. Since 1950, when local authorities took over the fire services, that parity has been lost. Rent allocations also have been lost: firemen do not get them at all. Firemen are thus not only at a considerable disadvantage in pay compared with industry but painfully so compared with the police. Station officers, in charge of up to 60 men and responsible for the safety of millions of pounds worth of property, were always equated with inspectors. Now, their pay is roughly equal to a constable's maximum. A sub-officer is the equivalent of a police sergeant. Recently, one sub-officer was in charge at a London fire when the lives of 21 people were saved. The sub-officer personally saved four of them. His pay was less than that of the young policewoman who was keeping the children back.
In January last year, as may be recalled, I moved a Motion on police pay, so I am sure that it is not necessary for me to say how completely right and justified, in my view, are the present rates of pay of the police. But it is fair to say that their award has aggravated the already extremely difficult situation in the Fire Service, because until fairly recently basic pay in the two services was comparable. They recruited men of the same type. Age limits for recruitment and retirement were the same. The physical and educational standards are similar. Recruits to both Services have to be of exemplary character and ready to endure strict discipline and the inconvenience of perpetual shift work. Both are public security services whose members are placed in positions of great trust. Until the recent pay awards, the police were unable to compete with industry for recruits. Now they can. But, in comparison, this adds to the difficulties of the sister service, which, broadly speaking, recruits in the same field.
Unfortunately, the present 100 per cent. local authority control and 100 per cent. local authority responsibility for payment of salaries and costs leaves the fire services competing with all the other local services for a share of the ratepayers' money. Thus it makes it impossible to have anything like a National Fire Service, or anything approaching adequate consideration of its pay problems. Even though the Treasury paid 50 per cent, of police costs, the local authorities so effectively prevented proper consideration of pay claims that the Home Secretary was obliged to appoint the Royal Commission on the Police. The Commission, as we now know, rejected the local authorities' arguments that all was well because of rent allowances, free uniforms and a pension, and recommended for the police scales of pay in accordance with the responsibilities of the job and the need to attract the right type of man.
Now it is significant that Mr. Griffiths, the Secretary of the Police Council, is also employers' secretary of the Fire Brigades Council, and he is using exactly the same invalid arguments against the firemen as were formerly used against the police. Indeed, he has
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gone further; he has, in my view, been sufficiently unwise to characterise the crisis in the Fire Service as a "crisis of envy". But however foolish Mr. Griffiths has been, he is, of course, merely trying to carry out the instructions of the local authorities. Their attitude was made perfectly clear soon after the police pay awards were announced, when, to prevent hopes rising unduly, the County Councils Association announced that claims by other employees of local authorities—and I quote—would
"find no basis of support in the recent distinct and peculiar circumstances of the police service."
It is obvious, therefore, that any major claim has been virtually rejected in advance, and that the "distinct and peculiar circumstances" of the Fire Service cannot be adjusted in the ordinary negotiating machinery.
My Lords, an award of three half-crowns a week would aggravate the problem, not solve it. It is painfully obvious, in my view, that the Government made a grievous mistake eighteen months ago, when they decided that the 25 per cent. of the cost of the Fire Service which was formerly borne on the Home Office Vote should be merged in with the block grant. Of course, at that time the police were very properly excluded from the block grant. But the fact that to-day the Home Secretary has no direct financial responsibility for the Fire Service does not, of course, relieve him of his responsibility for ensuring that Britain has adequate fire protection. We have it now, just about. We shall not have it in two or three years' time, unless the Home Secretary acts now.
Rates of pay are not the only problem; there are also the questions of control and a fair apportionment of the burden. Let me give just one example. The ratepayers of the small county borough of Bootle pay for the Bootle Fire Brigade, but the Bootle Fire Brigade is responsible for fire security in the Mersey Docks area. That is a big area with a tremendous responsibility, and it is borne by the ratepayers of one small county borough. This area is a national responsibility. It houses national assets, such as the ill-fated "Empress of Canada", which was destroyed by fire there two years ago.
Therefore, if we are to have an efficient Fire Service, there must be some degree of central control. We cannot run a National Fire Service off the parish pump—or, rather, off hundreds of parish pumps of varying size and quality. If the facts I have given are accepted—and I honestly do not think they can be seriously challenged—the Government must agree that we are confronted with a situation which could prove very dangerous to the lives and property of our people. Equally, it must surely be accepted that the situation cannot be put right within the present administrative and negotiating set-up. I therefore strongly urge the Government to appoint, without delay, an independent Committee to inquire into the administration of the Fire Services, with particular reference to the question of pay and working conditions, and then to act on the findings of that Committee with all possible speed. This alone, in my view, can save us from disaster a few years hence. I beg to move for Papers.
5.36 p.m.
LORD FARINGDON: My Lords, my noble friend Lord Stonham has dealt with the general problem of manpower in the Fire Service as a whole. He has touched upon the grave deficiency of firemen in London and has referred to the increasing responsibilities and expanding number of calls to render all forms of assistance which the London Fire Brigade is meeting year by year. I want to deal in somewhat greater detail with the critical situation facing those who are responsible for protecting our metropolis from fire. The facts that I shall adduce will, I believe, establish beyond any doubt that unless really drastic—indeed, I may say dramatic—steps are taken, the London Fire Brigade will be unable to maintain full cover in a few years' time. This is a position which the Government can no longer afford to ignore.
Before the war there were 2,469 officers and men in the London Fire Brigade. To-day there are 2,311. Your Lordships may remark that my figures are slightly different from those of my noble friend. His, I think, were the figures at the end of last year: mine are the figures to-day, or yesterday. The implication to be drawn from them is a very serious one, for it is that already
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over 20 men have left the London Fire Brigade since the end of last year. Calls for assistance have risen from 12,002 to 28,251 in 1959, the last year for which figures are available. So that, with fewer men on the machines, the London Fire Brigade is attending 130 per cent. more calls. To-day, the firemen are working a 60-hour week, although their official duty system is 56 hours per week. To give the men the 56-hour week would require 2,955 men. The Brigade is thus suffering from a deficiency of well over 20 per cent. But for the perpetuation of the 60-hour week—and London is, I am informed, the only large brigade still keeping its men on a 60-hour week—out of every five firemen on a fire engine one would be missing. And the situation gets worse and worse.
Let us now see how grievous this position is likely to become. I assert that there are real dangers ahead. Nearly 25 per cent. of the present officers and men—and my noble friend has already mentioned this figure—were recruited during the war as auxiliary firemen in the National Fire Service. The London County Council willingly kept these men on when the National Fire Service broke up, since this was the only means available to the Council to maintain any brigade at all. Within the next four or five years, all these men will reach the age of compulsory retirement. The years 1938 and 1939 were peak years of recruitment for pre-war regular firemen. Those men who joined then and have continued to serve in the Brigade will be due for retirement in 1966 and 1967.
The London County Council know that they can expect a major exodus of fully experienced men within this narrow compass of a very few years. Now is the time when the Fire Brigade ought to be building up a substantial reserve of men, gaining the experience and skill ready for the exodus in the middle of this decade. In fact, of course, far from building up a reserve of manpower, the London Fire Brigade is condemned to witness a constant drain away of fully trained and experienced men, who leave for other jobs at higher pay and without the inconvenience of shift work and the threat of danger.
There are further factors which the Government should take into account. I have already mentioned the increasing industrialisation of the London County

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Council area. New fire risks are building up with the many new industrial processes and materials used in industry. All this has led to the phenomenal increase in the demand upon the services of the Brigade, and continues to place an ever-increasing strain upon its depleted manpower. As my noble friend Lord Stonham has pointed out, the Government, very properly concerned with greater security measures against fire, have in their recent Factories Act and in their pending Shops and Offices Bill placed a whole new range of duties upon firemen and officers. I am not surprised to hear the figures the noble Lord gave, obtained apparently from the Chief Officer of the London Fire Brigade, who estimates, if I understand it correctly, that this will entail an additional 100,000 premises which will have to be inspected and reported upon. In addition, we must not forget the enormous increase in the height of buildings being constructed in London, and that high buildings present certain highly-specialised problems of their own with regard to fire risks.
Now, how can this situation be met, and the fire appliances be kept fully manned, if the London Fire Brigade sees its strength sapped away by competing industry and other Services? Sixty hours a week is too long a tour of duty to expect from London firemen in these conditions. I am happy to learn that fire authorities have agreed that in this year of grace a 40-hour week may be introduced, if the individual authority so decides. The London County Council have promised their men a 40-hour week when sufficient recruits have been enrolled. My Lords, this is to make a mockery of the agreement on duty systems. The London Fire Brigade cannot even go to the promised 56-hour week. Yet it may well be that in various parts of the country fire authorities here and there will be able to grant their men a 40-hour week. We shall thus witness the single largest brigade in the country, and one of the busiest brigades in the world, stagger on from year to year with a dwindling personnel doomed to a perpetual 60 hours of duty each week. What chance has the Brigade of recruiting young men in those circumstances?
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Moreover—and this I should like to emphasise—the Brigade needs to recruit a particular type of young man. Not only must he be willing to undergo the rigours of actual fire-fighting, to serve as a disciplined member of a crew, willing to place himself in danger, undertaking a difficult and arduous job; he must also be of the necessary intellectual standards to equip himself with the technical knowledge which this developing fire service requires of its members as fire protection and fire fighting becomes a more and more highly developed science.
I recently read that the Secretary of State's Central Fire Brigades Advisory Council is applying itself with considerable energy to this whole question of training of and tuition for all ranks in the Fire Service. I was shown one of the Home Office documents on the training of recruits. It said:
"To-day a recruit fireman should be capable of becoming a technician. To be efficient, he should be much more than an artisan trained to use tools. He should be equipped mentally to deal with the many problems with which he will be faced during the course of his service"
And quite right, my Lords. But my noble friend Lord Stonham has shown that, far from recruiting technicians, it will be difficult enough for many brigades to recruit labourers at a starting rate of £11 a week.
Higher fire risks, mounting calls for assistance, combined with a dwindling manpower, present a grim picture. Within four or five years the core of the most experienced men in the London Fire Brigade will be retiring, and unless energetic measures are taken will not be replaced. Together, these facts present the Government, who have a very direct responsibility for the security of the people of London, with the duty of acting with speed and with energy. Otherwise, it may well be too late to save the great London Fire Brigade.
My Lords, I have tried to speak in no alarmist fashion; I have tried to speak factually. But the facts are alarming, and it is therefore with all the emphasis that I can muster that I support the demand of my noble friend for the setting up of a Committee to inquire into the conditions of the Fire Services of this country. I have heard

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that the noble Earl who is to reply for the Government has been interesting himself personally in this matter. If he has, he will know that what I have said is true. He will be fully appraised of the dangers of the situation, and I hope that he will be able to give us a satisfactory reply.
5.47 p.m.
LORD WOLVERTON: My Lords, I should like to add a few words to the debate, because I had the honour of serving for three years with the Suffolk and Ipswich fire authority as one of the West Suffolk representatives. I am a little out of date now because I left that authority three years ago to go on to another committee. I must say that I enjoyed the work on that Committee, enormously, but at that time we were just holding our own.
When I saw this Motion down on the Order Paper, I made a few inquiries of my colleagues, and I found that the position is getting very difficult indeed. The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, said that the large number of men who were recruited after the war are leaving the service because they have to retire at an early age, as they perform a very dangerous and hazardous service and must be highly physically fit. It is extremely difficult to replace these men, because young men are not coming forward, especially as regular firemen. That is one of the great difficulties in a big rural area like that which I represented, which covered the City of Ipswich as well as Lowestoft. We just got enough regular firemen there. That brigade was a big brigade, and recruited about one-third of its strength in regular firemen and two-thirds in part-time firemen. We cannot possibly, of course, afford to have all regular firemen throughout the country in every small place. The whole success of the fire authorities' work depends upon the regular firemen training the part-time firemen, who play such a very important part. I am told that it is a struggle, but that they are getting just about enough part-time men, who take on this work only on a shift basis.
As the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, rightly said, another very important aspect is that the regular firemen do not only train the part-time firemen, who are, as I say, very important to the brigades, but also train the auxiliary fire-
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men. A very large number of them in Newmarket, Bury St. Edmunds, Sudbury, and the area I know, are trained on civil defence machines. So clearly this is a matter which must be looked into closely.
It is not only a question of pay, but also of hours, which are long; and, of course, of housing conditions. When I was in the Fire Service, we had a certain number of houses, but not enough, and we were so busy trying to provide modern fire stations and modern equipment—much was done in my day, and much has been done since—that we had not the money to provide houses. Through the good offices of the local authorities we got as many houses as possible, but, of course, they had long waiting lists. It is difficult to get men unless you can house them, and this is most important. I was reading a pamphlet the other day, in which it said that over £50 million of property was destroyed and over 1,000 lives lost last year by fire. So we must take this matter with extreme seriousness and see what can he done. Therefore I support the Motion moved by my noble friend Lord Stonham, and agree that we should hold an inquiry to see what can be done to bolster up recruiting for this important Service.
5.52 p.m.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, I should like to add a few observations to what the noble Lord, Lord Wolverton, has said and in support of my noble friends, whose forthright and well-informed speeches will, I hope, bring home to Her Majesty's Government the crucial nature of the situation in regard to fire-fighting operations in this country. My noble friends are closely in touch with the fire authorities and with the union of the men who are in this hazardous and highly skilled profession, as one may truly call it. During the war, I had the honour and great interest of being responsible to the Regional Commissioner for the North West for a section of the National Fire Service, and from that time I have been a trustee of the Fire Service Research and Training Trust. That has enabled me to keep in touch with what is going on, and I have not the slightest doubt that the picture which has been painted this afternoon is not in any way too black
It is clear that in many parts of the country fire forces are under strength, and that in a very short time they will

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be even more so. Pay is undoubtedly one of the essential elements in this situation. We seem to forget that before the war most of the leading fire forces were joint police fire services. That was not so, of course, in London which always has had an outstanding fire brigade, famous all over the world, to which during the war not only London but the world had to look for recruiting many of the best highest officers. But, by and large, in the big provincial cities, the fire brigades were joint police fire brigades and established a sort of standard. The pay of firemen has been allowed to get behind, and the men do not forget that it is not so long since the reorganisation took place. We cannot expect men to work under conditions which appear to them to be unfair and unjust, as, indeed, they are; and I hope that this aspect of the matter will be looked into very quickly.
There can be no doubt at all that the reorganisation which was carried through immediately after the war was successful up to a point. I was very sorry that the National Fire Service was disbanded, and despite the promises that were made in the heat of the war to local authorities, I still feel that it would have been better to hold an independent inquiry into the question of whether it would have been better to keep the National Fire Service in being. My noble friend Lord Morrison of Lambeth felt that he was bound by the promises which he had given. He is a very honourable man, and one had to respect the view which he took, and which undoubtedly greatly influenced the Government at that time. Nevertheless, I still feel that the weight of argument was in favour of maintaining a National Service.
I do not think that there is any doubt that the effects of the reorganisation of the Service, its grouping into much larger units and the much higher standard of training and technical efficiency which has been achieved, were due largely to the work put in during the war by the National Fire Service. We learned a tremendous amount as a result of the attacks made upon us from the air. In the earlier stages of the war, we probably learned more in a few months and were ready to put it into operation in the later stages, than had been learned
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during almost a generation beforehand. That is the reason why smaller fire brigades have been coping with much more difficult fire risks during recent years. I have got to know something about these years: as a Trustee that is my duty.
It is clear that operational problems in fire work are now infinitely more complex and difficult than they were even in the years immediately before the war. The expansion of all kinds of new industries, every one of them bringing into being different and highly technical risks, which can be effectively handled only on the basis of real scientific knowledge and a complex technological method of training, has made the task of the fire brigades much more difficult. They have succeeded in a remarkable way, as the result of the reorganisation, in coping with a much heavier burden of fire fighting with forces which are seldom any larger, and often are smaller, than they were in the previous period. But this state of affairs just cannot go on, and it seems to me to be essential that the matter should be looked at again.
This was the subject of a careful and able inquiry carried out a year or two before the war, with the war looming ahead. Unfortunately, full arrangements had not been made when the war started, and even that Committee did not envisage how heavy the fire attack would be. Nevertheless, the later reorganisation was carried through largely on the basis of the researches and investigations made at that time. But that is now going on for 30 years—at any rate, a full quarter of a century—ago. This is a matter which continues to develop all the time, and it ought not to be allowed to remain in the sort of situation which was examined a generation ago. Therefore I strongly support the argument put forward by my noble friend Lord Stonham, that the Government should quickly appoint an expert Committee to go into these problems and present a Report about the present situation and the methods of tackling it.
6.0 p.m.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (EARL BATHURST): My Lords, as so often happens in your Lordships' House, at a rather late hour, in a rather thin House, and with relatively few speakers, a short

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debate takes place which is of vital importance to the nation. It is my hope that as a result of this debate the ratepayers will take as much interest as the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, would like them to take in the question of the Fire Services, which he has brought before your Lordships. The debate has been undertaken by experts in your Lordships' House. All noble Lords who have spoken have first-hand experience. The noble Lord, Lord Chorley, who intervened, has experience of the Fire Service at the firemen's end; the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, is of course an expert on the local authority view, as, indeed, is my noble friend Lord Wolverton; and the noble Lord, Lord Faringdon, too, for a long time has been an expert in the Fire Service itself.
The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, painted a gloomy picture, but there were a few things that he did not say which I should like to put before your Lordships before going further. There are roughly 2,500 more firemen in the Fire Service this year than there were in 1955. There has been a net gain of firemen every year since 1955. I am not going to say that that net gain is big enough; nevertheless, recruits are coining along, and more recruits are coming along than those who retire. I am talking, of course, of the Fire Service as a whole. The noble Lord, Lord Faringdon, mentioned London in particular, and I am glad that he said it is not only the largest fire service and fire authority but is also the most envied in the world, and fire authorities come from far and near to find out how the London Fire Service works. There is one particular point the noble Lord mentioned in regard to high buildings.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, before the noble Lord leaves the question of figures, may I say that it is an extraordinary statement to listen to that the number of recruits is exceeding the wastage each year. It is totally in conflict with my information and certainly not correct about London. Can the noble Lord say whether the numbers he quoted are on the basis of full-time firemen or whether part-time firemen are included?
EARL BATHURST: They are on the basis of whole-time firemen, and if the noble Lord would like to see the figures,
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I have them. I am talking of the country as a whole.
LORD FARINGDON: My Lords, surely this does not apply in London.
EARL BATHURST: I did not say that it applied in London. But I do say that London is gaining a net increase in recruits over retirements. It is a small increase maybe, but an increase, nevertheless. I can give the figures. For London, the full-time strength is 2,328, and the strength in 1955 was 2,026, which is an approximate net increase of 300 from 1955. This is, I agree, under the authorised establishment, but that is a completely different problem. What I am trying to point out to noble Lords is that in fact recruiting is taking place. Listening to their speeches, one would have thought that no recruiting was taking place; but, in fact, it is the reverse.
To revert to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Faringdon, with regard to high buildings, I would assure him that all the new high buildings that are and have been going up in London for some years now are fully protected by built-in fire safety systems. As the noble Lord fully understands, that is a combination of systems in the construction of the building, worked in the closest co-operation with the actual fire services who will be working those systems. It has been said that the ladders are not long enough and so forth, but I assure the noble Lord, Lord Faringdon, that that is quite wrong.
LORD FARINGDON: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt again, but what I said was that it raised special and new problems. I am quite aware that there are rules and regulations under which high buildings are being put up.
EARL BATHURST: The noble Lord did indeed say that, and in many other cases one has seen that the London Fire Service is up to those new and enlarged problems. I wanted to make it quite clear that these problems are fully understood and that, in fact, the London Fire Service copes with them.
My noble friend Lord Wolverton and the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, both mentioned the establishments. Of course, the establishments have increased. But I assure noble Lords that the fire cover-

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age which the present-day strength up and down the country gives has, in fact, increased also, and is a considerable improvement upon what it used to be. I think that is a point that must be made quite clear to the country in this debate.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, if the noble Earl is suggesting that the establishment is better than it was before the war, I would say that there is nothing in that argument, because the situation before the war over many parts of the country was quite ridiculous. What we have to face is the situation that exists now.
EARL BATHURST: I fully appreciate that. But from what the noble Lord and his noble friends Lord Stonham and Lord Faringdon said with regard to establishments it might be taken that fire coverage was on the down grade. I assure your Lordships that that is not so, but that the fire coverage has improved.
LORD FARINGDON: My Lords, I beg the noble Earl's pardon for interrupting again, but he will realise that fire coverage is possible only owing to the very long working hours—a 60-hour week, in fact.
EARL BATHURST: The noble Lord has described the working hours, and I appreciate what he has said. I must explain the limitations of my right honourable friend's responsibility for the matters the noble Lord has just raised in his interruption, and, in particular, the pay and hours of duty which may influence it. Under Sections 1 and 4 of the Fire Services Act, 1947, to which the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, referred—and, for better or for worse, as the noble Lord has said, that is the Act which gave back to local authorities the powers for looking after the fire brigades—the responsibility for maintaining them in a state of efficiency is placed upon the county and county borough councils as fire authorities. My right honourable friend has a general responsibility for the efficiency of the Service, and for this he maintains an inspectorate.
Prior to 1959 the grant was paid at the rate of 25 per cent. of expenditure incurred by the fire authorities. Since
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1959, as the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, mentioned, this has been absorbed into the general grant made to the local authorities. This is reviewed periodically, and the current grant has been agreed to apply during the financial years of 1961–62 and 1962–63. Under the Fire Services Act, 1959, my right honourable friend has responsibility for overseeing establishment schemes with a view to ensuring that establishments are such as to enable fire authorities to maintain the proper standards of fire cover—and that is a point to which the noble Lord, Lord Charley, referred.
Pay, allowances, duty hours and leave are entirely matters for agreement by the National Joint Council of Local Authorities' Fire Brigades, on which the fire authorities and the unions, but not my right honourable friend, are represented. If the unions consider that pay and hours of duty need to be improved, then it is for them to raise the matter on the Council, which has been the normal practice in the past. Similarly, if fire authorities believe that improved conditions are needed to arrest or forestall a decline in the strengths of their brigades, it is for the Council to apply the remedy.
The conditions agreed by the Council need not be uniform for the whole country. They have power, if they so wish, to agree differential rates of pay for different brigades. But presumably they would not wish to exercise this power in such a way as to create competition between the brigades so that in solving the problems of some they would increase the difficulties of others. But they have already agreed to rates of pay rather higher than standard for a few brigades, such as in London, Birmingham and Coventry, where recruitment has been particularly difficult because of competition, not from other fire brigades, but from outside employment. The noble Lords, Lord Stonham and Lord Faringdon, and my noble friend Lord Wolverton with regard to Essex, have given us a most graphic description of these difficulties.
LORD WOLVERTON: In Suffolk.
EARL BATHURST: I am sorry, I thought my noble friend said Essex. The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, has made a special point, with the support of other noble Lords, that there should be

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an inquiry. But no approach has been made to my right honourable friend, and I cannot comment on this idea of the noble Lord beyond making it clear that such a proposal has not been considered by Her Majesty's Government, and that it must not be assumed that, if it were made, it would be found possible to accept it.
Now to turn to the hours of duty which have been described by the noble Lord. There are four duty systems in use, of which the 56-hour duty system is the commonest. That consists of an average of 56 hours of duty during the week, with an average of two complete periods of 24 hours off. These duty systems were agreed by the National Joint Council in 1955. The Council also agreed that the introduction of a 48-hour week was desirable in principle, but that it would have to be deferred until a more appropriate time. The unions have now reopened the matter, and the Council are considering it. Since this matter is now under consideration and is, in any case, entirely within the responsibility of the Council, it would be quite improper for me to comment further on it, as I am sure noble Lords will understand.
The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, particularly mentioned, towards the end of his speech, the part-time firemen, and I am most glad that he did. I should like to echo the praise that he gave to those men who undertake fire service duties—I can barely say in their spare time; I would say at any time—and I want to pay a compliment to them for their efficiency and their quickness of turnout, often under the most adverse weather conditions. That is particularly so in country areas, and I have special reason myself to be most grateful to the service of those part-time men. These men who are mainly, though not exclusively, employed in country areas, follow their normal occupations during the day or night, but are on call for fires. I think it would be right here to say a word of praise also to the employers of these men, who often have to put up with considerable difficulty when highly skilled men go off to assist at an emergency. Over the last five years, there has been a slight decline in strength, from just over to just under 14,000. Establishments have, however, fallen even more, so that the deficiency—3,860
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in 1960—is less than it was. The establishments are going down for part-time men, which is the reverse for full-time men.
To sum up, throughout the country as a whole the position remains reasonably satisfactory, and I must repeat that, in spite of what the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, has said, and despite the impression that might be gained from this debate, recruitment has not fallen, and whole-time strength has, in fact, continued to increase. As I say, there are three times as many firemen to-day as there were in 1939. While establishments have risen even faster, so creating a deficiency (that was again a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Chorley) standards of fire cover have been properly maintained, and in many areas improved.
To this general picture there are, as have said, certain exceptions: London and the industrial centres, and other places noble Lords have mentioned. Any deterioration of the situation here could give cause for concern. Account must be taken for the future of the increasing number of men likely to retire on pension after completing their service, and the possible effects of any reduction in duty hours agreed by the National Joint Council. The problem of the experienced men retiring from the old N.F.S. was brought up by the noble Lords, Lord Stonham, Lord Faringdon and Lord Chorley. These are matters which will need to be carefully watched. We must remember that the Home Secretary's powers are purely supervisory. Responsibility for the Service rests first and foremost on the local fire authorities. They are no less aware than we are of the problems that are confronting the Service, but they have not failed in their responsibilities.
6.17 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I should like briefly to express my most grateful thanks to those noble Lords who have taken part in this debate, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Wolverton, and my noble friend Lord Chorley, who came in and spoke at the last moment, virtually "off the cuff", out of the depths of their experience.
The noble Earl, Lord Bathurst, said that all of us who had spoken in this debate spoke from the depths of experience. That is perfectly true with regard

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to my noble friend Lord Faringdon, because during the war he was a member of the A.F.S., and I am quite sure that he spoke very feelingly when he mentioned the increasing height of buildings in London. He has probably experienced just what it is like to go up an escape at a very high building. The noble Lord, Lord Wolverton, of course, has experience with the Suffolk and Ipswich Fire Authority, and my noble friend Lord Chorley had the experience of administration in the North-West, and also as a trustee of the Fire Service Research and Training Trust. I have had no experience whatever. The noble Earl said that I spoke as an authority from the local authority point of view. I regret to say, however, that I have never yet been a member even of a parish council, and such expertise as I show in this matter arises solely from the fact that I checked my references.
I must say that I am disappointed indeed at the noble Earl's reply. A great friend of mine said very graphically, in a way which I will not repeat, what can be done with figures. No doubt we are all fairly guilty at various times of juggling with figures. I think it all depends where one starts. The noble Earl, Lord Bathurst, said of London that in 1955 there were 2,026 firemen, and that to-clay there are 2,328—which is precisely the figure that I, and indeed my noble friend Lord Faringdon also, gave. But what the noble Earl neglected to say was that the numbers in London are definitely declining. I shall study those figures again later, but I know that that is the position at the moment. Indeed, every noble Lord who has spoken has referred to this as an extremely dangerous situation and one which is causing very considerable anxiety. I should have thought that the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Wolverton, more than any other, reinforces this demand for an inquiry, because from his experience he said that this was not merely a question of pay but of hours and housing conditions, and no doubt other conditions, all of which, I submit, need to be looked into to see what cart be done to bring in the necessary numbers of the right type of men.
I am, of course, aware that the Fire Services Act places on the county
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councils and county boroughs responsibility for maintaining the fire services in their area, and for questions of pay and hours, and that these matters are dealt with through the Joint Council. But I tried to show in my speech that in the present context that position has been practically ruled out by the announcements already made by the County Councils Association: that they are not really prepared to look at the problem in the way in which it requires looking at. I was interested to learn that no approach for an inquiry has been made to the right honourable gentleman, the Home Secretary, and I am sure that that is a matter that will now be attended to, although I realise that the noble Earl said that it must not be assumed that if it were made it would be accepted. But I feel that we are going to be in an extremely serious position.
Before I ask leave to withdraw the Motion, there are two things I should like to say. First, I would join with the noble Earl in the tribute he paid to the voluntary part-time firemen. Their enthusiasm is quite incredible. In Taunton my gardener was a voluntary fireman and we always had the war-time fire sirens there; I used to say that he hit the saddle of his bicycle in the second bar of the siren. When I lived at Cobham the fire station was at the bottom of a long road, a mile away. The siren would go, and always the door would be open and the tender coming out before the last dying sounds of the siren faded away. It is really amazing.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, before the noble Lord departs from paying tributes, perhaps he would like to include the works fire brigades maintained by many big industrial organisations, which are often remarkably efficient and do a very good job of work.
LORD STONHAM: Yes, indeed. Firemen as a whole are quite remarkable and special people, and to me it seems unbelievable that they will not get fair and proper treatment. That was the object of raising the question.
The other point is that the noble Earl said that the position as a whole is satisfactory at the moment. I would agree; in fact, I said so in my speech. At the moment it is about right. But he virtually ignores the position—this is the danger—about the very high proportion of A.F.S. men who must be replaced in the

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next few years. If we say that we are all right now we are very much like the man who fell out of the balloon—we are all right until we hit the ground. The object of this debate is to draw the Government's attention to the sort of position that will arise if urgent action is not taken. I hope they will consider what all noble Lords have said, and that, arising out of that consideration, something effective will be done. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion, for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

CLERICAL, MEDICAL AND GENERAL LIFE ASSURANCE BILL
Reported, without amendment.
  SYNTHETIC FIBRE DUTIES
  SYNTHETIC FIBRE DUTIES