Sitting of 4 May 1961

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

  BRITISH TRANSPORT COMMISSION BILL
  [Queen's Consent, on behalf of the Crown, signified.]
  Bill read the Third time and passed.

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  BASUTOLAND

    Situation, Maseru
    Mr. Brockwayasked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations if he will now make a statement about the situation in Basutoland following the banning of public meetings and the detention of 50 persons in Maseru.
    The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations (Mr. Bernard Braine): The High Commissioner has reported that a further seven persons were arrested on charges of intimidation in addition to those mentioned in the statement given to the House on 30th March. Of these, two have been convicted, two were acquitted, and the cases against the remaining three are still under investigation.
    Mr. Brockway: Could the hon. Gentleman say whether the ban on the meetings has now been lifted? That is the more serious point.
    Mr. Braine: Yes. I think so. The immediate cause of this situation, of course, was a strike which spread beyond the control of the organisers owing to intimidation by hooligans who took advantage of the situation. I am happy to say that the situation in Maseru remains normal.

  BECHUANALAND

    Mineral Resources (Exploitation)
    Mr. Brockwayasked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations what agreement has been reached between the Rhodesian Selection Trust and the Bamangwato tribal authority in Bechuanaland fox the exploitation of mineral resources.
    Mr. Braine: I assume that the hon. Member is referring to the mineral concession granted by the Bamangwato Tribe to Bamangwato Concessions Ltd., a company in the Rhodesian Selection Trust Group. Details of this concession were given to the House on 2nd March, 1960, in reply to a Question by the right hon. Member fox Wakefield (Mr. Creech Jones).
    Mr. Brockway: Has there not been some development since? Can the hon. Gentleman say whether, for example, the Africans who are employed are to be allowed to enter skilled trades and whether trade unions will be permitted under this agreement? Can the hon. Gentleman also indicate how far the profits will pass to the Bamangwato tribe?
    Mr. Braine: The company is carrying out extensive prospecting at present in the selected areas. These operations take time. As regards employment, the occasion has not yet arisen for the employment of much skilled labour, but some Bamangwato have been engaged in semi-skilled work, and the company has established mining schools in two centres.
    As regards the benefits to the tribe—and, after all, the agreement was freely entered into between the tribe and the company—the company will pay the tribe at the rate of £3,000 per annum during the period of exclusive exploration rights. This is quite apart from a rental of about £2,000 per annum, and, of course, any mining company formed will pay the tribe a royalty of 15 per cent. of the excess of sales revenue over costs.
    Mr. Brockway: What about the trade unions?
    Mr. Braine: I have no information on that matter. If the hon. Gentleman cares to put down a Question I will do my best to answer it.

    Administrative Capital
    Mr. H. Clarkasked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations what steps are being taken to remove the administrative capital of Bechuanaland from Mafeking into Bechuanaland itself.
    The Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations (Mr. Duncan Sandys): I cannot yet add anything to the information given by my hon. Friend on 24th April.
    Mr. Clark: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that a move of this nature has been desirable for a very long time, purely for administrative reasons? Will not he give consideration to building a new capital, possibly near Gaberones, because none of the towns in the Protectorate is entirely suitable as a capital? They either have no water or are too far from railway lines.
    Mr. Sandys: As my hon. Friend has indicated, that is really one of the problems. A move of this kind is really quite an expensive affair. None the less, as I have already indicated, this is one of the matters being reviewed at present, and I can assure my hon. Friend that his suggestion will be borne in mind.
    Mr. Emery: Does my right hon. Friend realise that that Answer was exactly the same as the Answer I received to approximately the same Question put down a year ago? This is a capital of a territory entirely outside its own territory. This is crazy, and something must be done about it very quickly.
    Mr. Sandys: There is no harm in consistency.

  COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS

    Migration to United Kingdom
    Mr. C. Osborneasked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations which Commonwealth Governments have protested to him over the proposed restrictions of Commonwealth immigration into the United Kingdom; what were the grounds for their objections; what replies he has sent; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Sandys: My hon. Friend's Question is based on a misapprehension. The Government have not put forward any proposals of this kind.
    Mr. Osborne: Will my right hon. Friend say what reasonable grounds any Commonwealth Government could have, when those proposals are put forward, for objecting to our having restrictions on immigration into this country, since they all exercise the same sort of restraint in their own countries?
    Mr. Sandys: Perhaps my hon. Friend will put that question down if, or when, the proposals are formulated.

    Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference
    Sir R. Robinsonasked the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations if he will make a statement about the Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference to be held in London later this year.
    Mr. Sandys: As the House knows, the Seventh Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference will be held in London in September.
    The Queen has graciously consented to open the Conference in Westminster Hall on Monday, 25th September. Members of both Houses will be invited to attend this ceremony. Her Majesty has also given permission for the Conference to hold its other sessions in the Royal Gallery.
    This Conference will be of great importance; and I am sure that hon. Members will join with the United Kingdom branch of the Association in giving a warm welcome to our fellow Members from overseas and will do all they can to help make this meeting an outstanding success.
    Mr. Shinwell: Do I understand that all hon. and right hon. Members will be entitled to attend the Conference? Are they to be selected, and, if selected, who is to select them, and on what basis?
    Mr. Sandys: The United Kingdom branch will be on the same footing as other branches, that is to say, there will be a delegation from the United Kingdom to the Conference. The delegation will be chosen by the usual procedure by the United Kingdom branch.
    Mr. Shinwell: That is precisely what I was getting at. For a Conference of this sort, hon. Members are at the mercy either of the executive of the C.P.A. or of some other body which is to select the delegates. I am not speaking for myself, but is it possible to make an application so that one who has views about the Commonwealth and its development may attend?
    Mr. Sandys: I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman should address his inquiries to the United Kingdom branch. As for the executive, we had a meeting yesterday—I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman was present—when we elected the new executive, so the right hon. Gentleman has had his opportunity through normal democratic processes to choose the executive which will be responsible.
    Mr. Marquand: May I officially from this Box say that on this side of the House we warmly welcome the statement which the Secretary of State has made? We are sure that it will be welcomed, not only throughout the country but throughout the Commonwealth, where people will be particularly pleased that the Head of the Commonwealth is to open the proceedings.

  EDUCATION

    Nursing (Preparatory Courses)
    Mr. W. Clarkasked the Minister of Education what is the number of schools the curricula of which include nursing.
    The Minister of Education (Sir David Eccles): Precise information is not available but a large number of secondary schools provide preparatory courses for pupils who intend to enter the nursing profession.
    Mr. Clark: Will my right hon. Friend consider issuing a circular to all local education authorities pointing out the advantages of including nursing in their curricula so that, in two or three years, the obvious shortage of nurses which now exists will be alleviated?
    Sir D. Eccles: In the short time available, I have tried to ascertain whether these courses either in schools or in technical colleges meet the demand.
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    The best of my information to date is that they do, but, in view of my hon. Friend's Question, I will keep the matter under review.

    Industry and Science (Specialisation)
    Mr. Hollandasked the Minister of Education what steps he is taking to meet the restrictive demand created by the narrowing fields of specialisation in industry and science without sacrificing or endangering the provision of broadly based education.
    Sir D. Eccles: I do not control what is taught in the schools, nor the university and other requirements which influence school curricula, but a good deal of thought is being given to ways of striking a better balance between specialised and non-specialised studies, and Her Majesty's Inspectors are playing their part in this.
    Mr. Holland: I thank my right hon. Friend for that very helpful reply. Is there not a real danger that the pressure of specialisation in the universities, colleges and schools may well tend to defeat its own object of producing the people we want to keep this country in the forefront of scientific and technological advance?
    Sir D. Eccles: Yes, there is too much pressure. The only way to relieve it is to have more university places, which we are now providing.

    Woodwork (Home-grown Timber)
    Mr. Wingfield Digbyasked the Minister of Education what steps he is taking to encourage education authorities to ensure that home-grown timber is used for the training of young people in woodworking.
    Sir D. Eccles: Local education authorities are free to decide what timber to use to meet their special requirements. I am, however, grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing attention to this matter and I hope that, where suitable, local education authorities will use home timber.
    Mr. Digby: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, although we still have relatively the smallest forest area in the whole of Europe, more home-grown

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    timber is coming along and it is important that people should be taught how to use and work with it?
    Sir D. Eccles: I agree.

    Teacher Training Colleges
    Mr. Boydenasked the Minister of Education which training college projects, planned to be completed by September, 1961, are likely now to be delayed; and for what reasons.
    Sir D. Eccles: The first phase of the training college expansion programme was planned for completion in September, 1962, and I am advised that 12,000 new places should be ready on time.
    Mr. Boyden: May I encourage the Minister to expand the programme a little more in the future?
    Sir D. Eccles: We have another 12,000 places planned to come in after September, 1962. It will be a great strain to get them in, but I hope for the best.
    Mr. Boydenasked the Minister of Education how many men and women students, respectively, seeking places in training colleges have not yet been accepted; and how many vacancies still exist.
    Sir D. Eccles: Recruitment for next session is not yet completed. By the beginning of April, about 2,000 men and 3,500 women applicants with at least the minimum academic qualifications had not so far been accepted, and there were still vacancies for about 650 men and 900 women.
    Mr. Boyden: Does not this mean that there is still more need for training college places every year? Cannot the Minister take emergency steps to increase the number of places?
    Sir D. Eccles: It is very gratifying that so many candidates are coming forward, but it is essential also to raise the quality of the profession, and this can be done only if there is some measure of selection.
    Mr. Chetwynd: How is the central clearing house working to deal with this vexed problem?
    Sir D. Eccles: I think it is working well. Places have already been offered to 4,350 men and 11,000 women.

    King Edward VI Grammar School, Totnes
    Mr. Mawbyasked the Minister of Education whether he will now give the starting date for the new school to replace the King Edward VI Grammar School at Totnes.
    Sir D. Eccles: The authority has not included this project, which covers also the replacement of the girls' grammar school, in the proposals for 1963–65. I understand, however, that it will put it in its next submission, and I will then consider it on its merits.
    Mr. Mawby: Does my right hon. Friend realise that the citizens of Totnes will be very dissatisfied with that reply, because another generation of children at this grammar school will be condemned to receive their education in very difficult circumstances in totally inadequate accommodation?
    Sir D. Eccles: I agree that the school has poor buildings, but it is for the authority to decide its priorities.
    Mr. Mawby: Owing to the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest opportunity.

    School Meals
    Mrs. Whiteasked the Minister of Education what consideration is being given to revising the present allocation of money for school meals between labour costs and the purchase of food.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education (Mr. Kenneth Thompson): The unit cost per meal is fixed annually for each authority for food and overheads separately. The amount allowed is so assessed as to ensure adequate standards at a reasonable cost, in the light of current prices and wages rates.
    Mrs. White: Will the Minister look at the matter again? Is he not aware that the organisers of school meals find their task made more difficult because, if the cost of food is kept completely separate from other costs, they are inhibited from purchasing pre-prepared foods because to do so would make the cost of the food too high although the

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    relative cost of labour would be reduced? This is causing a great deal of dissatisfaction in the schools meals service.
    Mr. Thompson: That is a very interesting suggestion, and I will look into it.

    Training Ship "Foudroyant" (Course)
    Sir W. Bromley-Davenportasked the Minister of Education what is the total cost of providing holidays on floating warships to those boys who fail to win academic awards; whether this is a yearly or more frequent happening; and how much it will cost over the next five years.
    Sir D. Eccles: I understand that my hon. and gallant Friend is referring to a course on the training ship "Foudroyant" to which local education authorities are sending about 70 boys who have been recommended for the course by the School Sailing Association. The cost to the local education authority for each boy is about £7. The Answer to the second and third parts of the Question will depend on the authorities' opinion of the value of the experiment.

    School Children (Maintenance Allowances)
    Mr. Willeyasked the Minister of Education how many education authorities are providing maintenance allowances for school children over the age of 15 years below those recommended by the Weaver Working Party.
    Sir D. Eccles: I am asking local education authorities for this information and will write to the hon. Member as soon as I can.

    Secondary School Examinations Council (Report)
    Mr. Willeyasked the Minister of Education whether he will make a statement on the Report on Secondary School Examinations other than the General Certificate of Education.
    Sir D. Eccles: I have been awaiting the considered advice of the Secondary School Examinations Council on this subject. This has only just reached me, and I have not yet had time to consider it.
    Mr. Willey: I am sure that the House is very glad to know that the S.S.E.C. has reached conclusions. Will the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that the Report will be published as soon as possible and that he will formulate his own views of it equally expeditiously?
    Sir D. Eccles: Yes. I will have the Report published as soon as possible. This raises a major issue in education policy and it may take us a little time to consider it.

  SOUTHERN CAMEROONS

    British Troops
    Mr. Wingfield Digbyasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether it is intended to continue to station British troops in the British Cameroons now that the plebiscite is over and the territory is to be divided between Nigeria and the Cameroon Republic.
    The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Iain Macleod): As I stated in my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Mr. Tilney) on 7th February, the British troops now in the Southern Cameroons will be withdrawn when United Kingdom trusteeship over the territory comes to an end.
    Mr. Tilney: When will that be?
    Mr. Macleod: The date fixed for it by the United Nations is 1st October, 1961.

  THE WEST INDIES

    Immigration Restrictions
    Mr. Gresham Cookeasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that many of the West Indian colonies from which emigrants are allowed free entry into Great Britain impose restrictions on immigration into their territory from Great Britain and other British West Indian colonies; and whether any changes with regard to these restrictions are contemplated in the near future.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: I am aware that the West Indian territories impose restrictions on immigration. Freedom of movement between the various islands will be considered at the Inter-Governmental Conference of the Federal and Territorial

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    Governments in Port of Spain which began on 2nd May.
    Mr. Gresham Cooke: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that the fact that there is restriction on movement between the islands, preventing people in one island from taking jobs in another, is one of the factors which causes many Jamaicans to come to this country? Is he aware that it removes the moral basis of demands which are made that freedom to come to this country should be retained in the future?
    Mr. Macleod: There are restrictions, which vary from island to island and, in the Federation, impede the free flow of people who wish to travel, but clearly this is a matter which they themselves should consider, and they are meeting at the moment in the Inter-Governmental Conference

  EAST AFRICA

    High Commission Staff
    Mr. Tilneyasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies (1) what discussions he has had with the East African High Commission Association of Professional, Technical and Executive Officers; if he is satisfied that the future of overseas civil servants serving in the East Africa High Commission is secure; and whether, on any fundamental change in conditions of service, members of Her Majesty's Overseas Civil Service will be given the option to retire on compensation;
    (2) whether, after the grant of independence to Tanganyika, the staff of the East Africa High Commission will be required to serve in the newly independent territory.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: I had discussions on the future position of East Africa High Commission staff with representatives of the staff associations in February. I am circulating in the OFFICIAL REPORT the text of an agreed communiqué issued to the Press after the discussions.
    I fully understand and sympathise with the Staff Side's natural desire for an early statement but, since the shape of the future relationship which may be possible between an independent Tanganyika and the interterritorial organisation is to be discussed in London in June, I am unable at present to make a final announcement on the future of the staff in relation to employment in Tanganyika.
    Mr. Tilney: Has my right hon. Friend's attention been called to the deplorable and untrue statement of the publicity secretary of the Tanganyika African National Union that the British are enemies of the Africans? Is he aware of the damage to morale which that untrue statement may cause? Because of the vital importance of keeping the High Commission in being, will he consider consulting the representatives of the staff pari passu with the June consultations?
    Mr. Macleod: I think it right to consult them, and I think that it would be right after the June consultations have taken place. I entirely agree that a most untrue statement was made, but the statement on which I prefer to rely is the categorical assurance given by Mr. Nyerere, the Prime Minister of Tanganyika, and I will print this as part of the White Paper. It is an assurance about matters which were raised by the East Africa High Commission staff.
    Following is the communiqué:
    Talks between the Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Iain Macleod) and officials and representatives of both the Official and Staff Sides of the three Administrations of the East Africa High Commission, have been conducted during the past week. They included discussion on the future position of High Commission staff after self-government and eventual independence in Tanganyika.
    The delegation of the staff associations represented that the attainment of internal self-government by one territory was a significant political change so fundamentally affecting the High Commission staff as to justify the introduction of a compensation scheme under which High Commission officers would have the right to choose whether to leave without losing their pension and compensation rights or whether to continue in service. To meet the needs of the situation, however, they put forward a scheme which provided, under safeguards, for High Commission officers to continue to work as at present in Tanganyika during its period of full internal self-government but not during its period of full independence.
    The Secretary of State agreed that the High Commission did not fall precisely into the pattern of compensation principles that had been devised primarily for territorial Governments. He confirmed that he would feel it right that there should be a general compensation scheme for High Commission staff not later than the date when the second of the three constituent territories became independent. He added that constitutional changes might lead to consultation with the authorities concerned on the possibility of the introduction of a general compensation scheme even before then.
    At the present stage, it was not possible to forecast what changes would take place in the constitution of the High Commission when Tanganyika became independent, nor what

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    precisely the effect of such changes would be on the staff of the High Commission and his own responsibility for them. But if the changes justified a compensation scheme, appropriate proposals for one would be made. He did not feel able at present to pronounce finally on the Staff Side's claim that they should as a matter of principle not be required to work in an independent territory in which Her Majesty's Government had no jurisdiction or control.
    He thought the position would be clearer after the March Constitutional Conference in Dar-es-Salaam when among other things the relationship of Tanganyika to the High Commission in the future would naturally be discussed. At the Conference, arrangements would also have to be worked out for the continuation of the High Commission services in Tanganyika, during the period of internal self-government. It would, of course, be necessary to take fully into account at that time the need to make suitable arrangements to safeguard the rights and general conditions of service of High Commission staff, to which he attached particular importance.
    The Secretary of State also recognised that the position of the staff would be affected by any further proposals for the localisation of the High Commission service which might, for example, result from the report on this subject by Sir Richard Ramage. That report would, he understood, shortly be presented to the authorities of the High Commission and if as a result of it a policy was adopted of increased localisation in such a way as to affect existing service rights in respect of career prospects, this would necessitate the introduction of a limited compensation scheme appropriate to the circumstances. He added that something of a similar nature was presently being considered in Uganda.
    While for reasons that he had explained to the delegates, the Secretary of State felt that it was not possible at present to be specific about either the timing or the extent of any compensation scheme until the future developments in both the constitutional and the service fields could be seen more clearly, he fully sympathised with the Staff Side's need of a clear understanding on their future. He hoped that in the light of developments in the constitutional and service fields a detailed programme could be drawn up and he undertook that he would ask the appropriate authorities in East Africa to consider the matter further in consultation with himself as soon as possible after the outcome of the March conference, and that there would then be further discussions with the Staff Associations in which representatives of the Colonial Office would take part.

  NORTHERN RHODESIA

    Elections (South African Citizens)
    Mr. Stonehouseasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he proposes to allow South African citizens to vote in the Northern Rhodesia
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    elections after South Africa becomes a Republic.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: South African citizenship as such is not a qualification for the vote in Northern Rhodesia.
    I see no reason to alter the position that anyone, of whatever origin, who fulfils the nationality and other qualifications prescribed within Northern Rhodesia is eligible to register and vote.
    Mr. Stonehouse: Is the Minister aware that this matter is very important, bearing on the talks due to take place in Lusaka? Is he aware that it would be most unfortunate if open advocates of apartheid from a foreign country were allowed to participate as electors, and presumably as candidates, in this election?
    Mr. Macleod: I think that that is an absurd approach to the problem. It is wrong to think that in South Africa everybody, whatever the colour of his face, for example, approves of the racial policies of the Government. We must judge this by the situation in Northern Rhodesia. It may well be that somebody has dual citizenship and is entitled to vote there. If so, he should be fully entitled to vote in the Northern Rhodesia elections.
    Mr. Biggs-Davison: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that it would be less anomalous for South Africans to vote in Northern Rhodesia than for Portuguese to vote in Nyasaland elections?
    Mr. Macleod: My hon. Friend knows very well that that is a very different question. The question of the Portuguese voting in Nyasaland arose because of the impossibility of distinguishing between those who were Portuguese-born and those who were born in Nyasaland.
    Mr. Callaghan: If we are considering imposing these restrictions on the franchise, should we not bear in mind that we are more likely to have a stable Government in these African territories when more people living there are entitled to share in selecting their governors?
    Mr. Macleod: I am not sure that I see much relevance in that supplementary question. The qualification in Northern

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    Rhodesia is that a person must be a citizen of the United Kingdom or Colonies or of the Federation or a British-protected person by virtue of his connection with the Territory—and in my opinion the essential words are
    "by virtue of his connection with the Territory."
    Mr. Callaghan: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that it is very difficult for a peasant hoeing his beans in Northern Rhodesia to understand why he cannot have a vote when his brother living across the border in Tanganyika has a vote?

    Public Meetings
    Mr. Dugdaleasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies under what regulation persons holding meetings in Northern Rhodesia are ordered to take out insurance policies in case of disturbance; and whether it is his intention to continue to compel them so to do.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: There are no provisions in Northern Rhodesian law whereby persons holding meetings can be required to take out insurance policies; and there is no record of anyone having been ordered to do so.
    Mr. Dugdale: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that many people in Northern Rhodesia who thought that there were such provisions will be delighted to hear him say so?

    Mr. Kenneth Kaunda
    Mr. Dugdaleasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies for how long it is intended that Mr. Kenneth Kaunda is to be refused permission to enter Northern Province, Barotseland, and parts of Eastern Province.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: Mr. Kaunda has not been refused permission to enter the Northern and Eastern Provinces, and in fact visited the Northern Province recently. On one occasion last year, certain native authorities required him, under powers vested in them by the Native Authority Ordinance, to leave their particular areas of the Northern Province. The entry of persons into Barotseland is a matter for the Litunga.

    Constitution (Discussions)
    Mr. Biggs-Davisonasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what stage has now been reached in the constitutional discussions in Lusaka.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: The Governor has had discussions with each of the political groups represented at the London Conference on the outline plan in the White Paper and the detailed suggestions which he circulated. He expects to hold further consultations with all groups before making his recommendations.
    Mr. Biggs-Davison: Would my right hon. Friend agree that the result of the Southern Rhodesia referendum and the future of the Federation itself may largely depend on the speedy and satisfactory conclusion of these talks? Can he give an assurance that his constitutional proposals are being and can be interpreted with flexibility?
    Mr. Macleod: On the last point, we certainly made our position quite clear—that we have published the White Paper and we are prepared to consider schemes within the framework of the White Paper. I do not think that the date of the Southern Rhodesia referendum has been announced and, therefore, it is not possible to be precise in relation to the Northern Rhodesia talks, but I should have thought it very likely that the result of the talks will be made public well before the referendum.

  GAMBIA

    Constitutional Conference
    Mr. Callaghanasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will invite the General Workers' Union of Gambia to be represented at the forthcoming Constitutional Conference.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: The Conference has been summoned by the Governor. Invitations have been extended only to political parties, the Chiefs, and three individuals on a personal basis. The General Workers' Union has not been invited but Mr. Jallow, its Secretary-General, has received one of the personal invitations.

  TANGANYIKA

    Leaseholder Farmers
    Mr. Turtonasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what provision he intends to make for leaseholder farmers in Tanganyika who desire to leave their farms after Tanganyika becomes independent.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: I have no evidence to suggest that any special provision is necessary. Since the introduction of responsible government in September 1960, Ministers of the Tanganyika Government have given assurances—for example of their intention to maintain the sanctity of all titles to land granted under the law—which I understand have been warmly welcomed by leasehold farmers of all races in the territory.
    Mr. Turton: Is my right hon. Friend aware that these farmers were invited to Tanganyika by Her Majesty's Government and that their leases were extended from 33 to 60 years by Her Majesty's Government? For that reason, is there not a responsibility to ensure that if they do not want to stay there they are given some compensation when they leave?
    Mr. Macleod: I was not sure from the Question whether it was directed to those of British, Greek, Asian or African origin, all of whom have titles to land in Tanganyika. The essential point is that as soon as Tanganyika achieved responsible Government—and this has been repeated on a number of occasions since—the Minister responsible, Chief Fundikira, gave in most categorical terms an assurance that all titles to land would be respected. If I may say so, I should very much like to see that assurance given by Ministers in other territories.
    Mr. Turton: Will not my right hon. Friend underwrite that guarantee?
    Mr. Macleod: No. I think that it would be utterly wrong to assume that a guarantee given by a responsible Minister of a territory which is now at the stage of full internal self-government will not be carried out.

  KENYA

    Unlawful Oaths
    Mr. Turtonasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many persons have been convicted in Kenya during the last six months on charges of oath-taking or administering oaths.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: Seven persons have been convicted of administering unlawful oaths in the past six months. Two further cases are pending before the court. Eleven persons have been convicted for taking oaths.
    Mr. Turton: Is my right hon. Friend aware that quite recently, on 29th January, magistrates in the court declared that the Mau Mau society was again active? If that is so, should not more steps be taken to bring these oath-takers to justice?
    Mr. Macleod: The cases which I have mentioned, in which the sentences have varied from nine months to seven years, are evidence that firm steps are being taken. As I am sure my right hon. Friend remembers well, when there were signs of a recrudescence of oath-taking some time ago the Governor, with, of course my full support, moved at once and very firmly against it

    Salaries (Flemming Report)
    Mr. H. Clarkasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he is aware of the increasing concern felt by overseas service officers and other Government servants in Kenya about the method being adopted to implement the Flemming Report on Salaries; and what reply he has given to the letters on this subject sent to him by the Kenya Senior Civil Servants Association.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: I am aware of this concern. I have not yet received any letters on the subject sent to me by the Kenya Senior Civil Servants Association but I understand that one is on the way to me and I will of course be ready to look into any representations which may be made to me.
    Mr. Clark: Would my right hon. Friend give special consideration to a change being made in the educational allowance in the implementation of the Flemming Report? Is he aware that the educational allowance, above all others, would play a part in the decision that dozens of civil servants will take whether to stay in Kenya or come back home?
    Mr. Macleod: I will gladly look into it. I hope that hon. Members who have received these letters will realise that the report on the O.S.A. scheme and the Flemming Report have to be read together and that both are a recognition of Her Majesty's Government's determination to do everything they can for all those who serve in these territories.
    Mr. Callaghan: If there is a difference between these officers and the

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    Colonial Office, not only in this organisation but in others, who settles the dispute? Does the right hon. Gentleman reserve the right to have the last word?
    Mr. Macleod: In a matter like that it would be normal for an association, as often happens in the case of East Africa, to make special representations to me. Clearly I in my turn, and this is common form if it is a financial matter, must carry the Treasury with me before any alteration in the scheme can be made. Such an alteration, if agreed with the Treasury and myself, could then be made to a scheme.
    Mr. Callaghan: Does not the right hon. Gentleman realise that in the eyes of many of these civil servants the Colonial Secretary and the Treasury may be in league against them and it is no comfort to them to know that the right hon. Gentleman has to carry the Treasury with them? Is he aware that I have received a dozen memorials from different organisations throughout East Africa complaining about the implementation of the Flemming Report? I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman has received them yet. Will he consider whether some arbitration machinery should be set up to consider the disputes that seem to be arising between him and these organisations?
    Mr. Macleod: That any Minister in any Government has to carry the Treasury with him, as the hon. Member knows very well, is one of the facts of life of government, and nothing more than that should be read into it. The amount of money which we have to put on the backs of British taxpayers for these schemes show that we have the warmest sympathy of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Treasury in this matter. I am ready to consult closely on these matters either with the Kenya Association or with other associations of the Civil Service in Colonial Territories.

    Legislative Council (Ministerial Appointments)
    Sir A. Hurdasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will make a further statement about the formation of a Government in Kenya and the allocation of ministerial posts between elected and nominated members of the Legislative Council.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: I will, with permission, circulate the list of the new Ministers so far appointed in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Mr. Hurd: Will my right hon. Friend convey to the Governor of Kenya, Sir Patrick Renison, our appreciation of his efforts to form a responsible Government from all races? Will he also tell him of our determination here to give full support to the Government in maintaining law and order and in carrying out urgently needed development in land settlement and education so that confidence in the future of Kenya may be maintained?
    Mr. Macleod: I very much agree with all the points my hon. Friend has made and particularly with his tribute to Sir Patrick Renison in what has been a difficult task over the past few weeks.
    Mr. Callaghan: While no one wishes to make the task of the new Governor more difficult, may I ask whether we ought not to be careful in the House about appearing to side with a Government against a political party in a territory, especially when the Government concerned is a minority party?
    Mr. Macleod: On the contrary, I do not regard this in any way as a minority Government. It is unquestionably the strongest cohesive bloc there is in the Legislative Council in Kenya and there is no question of this or any side of the House siding with any particular party. But the other African party to which the hon. Member refers was invited first, by virtue of its size, and rightly so, to form a Government but when it declined, for whatever reason, the Governor was unquestionably right to form a Government of all races based on the alternative.
    Following is the list:
    The following elected members of the Legislative Council have been appointed to Ministerial posts:
    Mr. R. G. Ngala, Minister for Education.
    Mr. M. Muliro, Minister for Commerce, Industry and Communications.
    Mr. T. Towett, Minister for Labour and Housing.
    Mr. W. B. Havelock, Minister for Local Government and Lands.
    Mr. P. D. Marrian, Minister for Tourism, Forests and Wild Life.
    Mr. A. Jamidar, Minister for Works.
    The following appointments of ex officio members have been made:
    Sir Walter Coutts, Chief Secretary.
    Mr. E. N. Griffith-Jones, Minister for Legal Affairs.
    Mr. K. W. S. Mackenzie, Minister for Finance and Development
    Mr. A. C. C. Swann, Minister for Internal Security and Defence.
    Mr. R. J. M. Swynnerton and Mr. M. N. Evans have been appointed Temporary Ministers for Agriculture and Health respectively, pending the appointment of elected members of Legislative Council to these offices.

    Financial Aid
    Mr. P. Williamsasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will now announce the Government's plans for providing further financial support to the Government of Kenya.
    Sir T. Beamishasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what is the present annual scale of financial aid from all Government sources to Kenya; what approximate increases are under discussion; and if he will give an assurance that such increases will be maintained at a sufficient level to ensure a sound and progressive economy in Kenya.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: Provision is already made in United Kingdom Votes for aid of about £7½ million to Kenya in the current financial year. In addition, further assistance on budgetary account and for development will be necessary, and I am engaged in negotiations with a Kenya Government delegation whose representations I will naturally consider as sympathetically as I can.
    Mr. Williams: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, now that the new Government has been formed, the most important thing is to reverse the trend of the withdrawal of overseas money from Kenya? Is he aware that anything that can be done by him in this matter will be thoroughly welcomed? Can he give a further assurance that, in discussing further financial support, particular attention will be paid to finance for providing further technical education?
    Mr. Macleod: The Kenya Government delegation, to which I referred and
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    with which I am now consulting, has arrived with a number of proposals, including some for education. I cannot commit myself, in answer to a supplementary question, to particular sums of money, but my hon. Friend will understand that I mean what I say when I state that I will consider and meet the delegation's representations as sympathetically as I can.
    Sir T. Beamish: In view of the inevitable loss of confidence and the drain on Kenya's economy in the election period, and the fact that a broadly based non-racial Government has been formed—which we welcome—is my right hon. Friend aware that he will have a great deal of support in this House if he treats all reasonable demands for economic and financial aid in the most generous way possible?
    Mr. Macleod: I have given an undertaking in my main Answer, and I repeat it now. Anything that I can do to help, I will do.
    Mr. J. Hynd: The right hon. Gentleman mentioned a figure of £ 7½ million. Though welcome, that is only about one-third of the amount given to the Cunard Steamship Company, Ltd. Will he reconsider this?
    Mr. Macleod: If we take into account both that sum and what is planned, we find that it is a very large percentage indeed of the ordinary Kenya budget.

  COLONIAL TERRITORIES

    Migration to United Kingdom
    Mr. C. Osborneasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what factors cause him to oppose any restriction of emigration from Colonial Territories into the United Kingdom, in view of the grave disquiet of the general public at Her Majesty's Government's refusal to take action in this matter.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: As has been made clear, Her Majesty's Government, while watching the situation with care and concern, have not reached firm conclusions on a matter which raises an important question of principle and involves our relations with other countries in the Commonwealth.
    Mr. Osborne: Whilst recognising the grave and difficult problems which face the Government in making this decision, may I impress upon my right hon. Friend how deep is the anxiety felt by people in this country at this growing problem? Will my right hon. Friend urge his Cabinet colleagues to do something quickly please?
    Mr. Macleod: I share that anxiety. The statement which I made, which was of course agreed by all the Ministers and Departments concerned, indicates no change whatever in Her Majesty's Government's view on this matter. I would feel that on this almost all the House should unite on two things—first, that the figures for 1960 and the first quarter of 1961 are frankly very disturbing indeed, but secondly that it would be extremely distasteful if we had to come to the point of imposing legislation which would run counter to the very long-established tradition of Britain being the centre for the Commonwealth countries.
    Sir J. Duncan: Would my right hon. Friend agree that it would be easy to take action now in advance but that if conditions changed in this country, with an increase in unemployment, and if immigration increased as it has done in the last few months, the problem would become much more difficult to deal with?
    Mr. Macleod: In one sense what my hon. Friend says is perfectly true. In another sense it works in exactly the opposite way, because the figures of immigration are immensely sensitive to the employment situation in this country, as the small recession which we had two years ago showed.
    Mr. D. Howell: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in the recent Small Heath by-election the Conservative candidate talked about nothing else but this racial matter and he had a catastrophic defeat?
    Mr. Macleod: I do not know what happened in the by-play at the Small Heath by-election but I believe that almost everybody would agree that it would be very sad if we had to depart from our traditional position in this
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    matter. Everybody ought to be concerned at the figures of immigration as the statistics have shown them.

  MALTA

    Tourist Industry
    Mr. Teelingasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies what reply he has received from the Governor of Malta to his letter concerning the former Chairman of the Malta Tourist Board and the expenditure of the monies allocated for the Tourist Board.
    Mr. Iain Macleod: The amount allocated for capital expenditure on tourist development over the five years ending in 1963–64 is £545,000. Expenditure in the first two years was £183,245. Recurrent expenditure borne on the Malta Budget was £168,681 in the same period. No action by Her Majesty's Government appears to arise from the reports referred to.
    Mr. Teeling: My right hon friend has said nothing about the former Chairman of the Tourist Board, although I asked him about that matter. Why was it that the members of the Board felt that the scandal of his departure was such that they wished to resign en masse, while the Governor asked them not to?
    Mr. Macleod: All expenditure was approved by the Board. It seems clear that there was no misuse of public funds. These reports are, in the first instance, for consideration by the Governor of Malta.
    Mr. Stonehouse: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is very strong feeling in Malta about the use of these funds, and a general wish that there should be an independent inquiry into the activities of the Board? Will he look at this again?
    Mr. Macleod: I was not aware of any strong feeling in Malta to that effect, but I have noted what the hon. Member has said and will bring it to the Governor's attention.
    Mr. Teeling: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the rather unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall seek to raise this matter on the adjournment at the earliest opportunity.

  AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD

    Fuel Oil (Duty)
    Mr. P. Browneasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (1) what representations he has had from the National Farmers' Union about the increased cost to the industry of the imposition of the 2d. a gallon tax on fuel oil;
    (2) what representations he has had from horticultural interests about the increased cost to the industry of the imposition of the 2d. a gallon tax on fuel oil.
    The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. W. M. F. Vane): My right hon. Friend has discussed this question with representatives of the National Fanners' Union, and has received written representations from the President of the Union and from the Chairman of its Central Horticultural Committee. He is now considering these representations and others which he has received from the Tomato and Cucumber Marketing Board, the British Flower Industry Association and a number of local growers' associations and individual growers.
    Mr. Browne: I thought that there were two separate Questions here. However, I will ask two supplementary questions together. First, in considering representations from the N.F.U. as such, will my hon. Friend bear in mind that, unlike any other industry in this country, any increase in cost cannot be passed on to the consumer? [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh".] Whatever Members opposite may say, that is so. Secondly, does not my hon. Friend think that this increase in fuel costs for the glasshouse industry will vitiate any improvements it got as a result of the tariff last year?
    Mr. Vane: My right hon. Friend will bear all these factors in mind. The tariff on tomatoes must have had some effect, but it is wrong to over-simplify the effect of tariffs on prices in this country without going into all the factors involved.
    Sir D. Walker-Smith: Does my hon. Friend agree that it is a somewhat puzzling and paradoxical situation that growers, who were expressly exhorted
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    by the Government to convert from solid fuel to oil heating, should now be penalised for so doing?
    Mr. Vane: I could not support what my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) has said about that, because there has not been express exhortation to convert any heating system to oil. What we have done is to encourage the improvement of heating equipment generally.

    European Common Market
    Mr. Ridleyasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food how many members of his staff are employed in studying the development of agricultural policy in the Common Market countries.
    Mr. Vane: None of my right hon. Friend's staff is engaged solely on this, but officers whose duties include overseas trade are expected as a matter of course to keep abreast of developments in all countries with whom we have trade relations.
    Mr. Ridley: Has my hon. Friend's attention been drawn to an article in today's Farming Express, which says that Britain is to join the Common Market and that the Conservative Chief Whip has given Tory Members for agricultural constituencies a confidential briefing on this subject? [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] As my hon. Friends and I—representing agricultural constituencies—have not received such a briefing, will my hon. Friend assure us that his own staff is looking into this matter very carefully and is trying to formulate proposals to bring British agriculture to the stage where it might be possible to join the Common Market?
    Mr. Vane: The Farming Express is not the mouthpiece of Government policy. I can assure my hon. Friend that in the Agriculture Department there is an adequate staff, and two External Relations Divisions keep in touch with all such developments as my hon. Friend has in mind.
    Mr. Grimond: If the Farming Express is not, can the hon. Gentleman tell us what is the mouthpiece of Government policy on the Common Market? We

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    have had the most contradictory leakages. For instance, there were the wonderful words of the Prime Minister that we should not rush into this matter.
    Mr. Vane: That is not a question which should be addressed to me.

    Bulls
    Mr. de Freitasasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food whether he will arrange for bulls of the three leading British beef breeds, Hereford, Angus, and Lincoln Red, to be tested in the same way and under the same conditions as the French Charollais bulls.
    Mr. Vane: Details of the Charollais trial have still to be settled and we are arranging to consult the interested organisations about this. We would hope, however, to arrange for certain farmers participating in the trial to rear a number of British beef/dairy crosses alongside the Charollais/dairy crosses.
    Mr. de Freitas: Will the hon. Gentleman make it clear that, when Charollais are to be tested, it is meaningless unless the leading British beef breed bulls are tested under similar conditions?
    Mr. Vane: I thought that my reply implied that it is intended to carry out certain trials, although I would not necessarily say that one beef breed was better than any other.

    Poultry (Post-Mortem Service)
    Mr. Mawbyasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food if he is satisfied that the amount now charged for post mortem on poultry will not deter small poultry keepers from using this service; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Vane: Since the fees for post-mortem examination of poultry at the Ministry's Laboratories were increased, the number of specimens submitted has fallen, but I cannot say how much of this fall is attributable to small poultry keepers. These fees were originally fixed in 1925 and had become almost nominal. Even at these new rates, the service will not yet be self-supporting but, as already announced, it is my right hon. Friend's intention to introduce full economic fees on 1st December, 1961.
    Mr. Mawby: While thanking my hon. Friend for that reply, may I ask him to take into account the fact that many eggs are produced by backyard poultry-keepers? Will not the charge for post-mortem examinations mean danger of a disease not being diagnosed because the owner may bury the evidence?
    Mr. Vane: I am aware of the dangers from disease, but it is in the interests of any poultry-keeper who suspects that one of his birds has died of disease to have a post-mortem examination carried out. There are many ways open to him. The veterinary profession in private practice is available. This does not seem to be a service which the State is justified in running at well below cost.

    Wood Pigeons
    Sir A. Hurdasked the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to what extent rabbit clearance societies have been able to operate the scheme for providing subsidised cartridges for shooting wood pigeons; and if he is aware that in some districts there has been no organised shooting this spring and the wood pigeons have been left to multiply with consequent damage to tillage crops and clover leys.
    Mr. Vane: One hundred and sixty-three societies are making use of these arrangements. In some counties organised shooting has not been on the same scale as in previous years, but as societies extend their areas I hope the gaps will be filled. In some areas, of course, shoots, other than those organised by rabbit clearance societies, have taken place for many years and continue to do so.
    Sir A. Hurd: Will my hon. Friend look at the way in which the scheme is working, as it is not giving satisfaction in most districts, and will he see whether he can get an improvement before next year?
    Mr. Vane: Yes.

  SECRETARY OF STATE FOR SCOTLAND (SPEECH)
  Mr. Stonehouseasked the Prime Minister if the speech of the Secretary of State for Scotland to the Scottish Conference of the Conservative and Unionist Parties about the responsibilities of

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  Ministers represents the policy of Her Majesty's Government.
  The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Macmillan): My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland informs me that he did not deal with this subject.
  Mr. Stonehouse: Is the Prime Minister aware that the Secretary of State for Scotland gave the impression that he was overworked and underpaid, and that the Glasgow Herald referred to him as a Pooh-Bah? Was it not highly significant that he made his speech on the day after the Chancellor of the Exchequer said in this House that the Secretary of State for Scotland's salary of £5,000 a year was an insufficient income in today's circumstances? What does the Prime Minister intend to do about it?
  The Prime Minister: With regard to the first part of the supplementary question—that my right hon. Friend is overworked and underpaid—I think that all hon. Members feel that about themselves. As regards the second part, I think that all my right hon. Friend was saying was that the Scottish Office had a very wide responsibility because it dealt with a very wide number of subjects which in England were given to special Ministers. That was what he was saying.

  SPACE RESEARCH
  Mr. D. Priceasked the Prime Minister whether the speech of the Minister for Science to the Geological Society on 26th April, 1961, dealing with the use of manpower to develop a rocket for space research and civil science, represents the policy of Her Majesty's Government.
  Mr. Emrys Hughesasked the Prime Minister whether the speech of the Minister for Science to the Geological Society on 26th April, 1961, on science and the future of Great Britain represents the policy of Her Majesty's Government.
  The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. In the passage in my noble Friend's speech to which I assume these Questions refer, he was reaffirming his acceptance of the view of the Advisory Council on Scientific Policy that a full scale space pro-
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  gramme on a purely national basis, including the development of a large launcher, would not be justified solely on pure scientific research grounds.
  The wider problem of developing a launcher for heavy satellites is under discussion in Europe at the present time and any further statement of policy on this matter must await the outcome of the discussions.
  Mr. Price: Is my right hon. Friend aware that, whatever may be the argument on purely scientific grounds, on technological and commercial grounds Britain cannot afford not to take part in space technology, and would not my right hon. Friend agree that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Aviation would be more assisted in his negotiations in Europe if we made it clear that, whatever be the outcome of these negotiations, we are prepared to do something ourselves in this field?
  The Prime Minister: As to the negotiations, they are in the hands of the Minister, and I hope very much that we shall be able to get the joint scheme because of the enormous sums involved if this is to be really pressed forward in all its aspects. That is the thing we ought seriously to consider.
  Mr. Hughes: Is the Prime Minister aware that the National Coal Board is allowed only the comparatively small sum of £5 million for scientific research compared with the £25 million or so for the Navy? Will he see that more scientific research is encouraged in the coal industry before going into outer space?
  The Prime Minister: It is exactly these claims which have to be considered, and the Government are advised by the National Council as to the best priorities.
  Mr. Peart: Is the Prime Minister aware that on Tuesday the Parliamentary Secretary for Science announced Government policy, and this was not very satisfactory as there is a feeling that the Commonwealth could do something about it? Is this because two years ago when Prime Minister Diefenbaker suggested to the British Government that there should be a joint British-Canadian effort it was refused by the British Government? When will we have some action on this?
  The Prime Minister: The two Commonwealth Governments primarily concerned are the Canadian and Australian Governments, both of whom are being consulted on this matter.
  Mr. Gresham Cooke: Has my right hon. Friend seen it reported that the cost of the Russian rocket programme today for launching heavy satellites is about equal to the cost of the whole of our defence programme? If, therefore, it meant either putting up Income Tax by 1s. or 2s. or depressing the standard of living, to go in for a heavy rocket programme, people in this country would not think it worth while.
  The Prime Minister: All these matters are palpably matters of the expenditure of money, but money is merely a way of expressing what resources should be given to what particular projects. As everybody knows, to get those priorities right is a difficult matter.

  GENEVA CONFERENCE ON NUCLEAR TESTS
  Mr. Healeyasked the Prime Minister whether he will consider making a personal appeal to Mr. Khrushchev concerning the nuclear test conference in Geneva.
  The Prime Minister: I will bear the hon. Member's suggestion in mind. I regard the outcome of the Geneva conference negotiations as a matter of great importance and I am ready to consider at the appropriate time any course of action that seems likely to assist towards the resumption of constructive negotiation there.
  Mr. Healey: I welcome the Prime Minister's reply. Is he aware that many of us have regarded agreement on the test ban as by far the most hopeful subject for agreement in the disarmament field between East and West, and that many of us are deeply disappointed by the recent attitude of the Soviet Government on this issue? Will he find some means of informing Mr. Khrushchev of the extent to which continued Soviet intransigence on this issue will undermine the position of all those in the West, of all parties and of all countries, who believe that it is urgently necessary to try to reach some agree-
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  ment between the West and the East on the problem of general disarmament?
  The Prime Minister: I am grateful for what the hon. Gentleman said, which expresses the view we all feel. This is the most hopeful of the things we have tried. It has been a very long, tedious, and difficult negotiation. I take some hope from the fact that it is still going on, and I assure the hon. Gentleman that we will not let it simply drift into collapse without a real effort to bring it to some advance, and I hope conclusion.
  Miss Lee: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is not possible to separate foreign policy from defence issues? Will he, therefore, see that Britain's position in relation to Cuba is made perfectly clear so that the Soviet Union may be encouraged to co-operate more on these proposals?
  The Prime Minister: That may be perfectly true as far as foreign policy as a whole is concerned. Nevertheless, the rather retrograde action, as we think, of the Russian negotiators was taken some weeks or months ago. We were disappointed that they appeared to withdraw from a position which we thought was really hopeful. We are still trying to bring them back to it.
  Mr. Fell: Would my right hon. Friend agree that the conference on nuclear tests has become an absolute farce and is being used by the Soviet Union to cover its depredations into the forces of law and order throughout the world, and that what we ought to concentrate on is trying to restore law and order in those areas where Communist Russia is being most successful in getting rid of it?
  The Prime Minister: That is another and larger question. With all the faults of the conference—it has made very slow progress—I think this has been achieved, that there have been no explosions in the atmosphere by any of the three Powers concerned since the conference sat.

  PUBLIC INQUIRIES
  Mr. Liptonasked the Prime Minister when he expects to announce the result of the discussions between the Lord

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  Chancellor and the Chairman of the Council on Tribunals relating to the conduct of Ministers in public inquiries.
  The Prime Minister: My noble Friend the Lord Chancellor discussed the matter yesterday with the Chairman of the Council on Tribunals and some of his colleagues on the Council. He is considering the matter and expects to make a full statement on Monday.
  Mr. Lipton: Is the Prime Minister aware that widespread and responsible public opinion views with considerable disfavour the slippery tactics of the Minister of Housing and Local Government and the Lord Chancellor in connection with the chalk pit inquiry?
  Hon. Members: Withdraw.
  Mr. Speaker: I must require the hon. Member to withdraw that expression.
  Mr. Lipton: I withdraw those words and substitute, "the dubious tactics of the Minister of Housing and Local Government and the Lord Chancellor in connection with the chalk pit inquiry". Will the right hon. Gentleman give an undertaking that this murky business will be cleared up satisfactorily not later than Monday next?
  The Prime Minister: I cannot rival the hon. Member in his choice of epithets, but I should have thought that the word "slippery" was the last word I would have applied to the Lord Chancellor. There will be a statement on Monday. I am well aware of public interest, but I think that it would be better to await the statement and then see what the situation is.
  Mr. G. Brown: The Prime Minister's absolving the Lord Chancellor from a charge of being "slippery"—[HON. MEMBERS: "Question."]—is a very interesting and remarkable thing—[HON. MEMBERS: "Question."] Are you aware, Sir, that the case of Satan rebuking sin is one thing, but Satan encouraging sin is a different matter altogether? Slippery is slippery, whether it is the Lord Chancellor or the Prime Minister, and both are experts.
  Hon. Members: Withdraw.
  Mr. Speaker: The right hon. Member must have omitted to remember the with-
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  drawal that I required of his hon. Friend. Perhaps he would put the matter right.
  Mr. Brown: Yes, Mr. Speaker, I remembered. I thought that I should probably be asked to withdraw that word, and I do so, and introduce instead the word "devious". Had I not been provoked by the moronic chorus opposite I would not have made the reference. I was here between 1945 and 1951, and nothing that we can do now could equal what the party opposite did then.
  Mr. Speaker: If the right hon. Gentleman has been here all that time he will remember that this is Question Time.
  Mr. Brown: I was here then, Mr. Speaker, and you were not, and I know what the party opposite did then—and the right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) more than anybody—
  Mr. Speaker: I am sorry, but the right hon. Gentleman has failed to take the hint. The rules of order require him at this time to confine himself to questions.
  Mr. Brown: Yes, and the rules of order also require—[Interruption.] As long as hon. Members opposite shout I shall answer back. If I am not allowed to put the question then I will treat them—
  Mr. Speaker: Order. I am sure that hon. Members would not desire to put any obstacle in the way of the right hon. Gentleman keeping in order.
  Mr. Brown: The question I rise to ask is whether the statement that is to be made on Monday is to be made in this House, wherever else it is made, so that we may cross-question the Minister responsible. We are very concerned at what appears to have happened here, especially about the transfer of Questions from the Law Officer who, to us, appears responsible, to the Minister, who is in the dock. Will the Prime Minister assure us that a statement will be made in this House on Monday?
  The Prime Minister: On Monday there is to be a debate in another place, which I understand arises on a Motion of one of the noble Lords on the Labour side, and it is very proper that the Lord Chancellor should make a statement in

  1601
  reply to that Motion. After that, questions may be asked, which I or other Ministers will do our best to answer, and if there were a requirement for a debate one could no doubt be arranged through the usual channels.
  Mr. Brown: But my hon. Friend's Question today arises out of the transfer of a Question the other day, which we disputed at the time. Could not the Prime Minister, out of courtesy to this House if for no other reason, arrange for a statement to be made in this House on Monday so that, if we wish, we may ask supplementary questions arising out of an incident that happened in this House?
  The Prime Minister: This does not arise out of the transfer of a Question. It is a simple Question, asking when the Prime Minister proposes to announce the result of the discussions between the Lord Chancellor and the Chairman. I said that as there is to be a debate in another place on Monday it seemed not unreasonable that the statement should be made there.
  Mr. Gaitskell: If a Question were put down to the Prime Minister, or whoever is the appropriate Minister—about which there seems to be some doubt—could not it be arranged for that Question to be answered on Monday?
  The Prime Minister: If the Question were put down to me I could answer it on Tuesday, which would probably provide a better opportunity for supplementary questions to be asked, and for questions to be asked arising out of the debate.

UNPARLIAMENTARY EXPRESSIONS
Mr. Ness Edwards: On a point of order. You have ruled, Mr. Speaker, that the term "slippery" is an unparliamentary word. Since when has that become so? Within my recollection a right hon. Member opposite repeatedly referred to a "slippery Sam", and there was an occasion when another right hon. Member was referred to as "leaving a trail of slime across the Floor of the House." Are we now becoming a mealy-mouthed assembly?
Mr. Speaker: With respect, I think that the right hon. Gentleman is on a different point. If an unparliamentary expression is used in debate there may be grounds for requiring it to be withdrawn, but at Question Time epithets are inappropriate, under a different rule relating to Questions. It was on that that I required the withdrawal.
Mr. Ness Edwards: Can you supply a reference for that Ruling, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker: Looking at the first page I open in the current edition of Erskine May—page 358—it is proposition (2), in the middle of the page.
Mr. Callaghan: Are we to take it that it is out of order to say that the Lord Privy Seal is slippery at Question Time, but that it is in order to say that he is slippery during a debate?
Mr. Speaker: When the hon. Member says it—and I am not giving him the slightest encouragement to say it—I will rule upon it. My reason is that the exact implications of the word used depend so much on the context, and I do not like to make abstract Rulings on a dictionary basis.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. Gaitskell: May I ask the Leader of the House whether he will state the business of the House for next week?
Mr. Butler: Yes, Sir. The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY, 8TH MAY—Supply [13th Allotted Day]: Committee.
A debate will take place on Apprenticeship and Training for Industry.
Consideration of the Motion relating to the Cotton Industry Development Council (Amendment No. 4) Order.
TUESDAY, 9TH MAY—Committee and remaining stages of the Covent Garden Market Bill.
Concluding stages of the Land Drainage Bill.
Consideration of the Motions to approve the Ploughing Grants Scheme, 1961 and a similar Scheme for Scotland.
WEDNESDAY, 10TH MAY—Completion of the remaining stages of the Rating, and Valuation Bill.
Committee and remaining stages of the Department of Technical Cooperation Bill.
Report and Third Reading of the Local Authorities (Expenditure on Special Purposes) (Scotland) Bill.
THURSDAY, 11TH MAY—Supply [14th Allotted Day]: Committee.
A debate will take place on Education in Scotland.
FRIDAY, 12TH MAY—Consideration of private Members' Motions.
Mr. Gaitskell: Can the right hon. Gentleman say something about the business for Monday week, as he usually does on these occasions? Will he bear in mind that it is the beginning of the last week before the Whitsun Recess, and that we have asked for and hope to have a two-day debate on foreign affairs?
Mr. Butler: I was not saying anything about the business on Monday, 15th May, because we wish to be certain of making progress with Government business in the coming week. Therefore, I have not said anything about the exact time of the debate on foreign affairs. I am aware that a request has been made for a two-day debate, but before that is finally agreed we want to be certain about the progress we make with business.
Sir H. Legge-Bourke: May we have a suspension of the Standing Order for Tuesday's business? The Covent Garden Bill is of wide interest to a great many horticulturists, as well as to the merchants in the market. I would also remind my right hon. Friend that the Land Drainage Bill is far from complete.
Mr. Butler: I will bear those matters in mind.
Mr. Jay: Can the right hon. Gentleman, say whether the Weights and Measures Bill has now been abandoned by the Government, despite the fact that a great deal of time has been devoted to that Bill by the House of Lords? Are we to understand that the whole of the legislative programme of the Government has got into such a muddle, as a result of the introduction of the Health Service charges Bills, that a number of valuable Bills are to be abandoned altogether?
Mr. Butler: I have no statement to make today about the Weights and Measures Bill. I do not accept the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion that the Government's legislative programme is in a state of disarray. We have made precisely the progress we expected with our programme. Despite certain efforts of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite, we are making perfectly satisfactory progress.
Sir L. Ropner: Can my right hon. Friend say when a start will be made with the Committee stage of the Finance Bill?
Mr. Butler: That will depend on the further announcement I will make on the business for next week.
Mr. Grimond: I understand that there is to be a statement on security. If so, can the right hon. Gentleman say whether there will be opportunity for debating the subject?
Mr. Butler: My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister will shortly be making a statement on the matter.
Mr. Peyton: I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will agree that great anxiety has been aroused throughout the country by the recent strike in the London docks. Can he say whether hon. Members will have an opportunity of debating this subject in the near future?
Mr. Butler: I do not think that there will be an opportunity to debate that before Whitsun.
Mr. G. Thomas: As the Leader of the House must be aware, the people of Wales have been waiting for three months for him to give us an opportunity of discussing the leasehold problem. Since that is operating to the great disadvantage of our people, can an early opportunity be provided for a debate in the House on the working of that system?
Mr. Butler: This is one of many important problems, but I do not see an early opportunity of debating the matter, despite the persistence of the hon. Member.
Dame Irene Ward: Would it be possible, before we take the final stages of the Rating and Valuation Bill, to have

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a general debate on shipbuilding, ship-repairing and shipping generally? Hon. Members on both sides of the House have been pressing for a debate on this subject for some time.
Mr. Butler: I have noted that request on a previous occasion, and I can take note of it again now.
Mr. S. Silverman: Can the Leader of the House say whether the two-day foreign affairs debate will take place before the Government, and perhaps the world, are irrevocably committed to courses about the outstanding issues which are causing grave anxiety? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is a wide difference of opinion in the House about the conduct of Her Majesty's Government's affairs at the United Nations, that a great number of hon. Members are not persuaded—as the Government appear to be persuaded—that the United States Administration had nothing whatever to do with the Cuban adventure, and that we desire to debate this matter so that the Government shall understand what is the general feeling of the House before the matter proceeds further?
Mr. Butler: Without necessarily accepting the argument of the hon. Member, I am aware that these and many other matters, in so far as they are permitted to be in order by the Chair, may be raised during the foreign affairs debate.
Mr. Fell: Among the manifold duties of my right hon. Friend, has he had time to look at the Motion, in the name of about 90 of his hon. Friends, concerning President Tshombe, and the position in the Congo, and consider whether it is possible for an early debate to be arranged?
[That this House urges Her Majesty's Government, in view of the increasing threat to law and order in the Congo and especially in Katanga, and the consequent threat to neighbouring British territories, arising from the arrest of President Tshombe in violation of the safe-conduct he was guaranteed by the Congo Government, to take immediate steps to press Mr. Hammerskjold personally to intervene to secure President Tshombe's release, in accordance with the original United Nations Congo resolution.]
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I notice that next week we are to debate education in Scotland and I am wondering whether, because of the large amount of money we are spending in the Congo, and the importance and urgency of the matter, we might have an early debate on the whole question of our contribution towards the United Nations in aid of the Congo.
Mr. Butler: I am aware of the Motion, and I have some notes about it with me, but perhaps the matter might be raised during the course of the foreign affairs debate.
Mr. M. Foot: Is the Leader of the House aware that there is considerable concern among many hon. Members about the delay in having a debate in which we can discuss what has happened in Cuba, particularly in view of the statement, made on behalf of the Government, that they were not intending to make any representations whatever to the United States about this matter? Will the Leader of the House take into account that even if he has not received any representation through the usual channels, a large number of hon. Members want to discuss this situation?
Mr. Butler: I would not wish to go into the merits or otherwise of this matter at business time. I am aware of the desire of many hon. Members to discuss this subject and, in so far as it is accepted by the Chair, it will be in order to debate this subject during the foreign affairs debate. There is a variety of channels, and I endeavour to keep in touch with them all.
Mr. M. Foot: Could we not discuss this matter next week, instead of the Rating and Valuation Bill?
Mr. Butler: I have announced the business for next week and I think that it would be desirable that the foregin affairs debate should take place the week after.
Mr. Hector Hughes: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that Britain is suffering terrible losses in productivity, that there is the threat of great unemployment, because of the serious situation in our shipyards, and, following on the question asked by the hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward), can the

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Leader of the House tell us when there will be a debate on this important subject?
Mr. Butler: I realise the special importance of this subject, but I would rather not give an indication before Whitsun.
Mr. Awbery: The Leader of the House will recall that a few months ago the Report of the Blood Commission was presented to him. As it is the intention of the Government to introduce a new Constitution in Malta this year, will the right hon. Gentleman arrange for a discussion to take place at an early date on the Commission's Report?
Mr. Butler: I will discuss that with my right hon. Friend.
Mr. G. M. Thomson: Further to the question put to the Leader of the House a moment ago by the hon. Member for Yarmouth (Mr. Fell), concerning the possible postponing of the debate on Scottish education, will the right hon. Gentleman remember that although there may be a great deal of trouble in the Congo, there are also many troubles with Scottish education? The Leader of the House will be aware that a teachers' strike is pending.
Mr. Butler: It is usual, each year, to devote a Supply Day to Scottish affairs and often the subject of education is chosen for that day. This year, we have purposely kept this date free.
Mr. Gresham Cooke: Has any decision been taken about the Whitsun Recess? If so, can my right hon. Friend make a statement on that subject?
Mr. Butler: We hope to adjourn for the Whitsun Recess on 19th May. The date we come back depends on the progress that is made with Government business. I will make an announcement in due course for the general convenience of hon. Members as soon as that is convenient.
Mr. S. Silverman: Is the House to understand from what the right hon. Gentleman said in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot) that a decision has been taken to have the foreign affairs debate the
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week after next? The Leader of the House did not say that in any of his previous answers, but I think that he did say it in reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale.
Mr. Butler: Yes, that is the last week before Whitsun. I indicated previously that there would be a debate on foreign affairs, and I consider that that is the time when it should be held.
Mr. M. Foot: Is there one good reason why we should not have the foreign affairs debate next week? Can the Leader of the House tell us whether he has received any representations through the usual channels for having a debate next week on this subject? Surely, since many statements are being published in the United States Press to the effect that people in America may be contemplating the same kind of action that they took concerning Cuba before, there is an urgent need for this debate.
I should like to know whether the decision not to have a debate next week was made by the Leader of the House, or made as a result of representations received through the usual channels.
Mr. Butler: The decision was made by the Government and announced by the Leader of the House. We take into account all the representations that are made to us. It is, naturally, impossible to please everyone, but the Government are trying to get as broad a debate as we can on foreign affairs before Whitsun. It happens to suit better to have the debate the week after next.
Mr. Fell: May I support the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot)—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]—for entirely different reasons—in the plea that he is making for a foreign affairs debate next week? It is not good enough to say that it suits things better to have it the week after. In fact, the Leader of the House must know that it suits things much better to have a foreign affairs debate next week, for many matters of the greatest possible urgency are arising at this moment, to which we ought to be paying attention. Will he please reconsider the matter?
Mr. Butler: I cannot reconsider the matter, but I am, of course, open at all times to representations.

SECURITY PROCEDURES (CASE OF GEORGE BLAKE)
The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Macmillan): With permission, Sir, I think it right to make a statement about the grave case of George Blake.
Mr. Emrys Hughes: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. On the B.B.C. news bulletin at one o'clock it was stated that there was an appeal. I should like, therefore, to have your guidance as to how far this statement is in breach of the rule of the House that, pending an appeal, such matters are sub judice?
Mr. Speaker: I think that I should say that: by courtesy I am supplied with a copy of what the Prime Minister is to say, and that I do not think that it involves any infringement of the sub judice rule, acknowledging the fact of an appeal against sentence.
Mr. Emrys Hughes: Further to that point of order. In view of the fact that this is an appeal against sentence, is it not possible that any statement made by the Prime Minister might influence the Court of Appeal either to increase or perhaps diminish the sentence?
Mr. Speaker: We shall have to listen to what is said not only by the Prime Minister, but by everybody, because something might infringe the rules. But I do not think that we need anticipate an infringement before it has happened. The Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister: With permission, I think it right to make a statement about the grave case of George Blake.
As the House knows, Blake pleaded guilty yesterday to five counts charging him with offences against Section 1 of the Official Secrets Act. I am informed that he has ten days within which to apply for leave to appeal against sentence; and, if he does apply, some time must elapse before the matter is discussed. I naturally wish to give the House as much information as I can consistently with the national interest and without prejudicing any appeal against the sentence.
Blake, who is a British subject by birth, served with credit through the war in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve In 1948, he was temporarily employed as Vice-Consul, Seoul, where he was interned
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by the Chinese and held for nearly three years in captivity. Although he no doubt underwent a certain amount of ill treatment, in common with others who were interned, he was subject to none of the brainwashing which military prisoners suffered. After his release, and after having been subjected to a very thorough security vetting, Blake was employed for a period with British Military Government in Berlin and subsequently attached for a time to the Foreign Office in London. In September, 1960, he was sent to learn Arabic in the Lebanon. Blake was never an established member of the Foreign Service.
There is no reason to doubt that until 1951 he gave loyal service to this country. It was during his internment in Korea that he decided, as he has said,
"to join the Communist side".
It would appear that he voluntarily became a convert to what most of this House would regard as an evil faith. However regrettable we may regard such a conversion, it does not, of course, constitute criminal conduct. But to this he added treachery to the State. He agreed, in his own words,
"to make available to the Soviet Intelligence such information as came his way in the course of his duties".
It was for doing this that he was tried and sentenced.
I would again emphasise that his action was not the result of brainwashing or intimidation while a prisoner. Nor did he fall to any of the other kinds of pressure which are sometimes employed in these circumstances—
Mr. S. Silverman: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I apologise to the right hon. Gentleman. I know that it is an important matter, but surely statements made in this House, while an appeal against sentence must be pending, relating to the conduct of the accused man, and how he may or may not have been influenced to commit offences to which he has confessed, must be directly relevant to any argument that is to be presented by his counsel to the Court of Criminal Appeal in mitigation of sentence and, therefore, must be sub judice at this stage.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Gentleman is right about sub judice as to brain washing, but if we can get away from that I do

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not think that anything in this statement is objectionable yet.
Mr. Grimond: Surely it is impossible to deal with this case without using all sorts of words which could bear an implication—the word "Communism" or "brainwashing".
Mr. Silverman: And "evil faith."
Mr. Grimond: I should welcome a general statement on security, but I should be grateful for guidance about how far we can go in the peculiar circumstances of this particular case.
Mr. Speaker: I cannot dictate the words used or the topic discussed. I cannot stop anybody unless I feel that the rules are infringed. In applying the rule here, I think that I must bear in mind, in favour of the statement, that this was a case where a man pleaded guilty, and, obviously, did not challenge what was quoted from his statement, from what we have seen. I bear that in mind when considering the point at which the rule comes into force.
Mr. Wigg: It will be within your recollection, Mr. Speaker, that when the Lonsdale case was under consideration you were kind enough to confirm a Ruling in Erskine May that what decides whether a matter can be discussed is not whether an announcement has been made that an appeal is to be lodged, but whether, in fact, an appeal has been lodged at the Central Registry. That is not the case here. Therefore, it would appear that this statement is subject to the same Ruling as in the Lonsdale case.
Mr. Speaker: I am sorry, I may be under an illusion. I thought that the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) was telling me that, in fact, the news was now recorded that an appeal had been lodged. I was dealing with that fact in favour of the application of the rule. I was assuming that to be a fact. If an appeal has not been lodged, what the hon. Gentleman said is right.
Mr. Shinwell: On a point of order. I am under the impression—I am open to correction—that the official Opposition have made a request to the Prime Minister to make a statement on this matter. That is what I understand.
Mr. Gaitskell Mr. Gaitskell indicated assent.
Mr. Shinwell: If the Prime Minister is making a statement in reply to a request from the Official Opposition, the right hon. Gentleman obviously has to say something about the case, and no doubt questions will be asked. We have either to hear the statement, or to have no statement at all; and if we are to have no statement at all, a protest would be made from this side of the House.
Mr. Speaker: Will the right hon. Gentleman state what he believes to be the point of order which he desires to raise?
Mr. Shinwell: Several points of order have been raised which seem to indicate that there are some of my hon. Friends who do not wish a statement to be made about this matter. But I understand that a request has been made on the part of the Official Opposition for a statement, and obviously, if a statement is to be made, the Prime Minister must say something.
Mr. Speaker: There is not a point of order in that.
Mr. S. Silverman: May I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that the question of whether a statement is in order or is not in order, having regard to the rule in sub judice cases, is not affected at all by anybody's desire or anybody's request. A statement on the subject is either in order or it is not. Having regard to the extreme difficulty of making a statement which avoids offence to the rule, and the even greater difficulty in asking supplementary questions which may be an offence to the rule, would not it be very much wiser that this statement should be deferred until after the appeal is heard?
Mr. Speaker: There are two points in that. The first is one which I have already indicated to the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell), that no point of order arises out of the proposition about who desired or did not desire a statement. The second point is that the rule does not apply unless notice of an appeal has been given. I understand that notice has not been given.
Mr. Emrys Hughes: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. I listened to the B.B.C. news at one o'clock and

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the point was very definitely made that an appeal was going to be made—[HON. MEMBERS: "Ah."]—I understand, against sentence. My submission is that the statement the Prime Minister is making may or may not influence the question of the length of sentence. I submit that if the Prime Minister makes a statement—the Prime Minister is the most important person in this country—that must have a tendency to influence the Court of Appeal in relation to the length of sentence.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member has not got the point, with all respect and without discourtesy to him. Our rule in these circumstances about sub judice operates from the moment when, in fact, notice of appeal has been given. That was not what the hon. Member heard on the B.B.C. news, according to his own statement. I do hope that we can now make progress.
The Prime Minister: Perhaps the House will allow me to say that I was in doubt whether, for the reasons given, it was proper for me to make a statement. I think that in view of the fact that this man has pleaded guilty nothing I propose to say—and I have had it carefully looked at—could influence the Court in the way suggested. In view of the importance of the subject, it seems to me, on the whole, on balance, right for me to make a statement today, but I shall bear in mind—and I have tried to bear in mind in the writing of this statement—the very proper point which was raised.
I was saying that Blake did not fall to any of the other kinds of pressure which are sometimes employed in these circumstances. He received no money for his services. He was never at any time a member of the Communist Party or any of its affiliated organisations. What he did was done, in the words of the Lord Chief Justice, as the result of
"conversion to a genuine belief in the Communist system."
In these circumstances, suspicion would not easily be aroused in relation to a man who had served his country well for some eight years, who gave every appearance of leading a normal and respectable life, but who had decided to betray his country for ideological reasons. Indeed, having agreed to work
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for the Russians he was careful not to arouse suspicion and to conceal his conversion to Communism.
Eventually, however, his activities were uncovered and the result was his trial at the Old Bailey. He had access to information of importance, and he passed it on. As my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General said in open court, he has done serious damage to the interests of this country. As to that, it would not be right, nor would it be in the public interest, for me to say more than was said in open court yesterday. I can, however, assure hon. Members that Blake's disclosures will not have done irreparable damage. In particular, he did not have access to secret information on defence, nuclear or atomic matters.
Such cases as this are, I hope, extremely rare; but by reason of their very nature they are very difficult to detect or prevent by any security procedures. No such procedures can guarantee to catch a man who changes his allegiance and skilfully conceals his conversion. I do not therefore think that any inquiry such as that now being conducted in relation to another case—with which Blake's case has no connection and affords no parallel—would serve any useful purpose. But I can assure the House that I am reviewing all the circumstances with very great care to see whether there are any possible further measures which could be taken to protect this country from treachery of this kind.
While I recognise to the full the responsibility that rests on Her Majesty's Government, I should be very willing to discuss with the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition and any Privy Counsellor that he might wish to have associated with him the circumstances of this case and the matters that arise from it.
Mr. Gaitskell: Is the Prime Minister aware that we are grateful to him for making the statement today? I am sure this was in the public interest and I do not think that any harm has been done so far as a possible appeal is concerned. Is he further aware that there is widespread disquiet that this kind of thing could have been allowed to happen and that a man could for nine-and-a-half years have supplied information to the

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Soviet Union and thus, in the words of the Lord Chief Justice, rendered much of this country's efforts completely useless?
In view of the somewhat delicate judicial situation, I do not propose to put any detailed questions, but I should like to put one question to the Prime Minister arising out of his closing words. He would, I am sure, be aware that it is very difficult for the House to handle these security matters. It is hard, on the one side, to expect the Government to give secrets away, but it is equally difficult to reassure the House unless we are told something.
In these circumstances, I should consider it right to accept the right hon. Gentleman's invitation, but I ask him this. Is he aware that in our opinion, as we look at the matter at present, we feel that to reassure public opinion private conversations between the leaders of the Government and the leaders of the Opposition do not quite match up to the case and that, in our opinion, some kind of inquiry—I shall not discuss the exact form—is necessary to assure the public that the right things are being done to prevent this sort of thing happening again?
The Prime Minister: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for what he has said. Perhaps he would allow me to leave it in this way. If we could have our discussion and the whole circumstances of the case be made fully known to him we could then discuss—although the responsibility, of course, is mine—what is the best course to take in the public interest. There is an inquiry going on on certain aspects of security, that is, the counter-security measures. That may be able to give us some useful information which we might need for further inquiry into this kind of measure, but I feel that it would be helpful if we could discuss this case in its detail. Then, although I take full responsibility, I should at least know that the right hon. Gentleman and his leading colleagues were aware of the difficulties and problems presented.
Mr. Gaitskell: I appreciate that, but I take it that the Prime Minister does not rule out the possibility of a further inquiry if it should seem to be necessary following our discussion.
The Prime Minister: I certainly do not rule that out, but possibly after the report of the present Committee we might have to widen its scope.
Dame Irene Ward: Am I right in assuming from what my right hon. Friend said that there were no adverse reports of any kind lying against George Black before he was brought before the court?
The Prime Minister: None at all.
Mr. C. Pannell: Can the Prime Minister assure the House that there is nothing that he has told the Press in confidence which he has failed to give the House this afternoon? I put that to him because a rumour is circulating to that effect and I should like him to be able to deny it.
The Prime Minister: I have not, as far as I know, given any statement to the Press, except, of course, that it has been warned that it must keep within certain rules which are well known on certain subjects.
Mr. Marsh: Would the Prime Minister deny that a statement has, in fact, been sent to the Press setting out the things which the Press must not report? Is it not also a fact that, while this gentleman may not have been an established servant of the Foreign Office, he was, in fact, employed on Foreign Office intelligence? Would the Prime Minister also accept his degree of personal responsibility for this particular situation and the fact that a large number of members of the public are becoming increasingly worried by the growing evidence of the crass incompetence in his administration?
The Prime Minister: I do not think that I have anything to add to what I have said and I do not think that it would be right for me to add to anything said in camera. It was for that reason that the Lord Chief Justice decided to hold part of the case in camera.
Mr. Wigg: Will the Prime Minister agree that there are two aspects of this case? First, have any regulations, whatever they may be, governing primary Government officials been carried out? Secondly, are those regulations adequate to the case? Under the first heading he will no doubt remember that on 7th

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November, 1955, he told the House that positive vetting had been introduced in the Foreign Office for those dealing with classified materials. Will the right hon. Gentleman give the House an assurance that positive vetting was carried out in the case of Mr. George Blake?
The Prime Minister: There are two points there. The regulations regarding employment are complicated on the nationality question, as, perhaps, the hon. Member knows. In the old days, one had to have two British parents to be a member of the Foreign Service. That, incidentally, would have ruled out both my right hon. Friend the Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) and myself had we wished to enter it. That requirement has been, and can be, waived in proper circumstances by the Secretary of State. Then, there is a quite separate question as to the vetting procedures. I assure the hon. Member that they were applied in the ordinary way.
Mr. J. T. Price: Whilst I recognise, like every other hon. Member, the need for restraint in handling this most serious matter, is it not remarkable that this man, who by the Prime Minister's own admission was not even an established member of the Foreign Service, should have access to this top secret information? Would it not be appropriate, if the Prime Minister does not think that public security is involved, to give us a little more information about what department of the Foreign service it was in which this man was engaged and whether somebody is being shielded? Could we not have a little more information about it?
What disturbs me is that a man who by any account, on the Prime Minister's statement, must have been a very junior servant of the Crown, should, for nine-and-a-half years, be able to have access to this most vital information which has been disclosed to a hostile Power.
The Prime Minister: The point has been raised whether it was wise to employ in Government service a man who had been a prisoner in Communist hands. [HON. MEMBERS: "NO."] I beg pardon, but I have seen that raised a good deal in this matter. If such a rule were to be made, it would cause grave hardship and injustice to many distinguished men. It is right to say that, because it has been so widely mentioned.
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On the second question, it is not only persons in key positions or important posts who have access to secret information. It has necessarily to be handled by selected people of almost all grades from time to time—that is inevitable. But the rule of the need to know is, of course, applied and secret material is not handled except by persons, whether established or unestablished, and whatever their grade, who have passed through the security procedures.
Sir A. V. Harvey: When my right hon. Friend said that he would discuss the matter with the Leader of the Opposition and Privy Councillors of the Opposition, did he mean that he would also discuss it with Privy Councillors on this side of the House who do not hold Ministerial posts?
The Prime Minister: I will certainly consider that. It has been a very old rule in these matters to restrict this to Privy Councillors, who are bound by rather special oath, and within a very narrow circle. If there were a view—I do not think that the Leader of the Opposition would object if I thought it right—that I should inform a Privy Councillor who was not necessarily a member of the Government, I would consider that.
I would rather keep to the old rule, that the Leader of the Opposition, who has a special place which is now recognised in our Constitution, and the Prime Minister of the day should discuss these matters together with, perhaps, one or two of their trusted colleagues who have held high office.
Mr. Holt: Is the Prime Minister aware that what is troubling many people is why, if the Russians know all about this person, security reasons prevent the House of Commons knowing more about him?
The Prime Minister: Anyone who has been engaged upon or who has knowledge about these matters knows that that is rather too simple a view. It was for that very reason that the Lord Chief Justice decided to hold the trial in camera.
Several Hon. Members Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. We cannot debate this matter now.

MINISTERIAL STATEMENTS
Viscount Hinchingbrooke: May I raise with you, Mr. Speaker, a point of order about prior publicity which is given to statements made at the Dispatch Box? We are not supposed to have eyes or ears for anything except what takes place on the Floor of the House, but in the past we have noticed the growing practice of issuing statements to the Press before they are made at the Dispatch Box.
I should be grateful, Mr. Speaker, if you would take this matter into consideration over the weekend and, perhaps, make a statement to the House during the course of next week as to the general propriety of the practice in relation to the dignity of our proceedings.
Mr. Speaker: I have not sufficiently in mind what the noble Lord is complaining about. Is it the suggestion that this particular statement was issued to the Press before it was made here?
Viscount Hinchingbrooke: It was apparent to all of us that in the middle of the Prime Minister's statement there was a great shuffling of paper up in the Press Gallery as the pages were turned over. I am wondering what would have happened if the representations made by the hon. Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) had been borne out by the facts and an appeal had been lodged, in which event, Mr. Speaker, you would have curtailed the proceedings, prevented the Prime Minister from continuing his statement, and there would have been other parties elsewhere who were in possession of the whole of it.
Mr. Speaker: All kinds of problems would arise had that happened. I am obliged to the noble Lord for his explanation. He will understand that I am prevented by a canopy from being as wise as he is. I will consider what he has put to me.
Mr. J. Hynd: Further to that point of order. Apart from the incidents to which the noble Lord referred, I believe that the foreign Press has been able to publish full reports of the evidence that was heard in camera in this case. That seems to suggest that not only was the statement handed out while the Prime Minister was speaking, but that other
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information was given to Press sources long before any information was given to this House—and information which went far beyond anything which has been given to this House. Is it in order for such information to be given in these matters before the House of Commons is appraised of it?
Mr. Speaker: I understood the hon. Member to be saying that somebody has published evidence that was given in camera. In that event, we can safely leave it to the Lord Chief Justice and his colleagues.
Mr. Ronald Bell: Further to the point of order raised by my noble Friend the Member for Dorset, South (Viscount Hinchingbrooke). It has been obvious to hon. Members on the Floor of the House with an uninterrupted view of the Press Gallery that for many years, and by various different Governments, this practice has been followed of releasing statements to the Press before they were delivered in this House. When you are considering this matter, Mr. Speaker, will you have it in mind that what is, perhaps, now becoming respectable antiquity for this practice should not justify it if it is undesirable from the point of view of the interests of this House?
Mr. Speaker: I will bear in mind what the hon. Member has said. It must be obvious that, at first glance, there may be a quite sensible purpose in allowing the Press to have a simultaneous handout so that it gets an accurate report of what one is trying to read when making a statement. That might be so. I will not, however, prejudge the matter. I will consider it.
Mr. Emrys Hughes: Further to that point of order. In view of the fact that the matter has in some ways created a precedent of statements being made when an appeal is pending, and that there is strong complaint in the Press that a directive was given to suppress information which has since been revealed by a question by my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Marsh), will you further consider the question of preventing statements of this kind, which might remotely affect the possibility of the sentence being altered? Can you give us an assurance. Mr. Speaker, that

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the Prime Minister will not give a directive to suppress the proceedings of the House of Commons?
Mr. Speaker: I can give no assurance as to what the Prime Minister will think it right or not right to do in any circumstances. That is no part of my duty.
With regard to the other matter, I follow the practice of the House and I cannot change it. The House can change it. The sub judice rule applies only in the circumstances which I indicated earlier to the hon. Member and to the House.
Mr. S. Silverman: At the same time as you are considering the point raised by the noble Lord the Member for Dorset, South (Viscount Hinchingbrooke), I wonder whether, Mr. Speaker, you would consider whether our practice with regard to questions sub judice should not be assimilated to the practice outside. What I have in mind is that where a period is provided by Statute during which a man may think over whether to appeal, it is the practice among newspapers, and in other places, not to comment upon it until the time provided by Statute for appeal has passed. The reason for that, I apprehend—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I am sorry to stop the hon. Member, but I understand the point. At one time, the House went into the question of whether the sub judice practice applied during the time when an appeal could be lodged or as from the moment when it was, in fact, lodged. It is clear that the practice of the House is that the rule operates as from when the appeal is made. I cannot argue the merits of a possible change, because I cannot change the practice. The House could change it if it wished.
Mr. Silverman: I wonder whether you can help us, Mr. Speaker, in considering how the House might take an opportunity of considering how it ought to make the change. Obviously, a great deal of irreparable damage might be done during the intervening period and then an appeal might be lodged, when the mischief could not be overtaken.
Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member knows that he can put down a Motion to that effect. If he could get it considered by the House, that would provide the opportunity. At the moment, I do not know of any other method. One thing that is quite clear is that we cannot debate the matter now.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  FINANCE BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  4.22 p.m.
  The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  I will deal in turn with the three parts of the Bill: Part I, Customs and Excise; Part II, Income Tax; and Part III General and Supplementary.
  In Part I, Clauses 1, 2 and 5 deal with the proposed increases in indirect taxation—television advertisements, heavy oils, and vehicle Excise Duty. Obviously new taxes or increases in existing taxes cannot be popular; nevertheless, I consider that what I have proposed under these three heads is right if we are to achieve the necessary surplus above the line of £500 million. No doubt these new taxes will be debated at length in Committee.
  At this stage, I have only these comments to make. The new duty on television advertisements will become one of the programme companies' costs of operation, and this, together with their other costs, they will recoup from advertisers to such extent as the balance of supply and demand for television advertising time may allow. This is normal with indirect taxation and it is what would seem to happen with any form of taxation of the programme companies. I have already noticed that the companies intend to deal with this matter in differing ways.
  With regard to Clause 2, I am aware that the new duty on heavy oils will not be popular. Obviously, it will bear more heavily in some sectors than in others. Over the whole field of industry, the increase in costs will be only a fraction of 1 per cent. But weighed against the contribution to economic stability, which, I believe, the yield of the duty will make, I do not consider that the burden is out of proportion.
  With regard to the vehicle Excise duty, I will only repeat what I said in my Budget speech: the rates on goods vehicles have remained virtually unchanged since 1933, and the flat rate for private cars has not changed since 1953. I do not think that this increase imposes
  1624
  an intolerable burden upon either the commercial operator or the private motorist.
  Clause 3 deals with an amendment of the definition of pool betting. This is a consequence of the High Court decision in the Stockport county case, and it is needed to safeguard the yield from the pool betting duty. The amount at risk, I am told, could be about £2 million. The Stockport county judgment had the effect of exempting from the duty certain types of pool betting. It laid down that if there is a pool whose rules provide for a power of selection on the part of the entrant, but either that power of selection is not exercised by any of the entrants or only by a very few, then it is not a pool liable to the pool betting duty. In effect, it is to be regarded as a lottery and not a pool.
  This Clause attempts to draw as clear a line as possible between competitions liable to the pool betting duty and those that are lotteries, whether lawful or unlawful. The liability to duty will depend upon the published rules and not only on the practice. A competition of the sort I have described, where a power of selection is provided for in the rules, would be liable to the pool betting duty, even if this power were not exercised or was only exercised by a few.
  This, of course, will not in any way change the position that certain lotteries are lawful not only because of the purposes for which they are run but because the prizes and the stakes are small. I want to make it quite clear that this will not affect such lotteries, and I would remind the House that the limit is a total of £750 staked in one lottery. Such small lotteries will remain exempt from duty whether or not the practice or the rules provide for an element of selection by those who take part. I have explained this at some length, because I know that a great many people are concerned in this type of small lottery and I wish to make it quite clear that they will not be affected by this Clause.
  Clause 4 deals with a quite different aspect of the Pool Betting Duty. The Legislature of the Isle of Man has for some time had under consideration a Bill to legalise pool betting, which is at present unlawful in the island. If this were to happen and no provision were

  1625
  to be made in the Isle of Man for Pool Betting Duty, there would inevitably be the risk that pool betting business now conducted in the United Kingdom would be attracted to the Isle of Man. This would involve a loss of revenue to our Exchequer.
  The problem has been discussed with the Isle of Man authorities, and we have come to the conclusion that the best solution would be for the Isle of Man to impose a Pool Betting Duty at the same rate as our own. We have also agreed that in that event it would be right to pool the receipts of these duties and to share them between the British and Manx Exchequers proportionately; in other words, on the basis of residential population.
  Under Clause 4, these duties will be brought within the scope of what are called the Common Purse arrangements with the Isle of Man. These provide for the sharing of the receipts of a number of Customs and Excise Duties.
  Clause 7 provides for a change in regard to agricultural tractors. This change is made, not in the interests of the Revenue but of safety. The House will remember that in the 1959 Finance Act there was a Section dealing with agricultural tractors used to carry goods in a removable container or transport box. Subject to various qualifications, a farm tractor licensed at the special agricultural rate could be used to carry farm produce or implements without becoming subject to the higher rate of duty as would have been the case if it was treated as a goods vehicle. This concession was withheld from three-wheel tractors on safety grounds, the point being that if a heavy load were to be carried on a three-wheel tractor there was the risk that it might overturn.
  My right hon. Friend the Minister of Transport has recently had his attention drawn to the fact that there are some four-wheel tractors in use on farms which have their two front wheels so close together that they are not much more stable than a genuine three-wheel tractor. In the general interest of safety, it is desired to put this type of four-wheel tractor on the same footing as the three-wheel tractor. That is the purpose of this Clause.
  1626
  Clause 8 contains the first of the economic regulators for which I have asked powers, and I will deal with it later.
  I come to Part II. Clauses 9 and 10 fix the standard rate of Income Tax for 1961–62, and the Surtax rates for both 1960–61 and 1961–62; in other words, the Surtax that will be payable on 1st January, 1962, and also that which will be payable on 1st January, 1963. I am asking the House to fix the Surtax rates for those two years; in other words, to decide this year on the Surtax payable on 1st January, 1963.
  Clause 11 sets out the new Surtax reliefs for earned income. There are two main features. The first, as I mentioned in my Budget speech, is that the earned income relief now running for Income Tax only is to be allowed for Surtax purposes; in other words, two-ninths up to £4,005, and one-ninth up to £9,945. This relief will apply whatever the size of the earned income forming part of the Surtax payer's income, although, of course, if the earned income is small the deduction on acount of it will be correspondingly small.
  The second feature is that the Surtax starting point for earned income only is to be raised, and that is called in the Bill the Surtax earning allowance. It applies only where the earned income, reduced by the appropriate earned income relief, exceeds £2,000 and, as I said in my Budget speech, the combination of the two reliefs means, in effect, that no earned income of any amount up to £5,000 will of itself attract Surtax liability.
  These proposals relating to Surtax have been subjected to three criticisms. The first is on the ground that it is an excessive relief. I do not accept that criticism. Owing to the changed value of money and the incidence of direct taxation, I believe that many people in the managerial and professional classes have been suffering a substantial disincentive.
  The second criticism is that I have been unfair to Surtax payers who have investment incomes only. I am not in favour of too great a distinction between earned incomes and investment incomes, because the latter is very often derived from savings from past earnings. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] What I would say to my hon. Friends who

  1627
  approve my last statement is that what one would like to do in this respect must be governed by the amount of relief that can be afforded. As my primary purpose is to give an added incentive to earnings in this range, I believe that what I have proposed is not unreasonable.
  The third criticism is that my new scheme is not perfectly symmetrical in its application to certain types of mixed incomes. There have been certain comments in the Press about that. I admit it at once, but my main purpose is to deal with earned incomes, and I think that I have adopted the right order of priority, and my faith in these proposals as a stimulus to enterprise and initiative is unshaken.
  Clauses 14, 15 and 16 all deal with overseas income. Clause 14 enables account to be taken of exemptions from overseas taxation given to promote development. That idea has already been welcomed, for example, by the Government of Pakistan. It will be of assistance in the development of the less-developed countries, an objective of which I believe the whole House thoroughly approves.
  Clauses 15 and 16 remove certain anomalies in the complicated field of double taxation relief, and I believe that they will be welcomed by United Kingdom concerns operating abroad. I admit at once that these three Clauses do not go as far as I have been asked to go, but they go as far as it is possible for me to go this year.
  I dealt in my Budget speech with Clause 17, which unifies the tax treatment of ministers of religion living in parsonage houses or manses.
  Clause 18 proposes a measure of relief for pension funds administered in this country solely for the benefit of employees working overseas. What it does is to treat the funds in question for tax purposes as though they belonged to persons not resident in the United Kingdom. It means that the income arising to these funds from overseas shares or securities or British Government securities that carry special relief from tax for overseas residents will not be charged with United Kingdom Income Tax. That seems to be in accordance with the reality of the position.
  1628
  Coming to Part III, Clause 26 deals with the surcharge on employers. It is the second suggested economic regulator, and I will deal with this also later in my speech.
  Clause 27 proposes an increase in the rate of Profits Tax. It is suggested that this increase, this new burden, is unfair to equity shareholders. Taking all the circumstances into account—in other words, the growth in profits, the level of dividend distributions and the appreciation in share values—I do not consider that this is an unfair way of meeting the cost of the Surtax remissions.
  It is suggested that this will reduce funds available for investment. In view of the fact that I am retaining investment and initial allowances in respect of expenditure on new assets at their present favourable rates, I do not believe that my proposal will, in fact, have any material effect upon investment.
  I put to the House, quite frankly, my position in this matter. I was not prepared to make the cost of the Surtax reliefs for earned income a charge on next year's revenue without taking steps to increase that revenue to an extent broadly equal to the cost. Of the various courses open to me, I am of the opinion that this increase in Profits Tax is the least objectionable. Almost all of it will fall on companies which, according to almost all the representations I have received from the business world, will benefit from the incentive given by my Surtax reliefs.
  Clause 28 carries out an undertaking given last year to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Powell), when he moved a Clause on the subject. Broadly speaking, it provides that, with certain very limited exceptions, assessment of Excess Profits Tax, of Excess Profits Levy, and of the special contribution cannot be made after the passing of this Bill into law except in cases of wilful default or fraud.
  Clause 29 deals with Stamp Duty on bills of exchange. I think that this is a useful Clause, embodying a change to which, perhaps, sufficient attention has not yet been paid. Bills of exchange, except those that are payable on demand or not more than three days after sight are now liable to ad valorem duty on a

  1629
  scale that runs up to 1s. on a hundred pounds or fractions of a hundred pounds. It has not been the weight of this duty that has caused the trouble; it is rather been the practical difficulty for traders of keeping a supply of bills stamped with the right amount of duty, or a supply of the special adhesive stamps applying to foreign bills, and of ensuring that the right kinds of stamp are used on the different kinds of bill.
  The proposed Clause will get rid of this difficulty in a practical way by fixing a common stamp duty of 2d. for all bills of exchange. I remind the House that the cost of this is not inconsiderable—it is £1½ million in a full year—and I think that it will be of considerable help to those who have to deal with this type of transaction.
  Clause 30 deals with a technical Stamp Duty point that arises mainly in connection with transfers of local authority and Commonwealth and Colonial Government stocks. As things are, when a jobber in these stocks has temporarily to obtain stock to enable him to fulfil a bargain and later restores it, two lots of ad valorem Stamp Duty may have to be paid on what is essentially one transaction, one transfer of stock from a seller to a buyer. This has tended to impede the smooth working of the market in these stocks. What is more, the burden of the double duty has frequently fallen on the Governments or local authorities concerned in cases where they have agreed to pay the duty on transfers of their stocks. The matter is somewhat complicated, but I am satisfied that this double liability to duty is not justified, and this Clause will remedy the position.
  Clauses 31 and 32 deal with minor provisions relating to the National Debt. Clause 31 follows upon the changed relationship between the Exchequer and the Post Office after the Post Office Act, 1961. It provides for the transfer from the Post Office to the Exchequer of the money received in respect of savings stamps and tokens still outstanding. The liability to holders of stamps and tokens will, in future, rank as part of the National Debt rather than as a commercial liability to the Post Office.
  I now come to Clause 32, which deals with the Ottoman Guaranteed Loan of 1855. This loan has had a long and
  1630
  chequered career since it was issued at the time of the Crimean War—indeed, the original guarantee produced a remarkable coalition against it; Mr. Disraeli, Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Cobden. I will not weary the House with a detained exposition of the series of events that have led the United Kingdom to undertake the entire responsibility for the loan. In the last thirty years, however, it has been de facto part of the National Debt. I now intend to honour the undertaking given in 1929 by my right hon. Friend the Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill), then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Clause 32 authorises the issue from the Consolidated Fund of not more than £200,000 to enable us to do this.
  I return now to Clauses 8 and 26 embodying the powers for the Government to use two new economic instruments in the forthcoming year should it prove necessary. I have been very interested in the reactions they have aroused, which are in accordance with the general rule. If nothing new is proposed, the Government are out of touch, tired and totally lacking in leadership. As soon as they do propose something new, there is a concentration of criticism to show the complete iniquity of the new ideas. However that may be, I think that there is wide acceptance of the desirability of measures to reduce the dependence of the Government of the day upon monetary and credit controls. I do not underrate the importance or the novelty of the powers which I am asking Parliament to give to the Government. However, as I explained in my Budget speech, I have sought, as will have been seen from the Clauses, to hem these powers about with the fullest safeguards.
  The first power, and any Order made under it, will lapse next year unless Parliament sees fit to renew the power by provisions in the next Finance Bill. With regard to the second power, I have specifically stated that it is to be regarded as a temporary expedient for this year only. Should something in the nature of what is called a payroll tax be considered expedient next year, I shall submit new proposals. In any case, Orders made during this financial year under these Clauses will requite validation by affirmative Resolution of this House.
  Mr. Douglas Jay: Since the Chancellor says that he is hemming these powers about with safeguards, will he say, with regard to the Excise proposal, whether he is asking for powers which would enable him to raise taxation by a substantial amount, perhaps in the middle of August, and then not receive ratification from the House of Commons until two months later?
  Mr. Lloyd: I said, of course, that the Government would come to the House of Commons for validation for the powers. I think I gave an example. It seemed to me that if the House were to meet a week later, obviously, one would not recall the House specially; but if a measure of this importance were taken, say, three days after the House had risen, it would seem inconceivable that the Government of the day would not recall the House of Commons to debate the matter.
  Mr. Jay: The Chancellor has not quite answered the point. We are dealing with legislation. Would it be possible, under the Finance Bill as it now stands, for him to make these changes in taxation in, say, the middle of August and not have the Order approved by the House until late in October when the House met?
  Mr. Lloyd: The right hon. Gentleman is, of course, quite right; that would be the legal position under this procedure. There will be no difference between this procedure and other procedures which were, I think, put in the Finance Act of 1948 with regard to certain matters. It will be the normal procedure. What I said, however, was that, in common sense and reason, I could not conceive it possible that a Government would put on new taxation at the rate of £200 million a year and then let the House be for two months without an opportunity to discuss it.
  I turn now to the suitability of these fiscal weapons for the purposes for which they are designed. I will take the indirect revenue duties surcharge and rebate first. It has been objected against this that if used as a surcharge it would fall upon items of consumption which are already subject to tax and will put up prices to the consumer. I do not deny that it will put up prices to the
  1632
  consumer if used as a surcharge. It will have the opposite effect if used to give rebates. If taxation of the consumer is to be used for purposes of economic regulation, that can be done only by raising or lowering prices to the consumer, by taking more or less of his purchasing power into the public purse.
  The surcharge will be so widely spread that, even if it were necessary to impose it at the maximum rate, it ought not anywhere to be serious in its effects. The top rate of Purchase Tax, for instance, would rise in those circumstances by 5 per cent. of the wholesale value. The 12½ per cent. rate of Purchase Tax, which falls on a wider range of goods, would be increased by just over 1 per cent. of the wholesale value. It is obvious that if I were to attempt to withdraw purchasing power from the consumer at the rate of £200 million a year by increasing some narrower range of indirect taxes, the results for those affected would, by comparison, be drastic indeed.
  The suggestion has been made that this proposal involves grave uncertainty hanging over the business community. I do not accept that. There is already power to vary Purchase Tax, subject to the approval of the House. There is power to alter the Bank Rate. There is power to introduce hire-purchase restrictions. It is always open to a Government to introduce an Autumn Budget. I do not consider that this new proposal increases the uncertainty at all. In fact, because of the limitation of the change to 10 per cent. spread over most of the field of indirect taxation, I should have thought that the uncertainty was lessened.
  The second instrument, the employer surcharge, has caused more controversy than any other of my proposals. There are considerable disadvantages and advantages about this surcharge. I have tried to be frank with the House about both. It will be possible to deal with the position of different categories of contributors in different ways. I refer to juveniles, women, or retired people. It will not be possible—I say this quite openly to the House—under the method proposed to differentiate between areas. In the special case of Northern Ireland, there is, of course, a difference there in that there is a separate

  1633
  Insurance Fund into which insurance contributions are paid and a separate Exchequer which will receive the proceeds of the surcharge. So the surcharge, if imposed, will be collected and retained by the Northern Ireland Government, and there is no limit upon their discretion to use the proceeds as they think fit.
  I admit that any sort of payroll tax is open to criticism if it does not enable the Government to differentiate between areas, industries and categories of workers. That is the disadvantage of my proposal. The advantage of my proposal for this year is that no new administrative machine is required or would be needed for its collection. It would be widely spread, and its yield would be substantial. As I have said before, any regulator worthy of its salt is bound to cause trouble, inconvenience and, perhaps, hardship. What I have tried to do is to find methods which carry with them the least in the way of objections and disadvantages. As I have explained in the case of the employer surcharge, I shall, in the course of the coming year, examine other methods of levying a surcharge of this sort if it seems right so to do.
  Mr. Cyril Osborne: Does my right hon. and learned Friend think that the rate is heavy enough to be effective? It has been argued in certain industrial circles that employers could carry 4s. per worker without feeling it. If it is really to be effective, ought it not to be much more savagely heavy?
  Mr. Lloyd: My immediate purpose, as I explained, is to withdraw purchasing power. The fact that it is at the rate of £200 million a year is important; the sum is substantial and, from that point of view, I think that the sum is right. I did say in my Budget speech that it has the added advantage of being an incentive to economy in labour. I am inclined to agree with my hon. Friend inasmuch as I think that, if we were to have a payroll tax solely for that purpose, it might have to be much larger in scale, and also it probably would have to be accompanied by changes in company taxation. That is a wider issue into which I do not wish to go now. I am dealing with what is a temporary expedient for this year.
  Mr. Jay: Is the Chancellor now saying that it is not one object of the payroll tax to induce employers to economise in labour?
  Mr. Lloyd: I never said that it was the prime object. I said in my Budget speech that it would have that added advantage Those were the words I used. That is what I am saying now. It will be an incentive, though, as my hon. Friend the Member for Louth (Mr. C. Osborne) says, not a very fierce incentive, to economise in labour.
  Mr. William Warbey: Is the Chancellor now saying that the main purpose of the payroll tax is to remove purchasing power because the tax will add to the cost of living?
  Mr. Lloyd: I thought I had made it clear when I was introducing my Budget that I thought that monetary measures, putting up the Bank rate, introducing hire-purchase restrictions, and so on, had too restricting an effect, and I thought that we wanted economic regulators of broader effect. The first one goes straight into consumption. The second is a charge on employers, which would have the effect of taking purchasing power out of the economy at the rate of £200 million a year. That is its purpose. I thought I had made that clear. I did say also that it would have the added advantage of directing attention to the importance of economising in what is now our scarcest commodity, labour.
  The answer to the criticisms which are made of these two regulators is that a situation might arise—though, by providing for a surplus above the line of £500 million, I have done a great deal to prevent it arising—in which the pressure of demand upon resources might be so great that drastic steps would have to be taken to curb inflation and to make resources available for export.
  I feel that I must have more instruments available in reserve than hitherto to enable me to deal with such a situation, and to deal with it ahead of a real crisis. I sincerely hope that the situation will not arise in which either regulator will need to be used. It is for the business community and both sides of industry to make certain that the necessity does not arise, and, obviously the consumers also have their part to play. Nevertheless I feel

  1635
  that I would be failing in what I conceive to be my duty if I did not ask the House to equip me with these powers.
  I do not accept that the proposals embodied in this Bill benefit only the wealthy classes. I have already spoken of the changes in the value of money and of the incidence of taxation, and I gave figures about the gross income which would have been needed in 1937 and 1912 to be equivalent, after taxation, to a gross income of £5,000 today. I repeat the figures. The equivalent in 1937 was £1,400, and in 1912 £770. But, leaving on one side the wealth of the persons benefited, my real object is to give a dynamic boost to the economy by these proposals. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Well, I have received a great deal of advice on this point, both publicly and privately, in the last six months, and the overwhelming emphasis of this advice has been that the most effective way to help the British economy at this time is to increase the incentives to people who are in managerial and professional occupations.
  Mr. Arthur Woodburn: Is it not the case that this relief is being given to the very people who benefit most from all the incidental perquisites of expense accounts and other things which are a very great inducement to people?
  Mr. Lloyd: I do not accept that for a moment. I have done something in other provisions of the Bill to deal with expense accounts.
  The argument is put forward that financial incentives are irrelevant—that people do not really work for money. All I say to that is that if the Government sought to introduce that kind of argument into ordinary wage negotiations they would be ridiculed out of court. No Budget will by itself solve the economic problems of the country, but this Budget is, in my view, what the present economic situation calls for.
  I claim for it that it is tough in the surplus which it secures, that it is right in its priorities for tax remission, that its new imposts are widely spread, and that it contains some new ideas and new powers about economic regulation which I think are necessary. It is sound, because it will promote the interests of the whole community. I ask for a
  1636
  Second Reading of the Bill, stressing once more that it is only the first stage in fiscal plans which I hope to have the opportunity of developing as time goes on.
  4.54 p.m.
  Mr. Harold Wilson: I beg to move, to leave out from "That" to the end of the Question and to add instead thereof:
  "this House declines to give a Second Reading to a Bill which, while making no proposals designed to solve the economic problems facing the country, proposes changes in taxation which provide great remissions of taxation to a minority of wealthier sections of the community and does nothing to relieve the difficulties of the great majority of taxpayers."
  The Chancellor, in his speech, I think very helpfully to the House, covered the Finance Bill Clause by Clause, and he told us a bit about each of them. I do not propose to follow him in that this afternoon. I think that there is a limit to what the House can stand, and I want, in any case, to reserve my own comments on the less important Clauses for the Committee stage. I do, however, propose to deal with some of the main Clauses and with the general strategy of the Bill.
  First, in the Customs and Excise group, as the Chancellor said, we have the television duty. This we have welcomed, although we have suggested to the Chancellor that he should have gone further and should have imposed a special advertising tax on pharmaceuticals the yield from which could have been used to remit the National Health Service charges. Some hon. Gentlemen at Question Time the other day expressed surprise that this tax will be passed on to the advertisers and thence to the consumer. I am very surprised that anyone should feel that there was occasion for surprise here, because that is what commercial television is about. There is that prevailing fallacy in the country that independent television is in some sense free to the viewer. In fact, independent television costs the nation about £80 million a year—a great deal more than B.B.C. television costs us—but, in any case, whatever other hon. Members may think, the Chancellor is in no doubt about it at all, because he admitted this on television on the evening of Budget day. In answer to a question from Mr. Harris, he said that of course it would be passed on to the consumer.

  1637
  This tax raises the whole question of advertising expenditure, now running in this country at £450 million a year. I should have thought that any hon. Member in any part of the House would admit that this is an excessive drain on our national resources of money, of manpower and of materials, and that it contrasts, as I said in the Budget debate, with the expenditure by private industry on scientific research in industry of only £136 million. Quite simply, if advertising expendture were halved and industry's expenditure on scientific research were trebled, the country would be in a much healthier state, and I suggest that this is an immediate target for the Government. During the Committee stage we shall probably have some more detailed proposals to make.
  Nevertheless, Clause 1 is a step in the right direction. We have suggested it for a number of years now to successive Chancellors, and last year we proposed that the Chancellor should do it in the form of an Excise Duty, and that has been done. This raises much wider issues which I hope the Government are considering and not just waiting for the Report of the Pilkington Committee. These issues are the award by the Government, or by an authority set up by the Government, to private individuals of a franchise to make large profits of a quasi-monopoly character, at any rate, in the area where they are operating.
  This is something pretty new in British political history. It goes back to King James I and the Statute of Monopolies. I think that King James used to exact a pretty heavy price from the people to whom he granted monopolies, but under this Government these franchises, which have been described by one operator as licences to print money, have been handed out by the Government without any attempt to get an adequate return for the taxpayers. Now, the Chancellor says he is to try to get 10 per cent. of the revenue back but, looking at the broader problem, he is not doing enough. I commend to the Chancellor the Report of the Public Accounts Committee for the year 1957–58, before I had anything to do with the Committee, and also the Report for last year, when an all-party Committee expressed some very strong views on the free grant of franchise.
  1638
  Turning from television to oil, we welcome in general the Government's decision to end the anomaly which has existed, for perfectly good reasons, since 1947. What the Chancellor has done by putting all forms of oil on a similar basis of taxation is to increase the incentive to the consumer in general to use indigenous, home-produced fuel, particularly coal, but also Scottish shale oil, while, at the same time, slightly diminishing the incentive to make this country more dependent on imported oil, some of it coming from very vulnerable parts of the world. When we first put forward this proposal a year or two ago—this is another of our proposals which the right hon. and learned Gentleman has adopted—we suggested that the yield from it should be devoted to removing entirely the taxation on diesel oil for road passenger transport. Three halfpence or 1⅔ d. per gallon would just about have produced enough revenue for that purpose. We deplore the fact that the Chancellor, having put on the tax as we suggested, has not used the proceeds for that purpose.
  There is one part of the Clause dealing with oil duties to which we are strongly opposed, and that is the provision that paraffin should be subject to this particular tax. Although it is very difficult to draw a line between different types of oil, there is no doubt that paraffin is very much needed in rural areas, in areas where other forms of heating are limited and sometimes in areas where other forms of lighting are not available, despite the remarkable progress in rural electrification under public ownership in recent years. I understand that there are paraffin heaters in about 6 million homes. The Chancellor should look again at this matter. We will give him a chance to do so, because on the Committee stage we shall move an Amendment to exempt paraffin from this proposal.
  I do not wish to say much on vehicle duties today, because these were fully discussed on the Budget. We certainly intend to table a number of Amendments to the Schedule on duties which the Chancellor has prepared for us. But I commend to the Chancellor—and, as I have made clear on past occasions, I speak only for myself here—the idea that, instead of a flat rate duty for motor cars, while I am not suggesting getting back to the horsepower tax because of

  1639
  the distortion in engine design that that involves, I suggest that there is much to be said for relating the tax to the size of the car and the amount of space which it occupies, whether parked or moving on the Queen's highway.
  Mr. Gerald Nabarro Mr. Gerald Nabarro (Kidderminster) indicated dissent.
  Mr. Wilson: I can understand the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) shaking his head. I was not suggesting an additional tax on the badges displayed on the front of cars.
  Mr. Nabarro: I was not shaking my head for that reason. I was doing so because I recalled with some nostalgia that when the right hon. Gentleman was a Member of the Socialist Government ten years ago he accepted the argument that the design of vehicles was badly warped by a differential vehicles tax. What he is now suggesting, namely, that vehicles should be taxed on size, is exactly analogous. The design would be warped and exports would be damaged.
  Mr. Wilson: Obviously the hon. Gentleman was not listening carefully to what I said. I said that I accepted the argument of twelve years ago concerning the distortion of engine design because the horsepower tax was an artificial form of tax. That is quite different from measuring the floor area or ground area of the car. Compared with those days, our exports have developed very much in medium-sized cars rather than in large-sized cars, whereas all of us at that time thought that there would be a big expansion in larger cars. The size of some of the cars, especially imported cars, which we see on the streets and blocking the parking spaces make any car which the hon. Gentleman has ever driven seem quite pigmy by comparison. In view of that, I think that even he will agree that there is a case for doing what I suggest.
  Mr. Nabarro: No, I do not agree. What about a Rolls Royce car? I invite the right hon. Gentleman to consider the case of the Jaguar E type car, which is very long and very spacious and today one of our biggest lines in the export market. What would happen to production and design if his suggestion of a tax based on size were adopted for a very valuable design of that kind?
  Mr. Wilson: I am surprised to hear it suggested that buyers of such Jaguars suffer from disincentives to buy because of taxation or Excise Duty. Since the hon. Gentleman has mentioned Rolls Royce cars, by far the largest proportion of Rolls Royce cars sold on the home market are paid for not by individuals but by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on business accounts.
  Mr. Nabarro: Not entirely.
  Mr. Wilson: I did not say entirely. We have all had the letter from the Chairman of Rolls Royce Limited. He has said so. It confirms what we all thought.
  There is one problem which I should mention to the Chancellor. It has been referred to in correspondence which I, at any rate, have seen. By increasing the flat-rate duty the right hon. and learned Gentleman has borne more heavily on those who have been licensing their cars for a quarterly rather than an annual basis. Since the tax takes effect immediately, people who could not pay the whole amount at once will be paying more than the rest of us who bought a licence for the whole year. Perhaps the Chancellor will look at that matter before we reach the Committee stage.
  I now come to the right hon. and learned Gentleman's regulators, the first of which is in Clause 8. We welcome the Government's conversion to our view about the danger of over-reliance on monetary policy. Many have been the times when we tabled Motions and went into the Division Lobbies about it. The Chancellor is proving a slow convert, but at any rate a convert, which is more than can be said for his predecessor, to the view which we and the Radcliffe Committee expressed on this point. Obviously, he has become very perturbed about the jerky effects of hire-purchase changes, which are over-selective in their effect on certain industries and which can have a damaging effect on employment. The Chancellor is turning away from this over-reliance on these monetary weapons and on hire-purchase control, but, in looking at the first of the regulators, that dealing with tax on commodities in Clause 8, the House should note that this gives the Chancellor power to levy by administrative order £200 million worth of additional taxation

  1641
  without immediate recourse to Parliament. This is something about which the House of Commons should be concerned, particularly on the Finance Bill.
  In terms of surrendering this House's control over the taxing power in the interests of economic planning, the way in which the Chancellor is doing it is going too far. I do not suggest that any John Hampden will rise in protest against what the Chancellor is doing, or that it is on a par with ship money, or anything of that kind. But it oversteps the margins of the relation between the Government and the House in the matter of taxing power.
  In 1955, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, who got in a mess by his over-prodigal hand-out before the 1955 election, remunerative though that was in electoral terms, had to face the discipline of an Autumn Budget. It was quite a discipline. On the other hand, if the present Chancellor of the Exchequer got into any difficulties of that kind, he could simply sign an order and get £200 million in additional taxation, far more than the former Chancellor got by the whole of the Autumn Budget, and he would not have to recall Parliament immediately.
  Mr. Nabarro: We would see to it that he did, do not worry.
  Mr. Wilson: Again in 1956, at the time of Suez, would not this have been a temptation to the then Chancellor, now the Prime Minister, who surrendered all the financial interests of which he was supposed to be steward in order to pursue that venture, to take his pen in financial difficulties and sign an order putting up all taxation by £200 million? He raised taxation on petrol, but he had to come to the House and move a Ways and Means Resolution and go through all the stages of a Bill in December, 1956, before he could raise that sum of money, with bitter criticism from this side of the House.
  The Third Schedule of the Bill provides that there must be Parliamentary ratification within twenty-eight days, but I understand that this twenty-eight days excludes the period of Prorogation, dissolution and the Summer Adjournment and the Chancellor could be enjoying his extra-Parliamentary taxation for three months or more without summon-
  1642
  ing the House. Some of us find the reference to dissolution a little sinister. Clause 8 gives power to lower as well as to raise taxation. Far be it from me to suggest that the present Prime Minister, even in the stress of an election, would depart from those high principles which he has made peculiarly his own. But discerning observers have noted from time to time that, in addition to the noble higher self which we have come to know, there is a more earthy self in the Prime Minister's make-up occasionally struggling for mastery and that these struggles might be reinforced by some of the right hon. Gentleman's advisers in the Conservative Central Office.
  We feel that this House has a duty to protect the right hon. Gentleman against those internal stresses and divisions and to keep his feet firmly treading on those high-principled lines which he always treads when the law prevents him from doing anything else. We shall therefore move an Amendment to provide that an Order made under Clause 8 requires affirmative ratification within seven days of its being made, and if the House were not sitting it would, of course, have to be recalled within that period of seven days.
  The only other matter on this particular regulator is that it still seems odd to us that the Chancellor, having gone to these rather unusual lengths on commodity taxation, still refuses to do what we proposed in earlier debates on tax avoidance, namely, to take power by order to deal with new and unscrupulous means of tax avoidance, subject to ratification in the following year's Finance Bill. It seems rather odd that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will use this tax, which falls, of course, more than proportionately on ordinary families, while there is no suggestion here about increasing Surtax during the period of the emergency or other forms of direct taxation. All that is proposed is that there should be an increase on taxed commodities. The right hon. and learned Gentleman will do that, but he will not use the same power to deal with the problem of rather unscrupulous tax avoidance which we have had to face in successive Finance Bills.
  With regard to the payroll tax, I dealt with this matter rather fully, as far as I was concerned, on the Budget, and, of

  1643
  course, on the Money Resolution, and my hon. Friend the Member for Newton (Mr. Lee) and other of my hon. Friends dealt with the matter at such length as they were allowed under the rules of order. My hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) proposes to deal with the subject more fully this evening if he catches the eye of Mr. Speaker. Therefore, I will content myself with saying on the payroll tax that on due consideration we feel that our first reactions to the tax were right both as to the effects of the proposed surcharge on different industries—some industries will pay far more than others—as to the effects of the tax on areas of differing degrees of prosperity, Scotland, the North-East Coast, South Wales and, of course, Northern Ireland, and also so far as the effects of the tax are concerned on particular types of essential services, local authorities, the hospital service and the rest.
  We feel that we have had powerful and for us unaccustomed reinforcement on this matter from the Federation of British Industries, the National Union of Manufacturers and the British Employers' Confederation. I am not quite sure whether the Institute of Directors supports us on the matter or not. But we are in unusual company in criticising this tax. I would commend to the Chancellor a letter which appeared this morning in The Times. It was written by someone who has never, I suspect, voted for our party, but, nevertheless, there was some very good, hard industrial common sense in the letter about the effects on industry of the payroll tax. I commend the letter to the Chancellor. We shall vote against this Clause, but foreseeing the ever-present danger that we may be defeated in the Vote, despite the powerful reinforcements, we shall move precautionary Amendments for the exemption of particular areas and industries.
  I now come to the main tax changes—direct taxation in Part II of the Bill. Of course, the whole section here really centres on the Chancellor's proposals for Surtax. Today the Chancellor said not unfairly in his peroration that as far as the Bill is concerned the imposts are widely spread. They are indeed widely spread over a wide section of the com-
  1644
  munity, and if we add to these the imposts which the right hon. and learned Gentleman imposed, in fact, on the Health Service, then they are spread very widely indeed.
  What we complain about is that a Bill which spreads the imposts so widely over the mass of the population just confines its hand-outs to a very small section of it. Every ordinary family in the country is now paying more as a result of taxation introduced during the past three months while a very small proportion of taxpayers—between 300,000 and 400,000—have received major remissions of tax amounting to a total, in some cases, of £1,775 a year—an increased spendable income of £35 a week—as a result of the Bill, and this at a time when the Chancellor is telling wage earners on £9 and £10 a week to show restraint in wage demands.
  In what kind of a world does the right hon. and learned Gentleman think he is living? There are some, of course, who will be paying more in direct taxation apart from the poll tax. It is extraordinary, because of the astonishing failure of the Chancellor to raise age relief for old people on small fixed incomes, to realise that old-age pensioners who have received from the Government this miserable, inadequate and overdue increase last month, will, if they have an additional pension or earn a little by doing part-time work, now be paying more in direct taxation than they were two months ago. That will be the effect of the present taxation arrangements.
  April, 1961, has been a wonderful month for social justice—Surtax payers relieved of tax on the grand scale and some old-age pensioners ekeing out an existence actually paying more in tax.
  Sir Beresford Craddock: Will the right hon. Gentleman give us an example of figures so that we can understand his point?
  Mr. Wilson: I gather that the hon. Gentleman has not received letters on the subject, as most of us have. The fact is, of course, that anyone who has a small supplementary pension of any kind, or who is earning a little by part-time work, will, as a result of the quite beggarly but measurable increase in retirement pension given last month,

  1645
  now be receiving a slightly higher income, and this will take some of them over the margin for old-age Income Tax relief. And there is a great bump up when we get over that margin. The result will be that some old-age pensioners will pay tax who were not paying tax last year. As I have said, we think that this is intolerable.
  I give notice not merely to advance the education of the hon. Gentleman, who, I know, will want to study the details that we shall give to the House, but to the Chancellor, that the first Amendment that we shall move to the Bill by way of a new Clause will be to extend age relief. I appeal to the Chancellor in the name of humanity to accept that new Clause.
  There are, of course, other anomalies in that part of the Bill dealing with direct taxation. Many of us drew attention in the Budget debate to the bizarre provisions by which the single man gains more than the family man under the Surtax proposals. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan) drew attention to the very small extra allowance on the new Surtax scales which is allowed net to a family man for meeting his family responsibilities as compared with a single man.
  There are, of course, other anomalies. The Chancellor referred to what was called the lack of symmetry in these proposals. One of these asymmetrical examples was the subject of recent comment in the Press. For anyone with any investment income at all, provided that it is larger than the sum of his personal allowance, there will now be what one of our national newspapers has called a "Surtax belt" through which he will pass as his earned income increases, only to emerge later paying no more Surtax until his earned income reaches £5,000 a year.
  This Surtax belt ends in all cases at the caballistic figure of £2,571. No one quite understands why. But, to take one example, a single man with an investment income of £440 a year and a salary of £2,000 a year pays no Surtax at all. But if he then earns an extra £600 he starts to pay Surtax on £440. If he then earns a further £600, he attracts no extra Surtax, and the marginal rate of tax actually falls as the
  1646
  income increases. A most extraordinary provision in a tax table.
  Compared with this whimsical distribution of tax liabilities, even housey-housey is a scientifically predictable instrument of social justice, but this is what the Chancellor has achieved. The more one's income rises, the less tax one pays, and then one goes back to start paying it all over again. This is a matter which we can examine later in Committee, for it is very complicated and technical and I will leave it now.
  I now turn to our main case against the Chancellor's Surtax concessions. First, they must be set, as I have said, against the poll tax and the Health Service charges. Even if the Chancellor, with his rather warped ideas of social justice, thought that there was a case here, he could hardly justify it at the very time of the additional charges on the Health Service.
  Secondly—and this is interesting—the Chancellor has utterly destroyed the balance between taxation of the wealthier taxpayers and taxation of ordinary families. He has not only destroyed the balance which has grown up since the war, despite the steady policy of erosion in recent Budgets, but he has actually made the country's tax system a great deal more regressive, less progressive, even than it was pre-war. That is a very serious charge to make against the right hon. and learned Gentleman, and I propose to substantiate it.
  In 1938–39, the Surtax yield was £62 million, whereas Income Tax, excluding Surtax, yielded £336 million. After the Bill takes effect, the Surtax yield will be £127 million, rather more than double the pre-war figure, while the estimated Income Tax yield for next year will be £2,728 million, and it is estimated that at present rates of revenue and with expansion it will probably be running at about £3,000 million in 1962–63.
  In other words, compared with prewar, the Surtax yield in terms of money will be only just more than double and in real terms a good deal less, while Income Tax will be up more than ninefold and the poll tax contributions will have risen more than tenfold. To put it another way; I do not think that any of us on either side of the House regard the Chamberlain era as characterised by a marked

  1647
  sense of social justice, either in terms of economic rewards or fiscal structure; even so, in 1938–39, Surtax accounted for 16 per cent. of the total yield of personal taxation, while in 1962–63, when these provisions become effective, Surtax will be about 4 per cent. of the total yield of personal taxation. I do not think that any one can maintain that that bears much relation to social justice.
  Mr. R. Gresham Cooke: Will not the right hon. Gentleman agree that millions more taxpayers are brought into the net by rising income over the years?
  Mr. Wilson: I shall have much to say about that later. I am glad that the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Gresham Cooke) is here, because I shall have something special for him.
  If we consider it in terms not of yield, but of individuals, as the hon. Member suggests, if the Chancellor can contemplate so un Treasury-like a conception; in 1938–39, there were 3·9 million Income Tax payers, of whom 105,000 were Surtax payers, while last year, out of 188 million Income Tax payers, there were 388,000 Surtax payers, or rather less than 2 per cent. of the total Income Tax paying population. The Chancellor has been rather coy about telling us how many people will be taken out of the range of taxation, but under the Bill the number of Surtax payers will be hardly any higher than it was pre-war, and it will probably be less than 1 per cent. of all Income Tax payers in the country.
  I know that the noble Lord the Member for Dorset, South (Viscount Hinchingbrooke) probably thinks that that is quite justified, but those facts make nonsense of Tory claims that ten years of Tory Chancellors have shifted the burden of taxation away from the small man. On the contrary, as I have just shown, they have not only reversed the immediate post-war trend towards greater equality, but have created a system far more inequitable than it was pre-war, in the days of Mr. Chamberlain and Sir John Simon, and to say that is to use the language of superlatives.
  Of course that does not stop the claims being made. The other day, just after the Budget, the Prime Minister was speaking in Ayr. I understand that the Conservatives lost a seat in consequence.
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  The Prime Minister was speaking to a gathering known as the Scottish Unionists. We always wonder why the party opposite has so many aliases, but that is, apparently, the name by which it is known north of the Border. The Prime Minister ventured into the subject of taxation and produced some remarkable figures. He said
  "In the last year of the Socialist Utopia"—
  "Socialist Utopia" is a very good phrase—
  "a married man with two children of school age, whose wages were £12 a week, paid £35 a year Income Tax. Since 1957, he has paid no Income Tax at all."
  Let us subject that flight of fiscal fancy to the discipline of cold fact. I have taken the figures of this man earning £12 a week—we were not quite sure what was the age of the children at school to whom the right hon. Gentleman was referring, but I have taken the figures from the latest tax table and assumed that they were under 11—in 1951, he earned £624 and paid in taxation not £35, but £40 10s.—I will give that to the Prime Minister right away. He was obviously looking up his train in the wrong year's Bradshaw. If his income stayed at £12 a week, he would obviously have suffered a very serious fall in living standards because of the rise in the cost of living since 1951. The Financial Secretary, in a Written Answer on 20th March, said that such a man would have to be getting £709 a year now to have the same purchasing power. A man earning £790 a year and with two children would now be paying £29 14s. 8d. in tax, which is £10 15s. 4d. less than in 1951. There is, therefore, still a reduction compared with 1951.
  Let us take it further. His contributions on poll tax account, his weekly National Insurance and National Health contributions—and here I am entirely excluding so-called superannuation contributions—have gone up from 4s. 11d. a week to 10s. 9d. a week, which is an increase of 5s. 10d. a week, or £15 3s. 4d. a year. In other words, taking the Prime Minister's example, the man is £10 15s. 4d. better off on Income Tax and £15 3s. 4d. worse off on poll tax, so that net he is £4 8s. a year or about 1s. 7½ d. a week worse off. I am taking the Prime Minister's own figures, subject to any amount of checking which

  1649
  hon. Members opposite may care to give them.
  Let us take the £5,000-a-year married man with two children. In 1951, he paid £2,484 a year in tax. His present equivalent income, according to the Financial Secretary, is £6,327, and under the Bill he will pay £1,875 a year in tax, so that his tax bill is £600 a year less than it was. So, while the £12 a week man is paying a little more, the £5,000 a year man is paying £12 a week less.
  I must make it clear that all the figures I have quoted in this example—those which the Prime Minister chose for me: I did not choose them myself—are on the basis of returned figures of income and make no allowance for the prodigious development of untaxed income—"perks", expenses, or capital gains, where very large sums accrue to the untaxed spendable income of some people, particularly in the Schedule D category. The Financial Secretary is now leaving the Chamber. If he is going to check my figures, I do not think that he will find that I am wrong.
  I come to another serious criticism of the Bill. In his Budget speech, the Chancellor explained the timing of the Surtax concessions by saying that the reduction taking effect on 1st January, 1963, would relate to income earned in the present financial year, 1961–62, which has just started. He said:
  "It would be illogical to reduce what is already payable on past efforts on the ground of giving an incentive to future effort."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th April, 1961; Vol. 638, c.820.]
  That is just what he is doing. The argument that he used is true for Schedule E, for which it is the 1961–62 income that is relevant, but it is not true for the very large field of surtaxable income earned under Schedule D, a field which embraces a multitude of sins in terms of tax avoidance, business expenses and the rest. There is far more opportunity for that in Schedule D than, as we have often argued, in Schedule E.
  The Surtax payable on 1st January, 1963, is, for most people, the Schedule D income already earned in the year which ended on 5th April last. So, in the sacred name of incentive, the right hon. and learned Gentleman is giving a vast handout on money already earned. Even
  1650
  incentives to Surtax payers, about whom we have heard so much, can hardly operate retrospectively.
  The determined drive towards inequality which marks the Budget has been highlighted by two further developments since the Budget. One was the Chancellor's Freudian pronouncement when winding up the Budget debate, when he asked us to shed a tear for the difficulties of the poverty-stricken £5,000 a year man. This deserves to rank with the classics of Conservative philosophy. I am sure that it will be permanently enshrined among those classics.
  If the £5,000 a year man faces such difficulties, would not even the Chancellor agree that that £500 a year man faces much greater difficulties? The Chancellor would, presumably, agree with that simple logic. By the logic of his own argument, does he not agree that even after the recent increase, an old-age pensioner couple living on about 90s. a week, or £234 a year, are likely to be facing even greater difficulties than the £5,000 a year man about whom the right hon. and learned Gentleman spoke?
  I hope that the Chancellor agrees about this. If not, I am sure that he will tell me so. If he does agree, we are bound to ask why he has not done something about it. Why did he not make the old, the sick, the disabled and the ex-Civil Service pensioner and others living on small fixed incomes the first charge on his Budget? The Chancellor rejected that for political reasons, not as between parties, but within his own party.
  Mr. Nabarro: Hear, hear.
  Mr. Wilson: I was not going to flatter the hon. Gentleman, but I think that we can say that the Budget is the price that the nation must pay for the Salisbury revolt within the Conservative Party. As somebody said, it was the price that was paid for the Chancellor's ambition; but I would reject that explanation.
  The other development since the Budget is the publication of the first full-scale earnings survey since the war, a frank and revealing document which blew away a great deal of the Tory mythology about the affluent society. The Guardian headline on this was, "Industrial earnings myths shattered." The Chancellor equates £5,000 a year with financial difficulties, but when we

  1651
  look at the earnings survey we find that of manual workers only one in nine earns as much as £1,000 a year. Nearly one in five—18 per cent.—earns less than £11 a week. Another 10 per cent. earn £11–£12 a week, another 10 per cent. earn £12–£13 a week and yet another 10 per cent. earn £13–£14 a week.
  Thus, half the manual workers earn less than £14 a week. In the light of the facts I have given, I do not think that there is a single Tory, except, possibly, the noble Lord the Member for Dorset, South and his hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster—
  Mr. Nabarro: I am pleased to be asociated with the noble Lord.
  Mr. Wilson: They belong to different worlds and different ages, and probably they are in agreement on this.
  I do not think that there is a single other Tory who would defend the Budget by the test of social justice, although the President of the Board of Trade did, I notice, go so far as to describe it in the Budget debate as a belated act of social justice. That is not a defence from hon. Members opposite. The argument is in terms of economic incentives.
  Surtax payers who have been moping around looking like the first half of a Horlick's advertisement, unable to put forth their best effort because of malnutrition, night starvation or Surtax frustration, are now leaping from their beds at the crack of dawn, rushing round, organising everybody, producing more, cutting down their lunch hour and the time they spend away from the office, exporting more, importing less—or is it more; I still have not understood that—exuding dynamism and virility and carrying on their broad shoulders the whole nation to a higher plateau of shared prosperity. That is the argument that we are given as a result of the Budget.
  That is not fanciful. In the Budget debate, we had the moving words of the hon. Member for Twickenham (Mr. Gresham Cooke). He said:
  "Top management mainly works very hard in this country, but we cannot be sure about all top management. Some executives must get up a bit earlier in the morning. When I go to Germany I am always amazed to find that one can pick up the telephone at 8 o'clock or 8.30 in the morning and be sure of contacting the managing director at his works."
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  And so the hon. Member went on. He added:
  "I know that in the North of England most executives get to the office at 9 o'clock, but there are too many in London who do not get there very much before 10 o'clock. I know that because I have seen some of them on Woking Station at 9 o'clock. However, I think the Surtax remission will encourage the younger executives to get on and get up a little earlier—".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 19th April, 1961; Vol 638. c.1217.]
  The young executives! I find this very moving. I understand that former Lancashire knockers-up are moving into Surrey and tapping the upper windows of stockbroker Tudor residences and that British Railways are putting on early morning Surtax specials.
  I wonder whether what the hon. Gentleman said is really happening. I wonder whether this theory is universally valid, as we are told. There used to be a deep-rooted dyed-in-the-wool Tory argument that most people used to a given standard of living would work less hard if they could attain that standard with less work. When there was a question of paying miners more, the Tory argument was that, if they could obtain the money necessary to maintain their established standard of living by working four days instead of five days, the only result of a wage increase would be more absenteeism and less work.
  Is it not just possible that this argument might apply to some of the Surtax payers? A rich farmer told me the other day that he regarded the Budget as an incentive. Hitherto, he had ploughed back his profits into the farm. Now, it is worth while taking them out and spending them. Was that the kind of incentive that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had in mind?
  The incentive argument may have a grain of truth in it, but for the greater part most fair-minded people will realise that there is something rather "phoney" about it. By far the greatest proportion of Surtax payers, by the nature of their employment, can make little contribution to exports or essential investment. It is a gross slander on those who can make a contribution to exports to say that they were following a policy of ca' canny until 17th April, 1961. In the present orientation of our economy, with the emphasis in favour of advertising against research, home market sales promotion against exports, public relations rather

  1653
  than public service, the incentive argument, if it is true, may have results very far from those that the nation needs.
  The class differentiation on income and its treatment which characterises the Budget is marked by an equal refusal to do anything about capital and capital gains. Once again, since the Budget we have authoritative figures of capital holdings. For those with incomes over £2,000, the average holding of capital is probably as much as ten years' income. At the top of the pyramid in this property-owning democracy there are about 20,000 persons with more than £100,000 each and the average holding is £250,000. At the bottom, there are 16 million property-owning democrats who have less than £100 each, with an average of less than £50.
  It is estimated that 1 per cent. of British adults own 43 per cent. of the total net capital of the country and that the top 10 per cent. own 79 per cent. of it. The figures suggest that the distribution is more unequal in this country even than in the United States of America, where the top 1 per cent. own, it is estimated, only 24 per cent. These figures underline the glaring failure of the Chancellor to tackle the problem of death duty avoidance by trusts, covenants, limited companies and gifts inter vivos.
  Some years ago, in a Finance Bill debate, I defined death duties as a tax on distrustful parents, but the total yield from death duty revenues, which is still little above pre-war despite the change in property values, shows how much it is being rendered ineffective by various kinds of perfectly legal avoidance. The House may have seen a report in the Daily Telegraph about a noble marquess, whom I will not name, who left £75,000. The Daily Telegraph, which went into a very long account of all the properties and land that he held all over the country, said that this was
  "a good example of the efficacy of handing over property to heirs before it is too late."
  It went on to list the noble marquess's estates as
  "well over £1 million"
  and of their being transferred through the Marquess of So-and-so Estates Limited.
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  On business expenses and cars we shall have an opportunity of a thorough debate in Committee and I will content myself with reminding the Chancellor—and I hope that he will study it, because we shall have cause to remind him of the exact words—of the much more realistic approach of the United States Government in this matter. I hope that the Chancellor will study the message which President Kennedy sent to Congress asking for a complete change in the American attitude to tax-free expenses—expense account meals, the use of hunting lodges and business trips as a means of getting additional personal expenses disguised as business deals. I will not worry the House now with the quotation, but in Committee I hope to have the chance of deploying this powerful appeal from President Kennedy.
  Our own Chancellor, despite his speech, does nothing. We are always told that if Surtax were raised there would be less "fiddling" of expense accounts, but why not ensure that there is less? Why does the Chancellor net legislate to ensure that it does not happen? Why put a premium on the dishonesty of some people as compared with others? We have referred to the problem of the Rolls Royce and we shall want to discuss that difficulty in Committee. But, apart from this, the Chancellor reads homilies to the business-expense fraternity. He makes frightening noises and does nothing. It is the old story of the velvet hand in the iron glove, but on these matters we shall have concrete proposals to put forward.
  This Budget is, in our view, manifestly the most unjust Budget introduced in the House since the war. It has been called the first Tory Budget in that time. It is utterly irrelevant to the major economic problems, our limping production, our inadequate exports, our grave balance-of-payments position, the erosion of our gold reserves, and our inadequate provision for capital investment and for scientific research. Instead of tackling these problems, the Chancellor has introduced an introverted Budget, introverted to the problems and the desires of the class that his party exists to serve. The right hon. and learned Gentleman has produced a more unjust fiscal structure even than that which the country had in the Chamberlain era.

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  For these reasons, we shall take tonight the unusual and grave step of voting against the Second Reading of the Finance Bill.
  5.44 p.m.
  Mr. Antony Buck: The trepidation which a Member feels on rising for the first time to address the House is fortunately something which hon. Members do not have to imagine, because every hon. Member has himself experienced this phenomenon. Relying on that, I crave the indulgence of the House for the inadequacies and faults which I fear will be found in the course of this my maiden speech.
  The Colchester division which I have the privilege of representing had for about eleven years as its Member the noble Lord, Lord Alport as he now is. In my work in the House in future I cannot hope to bring to bear anything of the skill and ability which he brought to bear on his work in the House, but I shall be well content if I can bring to bear even a small part of that sincerity and conscientiousness which was so much a feature, with his ability and skill, of the noble Lord's work in this House.
  The Colchester division consists of an ancient borough which combines with its age a modern, twentieth century vigour. It comprises as well an area of villages and country parts where agriculture and horticulture and local industries abound. When the House considers that there is to be added to these the great and ancient oyster industry, hon. Members will realise how proud I am to represent this constituency. The oyster is a mollusc of great deliciousness and succulence, and I will do everything I can to defend it as such against noxious effluent or against any other enemy which may beset it. I understand that its attributes are not always fully appreciated by the Front Bench, but I will defend it in any way I can. But because it is an organism which lives silent and confined in a shell, I feel that I ought to imitate it no longer, and, therefore, I will make a number of observations on the Bill before the House.
  I should like, initially, to congratulate wholeheartedly my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer on finding a place in the Bill
  1656
  for giving relief to a small minority of persons who have not the support of a large organisation or a powerful lobby, nor great financial support. I refer to the relief which the Chancellor is giving to the victims of Nazism. Here is a piece of retrospective legislation which I think all of us in all parts of the House can welcome wholeheartedly. I think that the fact that he has given a place in the Bill to a class of persons which has no great electoral significance and no powerful backing will bring my right hon. and learned Friend universal approbation. At this time inevitably there is very much in the minds of all of us the terror and horror of Nazi persecution, and anything that can be done by us or by my right hon. and learned Friend to allay the miseries of those who have been fortunate enough to survive the persecutions of Nazism will be welcomed.
  The universal approbation which the inclusion of this Clause will bring to the Chancellor may, and I hope it will, encourage him to go on to assist other small minority groups which have a good case. I hope that it will be considered appropriate that I, as the representative of a constituency which has an ancient military tradition, should mention briefly in this context the position of the Service pensioner and of the Service widow. This is a matter which has been put in detail before the House by many hon. and right hon. Members from both sides.
  Suffice to say, it is the impression of many people on both sides of the House and in the country that this class of pensioner, particularly the widow, has not had a fair share of the country's increased prosperity. It is my hope, and the expectation of hon. Members on this side of the House, that the passage of the Bill will bring about just such an opulent society as the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) so eloquently—if I may say so with humility—adumbrated. I hope that, as more money becomes available, my right hon. and learned Friend will see fit to turn his attention, encouraged by the universal approbation for his gesture to the victims of Nazi persecution, to persons in this and other minority groups.
  I am conscious of the hard battle which my right hon. and learned Friend is waging against inflation. It is waged

  1657
  particularly for those on small fixed incomes. But that argument is a little more difficult to get over to some of those in receipt of pensions, because they have such very small sums to be inflated or deflated. That is the first aspect of the Bill to which I want to refer.
  I also wish, respectfully, to refer to the payroll tax. I am bound to say that I have grave doubts about this fiscal weapon. I have very little quarrel with my right hon. and learned Friend over the fact that he has given himself the power to impose the extra tax, but I exhort him with all my strength not to use it. This may well be one of those cases where the possession of the whip may be more effective than the use of its lash.
  The use of this weapon would bring great hardship to those areas where there is unemployment and would run counter to the policy, rightly pursued by the Government in those areas, to get rid of unemployment. I am sure that my right hon. and learned Friend will have this fact well in mind, certainly by the end of this debate, when he will have heard the speeches of hon. Members on both sides of the House representing places like Ulster and Scotland.
  This aspect does not concern my constituency because, I am glad to say, there is virtually no unemployment in Colchester. But we have there a large number of firms working hard and competing in the export market, and they have had considerable success in recent years in establishing and developing their position in that market. But, of course, conditions are not easy for them. The imposition of this payroll tax, would, as I see it, make things just that little bit more difficult for them in the competition with which they are coping so courageously at the moment. Nor would a payroll tax help the position of agriculture or horticulture. Perhaps they are both minorities in the community, but a trust that they will receive the sympathetic attention of the Chancellor in relation to the position of the tax on oil. But that is something which is a side issue to the point I am making.
  The payroll tax would cause in the area in which I am particularly interested difficulties in exporting, and it would also cause difficulties to agriculture and horticulture. Finally, it would
  1658
  cause difficulties for the very small employer. I have had letters from people who would, but for disability in the war or from some other cause, have been engaged in one man businesses but who now have to have one or two assistants. It may be said that such businesses are uneconomic, but these people work hard and earn a small living, although they have to employ one or two people to assist them. Their position would be gravely affected were the Chancellor to find himself forced to use this regulator, with which it is useful to be armed but which should only be used in an extreme situation.
  Finally, I would remind the House that on 23rd January, 1810, Sir Robert Peel made his maiden speech. He is a statesman who is admired very much on both sides of the House. He said that he would not have obtruded himself on the attention of the House had not he been convinced that the House would extend to him indulgence and patience. The House has extended indulgence and patience to me, and I am indeed grateful.
  4.55 p.m.
  Mr. Scholefield Allen: After nearly sixteen years in the House, it has fallen to me for the first time to follow a maiden speaker. There are hon. Members, I can assure the hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. Buck), who, in following maiden speakers, have found it very difficult to speak sincerely, because some maiden speeches—many made by hon. Members who have proved to be distinguished Members of the House thereafter—have failed this great ordeal. But the hon. Member's speech was almost a breathless adventure. He spoke out. As far as I could see, he used no notes except one containing the reference to Sir Robert Peel. He spoke with great eloquence, sincerity and knowledge. We shall all hear him again with delight, because he showed that he himself is a "succulent mollusc", like the Colchester oysters of which he spoke.
  I am sorry, however, that he chose to make his maiden speech on an occasion like this, selecting this dismal Budget to show us how eloquent and knowledgeable he is. I noticed that he had to dig very deeply before he could find anything that met with his satisfaction. The first thing he mentioned was the relief given to the

  1659
  victims of Nazism. Secondly, he failed to find in the Budget—and this is what we complain of—any help for the poor widow and for the Service pensioners. These were the two matters which he was constrained to speak about, because of the paucity of good things in the Bill.
  The hon. Member also strayed quite outside the Finance Bill when he mentioned the plight of those on small fixed incomes. Sometimes, if he sits in his present place, he will find sitting behind him the hon. Lady the hon. Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward), who has campaigned for these people. She was so indignant with this Budget that she voted with us in disgust because nothing had been done by the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the benefit of the people on small fixed incomes. I again congratulate the hon. Member on a magnificent speech on such poor material.
  It is only six weeks ago that I had an opportunity of making a speech during the debates on the new charges and contributions for the National Health Service, when 10d. a week poll tax was put on the poor and on the workers of the country, irrespective of their earnings, and when higher charges were imposed for prescriptions and for welfare foods for mothers. The Government then placed a poll tax of £65 million a year on a wide range of earners. We said then that this was a curtain-raiser to the Budget. We said that the Government were collecting this money so that when the Budget was presented the Surtax payers could be given some relief. We are not surprised to find that that has happened.
  I am sorry that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has left the Chamber to get some refreshment, because the first time I said that he had a Liberal past he was not present. When he was a candidate for Macclesfield, about twenty years ago, no doubt he had a few good Liberal principles, but he seems to have forgotten the simplest of them. Anyone convinced of the value of Liberal principles would never let go the broad principle that the heaviest burdens should be put on the broadest backs, and that direct taxation is to be preferred to indirect taxation, because the former is paid on the basis of the income earned and the latter falls on everybody, what-
  1660
  evern his income. The miser will get out of paying indirect tax although he has to pay on income. It is, therefore, fairer for many reasons to have direct rather than indirect taxation. The policy of the Government during the last few months has been to reverse that Liberal principle.
  The Guardian pointed out that since the war each successive Budget was, by and large, based on that principle and that this Budget represented the new Toryism. It said:
  "The big concession to Surtax payers, just when the effective burdens of taxes on the poorer classes has just been raised through new health charges and higher insurance contributions, mark a deliberate retreat from the notions of fairness and social equality that have governed British policy over the last fifteen years."
  The justification for this is a new definition of the poor. No one but the Chancellor would have dreamt of trying to make us weep over the lot of the man earning between £2,000 and £5,000 a year.
  I do not suppose that the Chancellor's words will ever be forgotten. They are worth repeating. He said:
  "Some hon. Members have said that my Budget will make those already rich richer still. I think that they are out of touch and out of date. A man who is earning £5,000 gross today is not rich unless he has large private means as well. No doubt forty or fifty years ago, on that sort of income, one could have had a house in London, a house in the country, a large domestic staff and still have been able to save. But today a man earning £5,000 gross"—
  and think of the poor Members of Parliament—
  "unless he has private means, has the greatest difficulty in providing out of his income—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—has the greatest difficulty indeed in providing out of his income for the education of his family and for saving. That is a fact of life, and Surtax for him, as I say, unless he has private means is at present penal."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th April, 1961, Vol. 638, c.1516–17.]
  I do not know how millions of people outside could have read that without roaring with laughter. I visited my constituency last weekend and met a number of people. They greeted that statement with ribald laughter and said, "Really, the man must be an extraordinary creature if he thinks that people on incomes of between £2,000 and £5,000 a year are poor". My railwaymen threatened a strike about twelve months

  1661
  ago, and many of them are still working for a wage of under £10 a week. Tens of thousands of people in Crewe are doing that, and to tell them that a man on £2,000 to £5,000 a year is poor sets them laughing until they are almost silly.
  Viscount Hinchingbrooke: It sets them laughing but it does not cause them to strike.
  Mr. Scholefield Allen: It is a wonder that it does not. If the Chancellor goes on, as he rather hinted he might, to give further relief to Surtax payers, they might strike. What the right hon. and learned Gentleman said should be very helpful to the noble Lord, because the Chancellor said that there had been complaints that no relief had been given to people with unearned incomes. He went on to say that there was something to be said for this criticism because unearned income came from savings and, therefore, those people ought to have some relief. I wonder whether, next year, there will be a further increase of 10d. a week on the National Health contributions and further relief for Surtax payers with unearned incomes.
  In all my experience no Budget has received as bad a Press as this one. All the organs of Tory opinion have condemned it. The Guardian had no doubt about it.
  Mr. Nabarro: What did the Guardian say?
  Mr. Scholefield Allen: I read it once. If the hon. Gentleman had been listening, instead of talking so much, he would have heard it.
  Mr. Nabarro Mr. Nabarro rose—
  Mr. Scholefield Allen: The hon. Gentleman cannot talk all the time. He must allow me to make my speech.
  Mr. Nabarro: The Guardian supported the Budget.
  Mr. Scholefield Allen: The hon. Gentleman is the world's prize interrupter.
  The Daily Mail said that there was no comfort in the Budget for the broad mass of the people. The Daily Express said:
  "A good Budget for one small class—the big speculators."
  1662
  The Daily Sketch said:
  "It is not simply that the Surtax payers get an incentive bonus and the average wage-earner gets nothing."
  The Chancellor's preoccupation with wealth has led him once again to ignore, for example, the plight of the widow, to which the hon. Member for Colchester referred.
  The only increase which the Chancellor proposes to make is the tax paid on profits which will be passed on to the consumer in due course. This will lead to higher prices and to further demands for wage increases. There is no specific help in the Budget for the exporter. These benefits are given alike to the importers, to the exporters, to the speculators and to the Clores. Incentives should have been given to those engaged in the export trade. There should have been incentives for the firms assisting in export orders. When the late Sir Stafford Cripps was Chancellor of the Exchequer he found no difficulty in assisting the export industry by budgetary means.
  This is a period of crisis and a balance of payments problem which is the worst for ten or fifteen years, yet this is the moment when the Chancellor decides to distribute £85 million to the richest people in the country.
  6.10 p.m.
  Sir Derek Walker-Smith: I know that I shall have the unanimous approbation of the House if I start by extending warm congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Mr. Buck). Over the years I have listened to many maiden speeches and I can testify that this is in the first rank of the best maiden speeches to which it has been my privilege to listen. The House is fortunate to have so worthy a successor to one who was an old and intimate friend of so many of us. I am sure that we all wish my hon. Friend well in his contributions to our debates, and hope that there will be many of them.
  I should also like to be able to extend congratulations to the hon. and learned Member for Crewe (Mr. Scholefield Allen) on his speech, but I could not do so with the same conscientious sincerity as that with which I have just congratulated my hon. Friend. As a distinguished ornament of the legal profession, the hon. and learned Member

  1663
  should know that he ought to check his references before citing cases, and the reference to the Guardian was an unfortunate one, because he should have known that it saluted the Budget as
  "a bold programme which ought to lead to vast expansion."
  Mr. Scholefield Allen: Read it all
  Sir D. Walker-Smith: It might be tedious repetition to read the whole of an article from the Guardian.
  Mr. Scholefield Allen: I presume that the right hon. and learned Member has read the first paragraph of the article, stating that the Budget marked
  "a deliberate retreat from the notions of fairness and social equality that have governed British policy over the past fifteen years".
  Sir D. Walker-Smith: The hon. and learned Member is now reading from a précis—
  Mr. Scholefield Allen Mr. Scholefield Allen rose—
  Sir D. Walker-Smith: I cannot give way.
  Dr. J. Dickson Mabon: Withdraw. My hon. and learned Friend is not reading from a précis.
  Sir D. Walker-Smith: If the hon. and learned Gentleman says that he is reading from the text of the article, I entirely accept it, although I repeat that one must challenge him on the broad effect of the interpretation he gave of what the Guardian said.
  The House also very much enjoyed the speech of the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson), especially the jokes with which he greatly entertained us. The only drawback to his speeches is that when he comes to the serious parts they are almost as funny as those which are supposed to be funny.
  I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend on his Budget and on the Bill in that he has brought to them a broad vision and an imaginative concept not altogether characteristic of the generality of our post-war Budgets. If we are now starting on the long processes of scrutiny and constructive criticism, hon. Members on this side will, in Committee, speak with constructive intent and against the background of appreciation for the way in which the Chancellor has approached his Budget task.
  1664
  Like his seven predecessors as post-war Chancellors, he, in the exercise of his vision and insight, is subject to two main inhibiting circumstances, the first being the annual discipline of the Finance Bill, which has to serve two purposes in one Measure—the provision of the annual finances of the nation together with the implementation of proposals for the reform of the tax structure. That means that, generally speaking, our Finance Bills are both long and necessarily incomplete. Their incompleteness is evidenced by the slow implementation of some of the recommendations of the Royal Commission and other salutary reforms, and in Committee some of my hon. Friends and I will put forward suggestions in that regard on points which have so far escaped the constructive attention of the Chancellor.
  The other inhibiting circumstance is the enormous weight of public expenditure which limits the freedom of manœuvre of Chancellors of the Exchequer in the present age. An expenditure of £6,000 million above the line and £1,000 million below the line is about fifty times the expenditure involved in Mr. Gladstone's Budgets, that is to say, an increase of fifty times in just over twice as many years. This represents an enormous burden which makes it very difficult for any Chancellor, however good his intentions, to provide the sort of tax structure which we should like.
  I appreciate that this is not a matter which can be dealt with in the context of a single Finance Bill. In February I sought to make a constructive contribution in this respect, with this fact in mind, when I suggested that the time had come to appoint a Royal Commission to review the financing of our social services in the context of contemporary economic conditions and the nation's resources.
  Mr. Woodburn: The right hon. and learned Gentleman says that £6,000 million is an enormous burden. But the Chancellor takes it in and also pays it out again. A good deal goes in interest on war loans. The Chancellor takes the money in to pay for defence and for the social services for which we should have to pay individually if he did not do it. How does that make it a burden on the State? If it is convenient for the Chancellor to do it, is not that less of a

  1665
  burden upon the individual than it would be if that individual had to do it himself?
  Sir D. Walker-Smith: No. It is a burden on the taxpayer and an inhibition upon the freedom of the Chancellor. The right hon. Gentleman will have in mind the figure of £6,000 million expenditure above the line included £1,600 million on defence, over £3,000 million on the Civil Estimates and only about £800 million on the Consolidated Fund. If he puts the figures into that pattern he will realise that his point is not well-founded.
  I was about to refer to my suggestion of a Royal Commission, which would be a constructive contribution at present. I put it initially, in the form of a Parliamentary Question, to the Prime Minister, and the subsequent sequence of events is one with which the House is not unfamiliar. It was transferred to the Chancellor, and was ultimately answered by the Financial Secretary. I make no complaint of that, because, although the voice was the voice of Jacob, the hand was no doubt the hand of Esau. My complaint was that Esau had not written a more constructive Answer. If not actually a dusty Answer, it was an arid Answer not instinct with the urge for positive action but reflecting a passive quietism. In short, the answer was "No".
  The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Sir Edward Boyle): It was my right hon. and learned Friend who, many years ago, was kind enough to tell me that if "No, Sir" is ever a possible answer to a Parliamentary Question it is invariably the correct answer.
  Sir D. Walker-Smith: I cannot but think that that advice was tendered to my hon. Friend when we were both gamekeepers, and that it would not apply in the capacity of poacher. Since that time my right hon. and learned Friend has stated that he has initiated a study of our public expenditure in the context of the growth of our resources over the next five years.
  We look forward to hearing more about that, but it seems to be a rather limited and private study, and I cannot altogether accept it as a substitute for the wider and longer term proposal which I ventured to make. Although it did not find favour with the Govern-
  1666
  ment —and I am disappointed about that—I am glad to find that it has awakened reinforcing echoes among informed and thinking people.
  Against that background, I find the Chancellor's primary object in his Budget completely acceptable. It is a counter-inflationary Budget with the necessary consequence of an increased above-the-line surplus and a much smaller overall deficit. That is a good object, and my criticisms of the Bill are directed to those points on which I think the actual measures do not tie in with the object, in that some of them contain inflationary elements themselves.
  The main measures by which the Chancellor hopes to achieve his objects fall into two categories—the economic regulators and the imposition of new taxes. The former have the advantage, from the taxpayer's point of view, that they do not impose any immediate, or indeed precise, tax imposts on the taxpayer. But these measures, taken together, amount to a departure from the practice of the last ten years, during which Conservative Chancellors have sought to rely mainly on monetary measures, and marks a reoccupation by fiscal measures of the throne on which they sat during the period of the Labour Government, and from which they were deposed for most of the last decade.
  The pattern of our economy today may make this increased reliance on fiscal measures necessary. It also, however, increases the necessity for hon. Members to give a jealous and careful scrutiny to the measures proposed.
  The economic regulators must be dealt with separately, because very different considerations apply. So far as the Purchase Tax regulator—the Clause 8 regulator—is concerned, we are operating on reasonably familiar ground. It is much less a shot in the dark than is the payroll regulator, and is, therefore, much less likely to miss its mark. We have experience of variations of Purchase Tax and similar matters in the ordinary annual context of the Budget, but, in addition, we have the analagous experience of variation by Statutory Instrument of hire-purchase restrictions.
  When I was in the economic departments I had close experience of this latter operation. Technically, it is an efficient mechanism. The blows which

  1667
  we struck on that sector of the economy were sharp and sudden, swift and secret. Although they were painful to the recipient, they brought a good measure of relief and benefit to the economy as a whole.
  Even so, I always had misgivings about those operations. This was partly because they were directed at a narrow and limited sector of the economy. One of the virtues of the present proposal is that it gets rid of that disadvantage and extends the operation to a wider range. But there are certain other difficulties which hon. Members should recognise. There is the difficulty of the effect of these sudden changes on business and commercial planning, there is difficulty in regard to forestalling and other devices. But the main difficulty I have in mind is that of timing, which is of paramount importance.
  With these sorts of economic regulators, pinpoint precision is required if they are to serve the economic purposes for which they are designed. Otherwise, the position might arise where it is possible to apply the measures in such a way as to reinforce a deflationary trend which, while it has not yet manifested itself above the surface, has already become the main motive power beneath the surface.
  That is something that cannot be written into the Statute, and that is why, from an economic as well as a constitutional point of view, it is necessary that the House should retain control—and the House does retain control under the operation of the affirmative Resolution in the Third Schedule.
  Mr. John Diamond: I am extremely interested in the argument being adduced by the right hon. and learned Gentleman, but, on this question of timing, would he not agree that more important than timing is the power that the Government should have to act quickly, in consultation with hon. Members of this House?
  Sir D. Walker-Smith: I regret that the right hon. Member for Huyton is not in his place to hear the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Diamond), who has such knowledge of these matters, so effectively answer the main criticism which the right hon. Member for Huyton made an regard to the payroll tax. There
  1668
  must, of course, be the highest common factor of Parliamentary control and speed of operation in order that the regulator may serve its economic purpose.
  Different considerations apply to the payroll regulator. Instead of operating on ground which has been partly tried, with the payroll regulator we are on entirely new ground. So much has been said in criticism of the payroll regulator, in financial and commercial circles, that it is almost a challenge to one's ingenuity to think of something to say in its defence. I have done my best, out of good will to my right hon. Friends; but my ingenuity does not take me further in this context than to say that way back in the misty origins of this proposal there was a germ of a good idea to serve a real economic purpose. The purpose is to give an incentive to employers to economise in the use of labour, or as a deterrent against extravagance in its use. This is necessary not only in order to keep costs competitive but to prevent individual industries with the capacity for economic growth from being frustrated by the lack of labour.
  That is a good economic purpose, but I doubt if the machinery devised is apt to achieve that aim. The machinery would appear to have been directed more towards the mere raising of revenue than towards the economic purpose of economising labour. Therefore, what might have been a good idea to assist industry has been transformed into a mechanism for extracting money from industry.
  It is fair to say that Clause 26 is really only a ballon d'essai. It has so many difficulties and imperfections that I imagine that the Chancellor will be content to leave it on the ground. I do not ask him to take the Clause back, but to leave it on the ground and not to bring in the payroll regulator within the time limit of the Bill.
  In turning to the subject of the imposition of new taxes, I am conscious of how easy it is to criticise taxes from these benches, where we do not have the responsibility that rests with the Chancellor.
  I know that my right hon. and learned Friend takes the point that he needs all these taxes in order to build up this impressive above-the-line surplus. But while recognising that, I am disappointed

  1669
  that so large an element in this taxation is taxation on industry, because taxation on industry is itself an element in cost inflation. I therefore feel that it would have been better if industry could have been spared at any rate some of this taxation. Of course, it is very tempting to a Chancellor to levy taxation on industry because it is primarily taxation on companies; and it is less politically unpopular to tax companies than to tax individuals. We all know the old saying that corporations have no souls to be damned and no posteriors to be kicked. But what is more important in this context is that they have no votes to be registered. Therefore, it is politically easier to tax companies.
  I do not think that that fact reflects much credit on us who are politicians because it is a short-term view. In the long-term, if we get too much taxation on industry, we cripple our competitive power, which means a diminution of the standard of life of all of us, and our last case is worse than the first. So we should not lightly impose taxes on companies and on industry because they are inflationary and inhibit production and exports.
  The main tax which I have in mind in this context is, of course, the tax on fuel oil, which is predominantly a tax on industry because 95 per cent. of its anticipated £50 million yield will come from industry. There is an average increase of 17 per cent. on the fuel oil costs of the average industrial user and up to a quarter in the case of a good many large companies. In the export market this increase in cost will raise our prices and be one further factor making it difficult to us to compete internationally. In the home market the tendency will be to pass the increased cost on to the consumer. There will be a rise in prices and a rise in the cost of living index, which will inject a further inflationary impulse into the economy. This I take to be inconsistent with the primary purpose of a counter-inflationary Budget. It is a trespass against the good intentions of the Bill and an inflationary cuckoo in the Chancellor's budgetary nest.
  I am not very impressed with the reasons for imposing it, though I appreciate the revenue-raising reasons, but I am
  1670
  particularly unimpressed with the reason referred to by the right hon. Member for Huyton, that the tax has not operated for fourteen years. Surely we are not proposing to accept the heterodox principle that every tax remission and tax alleviation carries with it the condition that it will be reimposed in the passage of time. I should not like to accept that principle, still less should I like to think—as in this case—that where a Socialist Chancellor has loosed a Conservative Chancellor would bind. I should not like to think that in this context, or in any other, the little finger of my right hon. and learned Friend was going to be thicker than the late Sir Stafford's loins.
  I do not like the tax because of its impact on industry. I could give a number of examples but I will not do so, having regard to the time of the House. I will give only one example because it is the most striking and because it happens to affect a large number of conscientious and hard-working citizens in my own constituency. I refer to the impact on the horticultural industry. Here the impact can be seen from a survey taken by the Lea Valley Growers' Association of 34 growers cultivating 186 acres of heated glass. They found through the survey that there would be annual addition to their expenditure from this tax of over £59,000, which works out at no less than about £320 an acre. I need not take up the time of the House—hon. Members know them well—by referring to the special disabilities and disadvantages under which the horticultural industry labours. As hon. Members know, the industry does not have the advantage of the Agriculture Acts. They know that it has been passing through a particularly difficult time, and therefore this impost may well be the deciding factor in whether their struggle for survival can succeed or not.
  Most important in this context, surely, is that many of these growers converted to oil because the Government thought that it was a good idea and wanted them to do so. If they are now to be taxed for so doing, surely that makes nonsense of economic and business planning and may involve the calling into question of the good faith of the Government in this matter. I do not regard the tax on fuel oil as a good tax, but I know that from a practical point of view we cannot expect the Chancellor to take back this year a

  1671
  tax which looms as large as this in his Budget. But if this tax is to go on, then I must ask him to do two things. First, to exempt horticulture from its provisions, for the reasons which I have given; and, secondly, to take out of the Bill Clause 2 (2) which imposes a tax on oil stored perfectly properly, according to ordinary business usage, because, as my right hon. and learned Friend will appreciate, this provision offends against our constitutional principle of not making tax retrospective.
  I will conclude with one short general observation arising out of what I have said. I repeat that the main purpose of this Budget is a proper and public-spirited purpose and one that should be commended. Where there are errors—and it is in the nature of these speeches that the larger proportion of one's speech must be spent on the points one criticises rather than on the much larger points which one commends—those errors have a common denominator and a common cause. They arise through an insufficient appreciation—if I may respectfully say so—of the impact of these measures on industry. I think that to some extent it reflects Treasury thinking to see the budgetry provisions too narrowly in a fiscal and financial context and not sufficiently in the wider ambit of the impact on industry.
  We know that all over the world Ministers of Finance and their officials are toiling to see how they can fashion their tax arrangements so as to impose the minimum handicap on industry. In this country, which, more than any other, is dependent on industry and overseas trade, we cannot afford to lag one iota behind in seeking to achieve the same result. We are fortunate in having a Chancellor of the Exchequer of great ability. I hope that the tenure of office of my right hon. and learned Friend will be longer than the average of his seven post-war predecessors, and I am sure that if he will have this concept in mind he can in his future Budgets render a signal service in strengthening our economy and sustaining our forward progress.
  6.40 p.m.
  Mr. A. Woodburn: The speech of the right hon. and learned Member for
  1672
  Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) has been very interesting and was efficiently delivered. The most impressive point he made was at the end, when he talked about the problem facing the horticultural industry in his constituency. The figures he gave were impressive. If the other figures about which he was talking earlier had been equally accurate that part of his speech might have been equally effective.
  It was not to his credit that he repeated cheap stuff about the public burden of money which the Chancellor has to spend. He detailed a good many things which no Chancellor has any option but to spend money on, such as defence and the charges for past and present debts; and then he came to public expenditure under the Civil Votes. He did not analyse that very clearly. Is he suggesting that the Chancellor should spend less on roads? Anyone with any sense realises that we ought to spend more on roads. Is he suggesting that instead of the Chancellor helping local authorities they should raise all their money by rates? For a former Minister of Health, of all people, to suggest that we should go back to the idea of everyone paying for his doctor and for hospital treatment was something which did not do him justice.
  The right hon. and learned Gentleman did a service in showing how ridiculous is the idea that the taxation which the Chancellor raises is something which can be done without and that it is only due to some frivolous idea on the part of the Treasury which likes to raise money. Taxation is necessary, and in some cases, as in public health, as the right hon. and learned Member knows, there is not enough spent. If that is the effective way of raising the money and spending it, we ought to continue in that way.
  Sir D. Walker-Smith: I do not think I can leave it on record that as a former Minister of Health I made any suggestion that people should pay for their doctors. I made no such suggestion and had none in mind. My proposal, which the right hon. Member can look up in the debate on 9th February, was for a Royal Commission to review the financing of the social services. That was all.
  Mr. Woodburn: The implication was that there were some economies which

  1673
  could be made in this direction. Every Government has tried that, and the right hon. and learned Member as Minister of Health tried it. I commend his behaviour as Minister of Health in trying to develop the Health Service. I think this suggestion was a thoughtless remark which comes from reading too much Conservative literature.
  I congratulate the Chancellor on having produced some new ideas. One of the most difficult things for a Chancellor to do is to find new ideas to produce in connection with Budgets or taxation. He has introduced instruments to try to level out the humps, the slumps and booms such as we had in pre-war years and those which may come in the future. Clearly, anyone who can invent an instrument to prevent these unnecessary ups and downs of our commercial life will be doing a service to the nation. He has done his best to find solutions for these difficulties.
  Whenever a Chancellor finds solutions for difficulties everyone then produces difficulties for his solutions. It is quite easy to do that. Naturally, that is one of the jobs which comes in criticism from an Opposition, or even from the Chancellor's own supporters. Everyone sees more difficulties in addition to those which the Chancellor has already discovered.
  I do not say that the instruments he has proposed are perfect, but we must give them a trial. They are certainly better than using the hire-purchase method of one minute suddenly stopping the sale of washing machines and refrigerators and the next minute trying to expand their sale. If something can be done which works more smoothly that will be better. In any case, we have no option because use of the hire purchase instrument has been exhausted.
  During 1959, when they were preparing for the election, banks and hire-purchase companies said, "Let it rip, boys" and everyone was invited to pledge his income for the next ten or fifteen years. Three years after that has been done that income cannot be pledged again for ten or fifteen years. That method has been exhausted as a way of putting on the brake. When brakes are put on there is squealing. The human being differs
  1674
  from the machine in that he squeals before the brakes go on.
  If inflation threatens and the Chancellor wants to curb it, he has to stop someone spending. That is simple. The question is, who is to be stopped from spending, how is he to be stopped, where and when? Our criticism in the past has been that the stopping of spending has been too indiscriminate. In some ways, we also criticised the use of the Bank Rate as a blind instrument which injured people who were exporting, just as it held up those who were building racecourse tracks.
  I have always held the view that we should discriminate between those carrying on industry for the benefit of the public and those engaged in enterprises which have no social benefit. The idea that housing should be treated in the same way as horse race and greyhound tracks has always seemed to me quite ridiculous. I have always been in favour of having graded interest charges for different types of services. There should be lower charges for public services and, say, for industrialists who go to the Highlands to start industry there rather than to the Midlands and to London where they cannot help making money. The Colonial Secretary has applied this principle to Malta. He has a wonderful scheme whereby while industry is being developed there it is relieved of paying Income Tax.
  Such instruments are extremely valuable and should be used for the location of industry where it is needed. If much more industry comes to the Midlands and London, traffic there will be blocked and finally come to a stop. The Chancellor is at least to be congratulated on making an attempt to find some new instrument to deal with this problem. No one can raise objection to taxation of some kind putting a curb on spending. It would be better to start at the other end and to prevent costs rising.
  We had this difficulty when we were in Government. The late Sir Stafford Cripps made an appeal to companies, trade unions and workers, to everyone, to try to restrain development of income and raise the production of the country. It is possible to do that from a moral basis where we try to treat everyone fairly. It becomes quite impossible if suddenly reliefs in taxation are given

  1675
  only to a certain group of people with between £2,000 and £5,000 a year. The Government have no moral basis to say to the man with £11 or £12 a week, "Hold back. We are going to give money to the Surtax payer". With the imposition of a poll tax on the one hand and this relief of Surtax on the other, it is impossible on any moral ground to apply restraint at the beginning. So the restraint has to come after costs rise, and they have to be cut down.
  I wish the Government would take the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Pitman) into consultation, because he is an expert on organisation and methods. I had the honour of introducing the Report on the Organisation and Methods Subcommittee of the Select Committee on National Expenditure. In that speech I instanced some of the things we did in this country which seemed simply fantastic. Speaking from memory, at that time there were five or six people entitled to go into a poor person's home to find out what his income was, what his conditions were and whether he was entitled to different kinds of relief. It was ridiculous.
  This is going on today, because under the financial arrangements which the Government have introduced this year it is possible for an old-age pensioner who is not entitled to supplementary benefit to be obliged to travel by bus to a National Assistance office, if he is to recover money paid for prescriptions, in order to qualify for 2s. relief on a prescription. The Government tell an old lady that she must travel five or ten miles to the central office to collect 2s. or 3s. in order to take it back and to hand it over to the chemist, for him to hand it back to the Government. Is this not chasing one's tail economically? I am sure that the hon. Member for Bath, with his knowledge of organisation and methods, could greatly improve on the Government's method of doing this.
  If a company had an executive officer who is not working well because his salary does not sufficiently inspire him, the company has a very simple remedy: it can give him a rise in salary, and that counts as a cost on which the company does not pay Income Tax. But the Government say, "The companies do not know what they are doing. We will give
  1676
  the man a rise in salary. The Government will take profits from the company by taxation, bring them to the Treasury, carry out a burdensome procedure and then hand the money to the executive as a rise in salary in terms of taxation remission." In fact it could be done without the money ever leaving the office of the firm concerned. If the firm did it, then it could be discriminatory. When the Government do it, it is non-discriminatory and everybody gets it whether they play any part in exports or not.
  No one will believe the story that the Surtax relief is an inspiration to people to export more or to make progress in science. That could be done without all this circumlocution. I believe that the hon. Member for Bath left an organisation and methods department behind him, and the Government should bring it into the Treasury to examine Treasury methods of finance.
  What is the purpose of the tax on television? It taxes advertisements for soap and detergents. In order to put a tax on soap and detergents, the Government start by putting a tax on television which gradually works round to the soap. If they want to tax soap, why not do so directly? Why have all this paraphernalia of going through television and pretending that we are taxing television when we are taxing the user of soap? If there is any advantage in taxing the user of soap—we previously encouraged the use of soap because we believed that cleanliness was next to godliness, but it may be different with detergents—then why not do so directly?
  There is another roundabout—the machinery for the payroll tax. The arrangement for imposing an extra tax has been introduced because we might be faced with a financial crisis during the year. Where will the financial crisis arise? It will come from all the speculators who expect a big rake-off from capital appreciation if they can get the £ going up and down in the world financial centres. But instead of dealing with the speculators and those who gain from the capital appreciation rake-off if they start a crisis, the Government determine that industry must pay 4s. a head on its workers and that consumers must pay an increased tax. The crisis is being caused by one set of people and the

  1677
  Government are punishing another. This reminds me of the story of the whipping boy of James I. He used George Buchanan as a whipping boy; if he did anything wrong, poor George Buchanan was whipped. If the speculators cause a crisis, the Government do not deal with the speculators; they tax the consumer.
  On Sunday morning I was listening to some people on the wireless talking about public schools, and I have never heard anything more tragic in my life. We heard a woman speak who went charring in the mornings and of her husband, who otherwise could have afforded a car, cycling to work and teaching at night-school in order to send their one ewe lamb to a public school. Others were doing similar things. When the question was asked why they did it, a noble Lord who took part in the programme had to admit that it was very largely snobbery. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] They gain some advantages, as they think, through their boys being able to look after themselves and being self-controlled, but I am horrified to think of these families exhausting themselves to send their sons to public school. It is all very well for millionaires, such as some hon. Members opposite, who can easily spare the money, but these people with £2,000 a year get into all the difficulties of which the Chancellor spoke. The Chancellor wept tears about their difficulties in sending their sons to public schools, when, as the noble Lord admitted, they would get a far better education if they went to secondary schools.
  Mr. Nabarro: Who was the noble Lord?
  Mr. Woodburn: I do not know. There are a few of them.
  Mr. Nabarro: Who was the noble Lord on the programme?
  Mr. Woodburn: The hon. Member should ask the B.B.C. and not ask me. He was described as a member of one of the oldest and noblest families of England. He sends his own two sons to public school not because he can afford it but because, curiously enough, he says that it will enable them to get into the right places later on—as if being the sons of one of the oldest families in
  1678
  this country would not get them there anyway!
  In any case, this is the kind of reason given for asking us to agree to the relief in Surtax. It was pathetic and, indeed, tragic to listen to this discussion. If that is the reason that people need this Surtax relief, then the sooner they are relieved of the problem altogether the better; either abolish the public schools or make it impossible for them to continue this practice by not giving them taxation relief.
  It is wrong that there should be these jumps in taxation. There may be an argument against Surtax and against a person suddenly having to pay Surtax when his income reaches £2,000 a year. It is like the sound barrier to an aeroplane. We can reach a certain speed and are then brought to a halt by the sound barrier. Sooner or later the Treasury must get down to the business of producing a graduated system of Income Tax right up the scale so that it follows a curve which is reasonable and acceptable to all people paying Income Tax.
  There ought to be not these jumps but a steady increase in graduated taxation so that, as far as possible, people pay according to their ability to pay. I agree that we cannot get rid of the poll tax altogether, because for some curious reason the public do not like paying taxes even according to their ability to pay. There are some things in this world which are regarded as sins, such as paying rents and paying taxes. People like to pay their taxes in a way which prevents them from realising that they are paying them. They like to have the twilight sleep to which the right hon. Member for Monmouth (Mr. Thorney-croft) sometimes referred in another connection. They like to pay their taxes without knowing anything about it.
  That is their ideal, and we must accept it. The Chancellor must pay attention to it. But even so, the system must be fair, and I repeat—I cannot say this too often—that one of the most shameful things about our financial transactions is that the Government this year have interfered between a sick person and the medicine which he needs. Since I last spoke on the subject the pharmacists have pointed out what has been pointed out before—that old people are

  1679
  going into chemists' shops and asking, "Which of these items of the prescription can I take, because I cannot afford to buy them all?" This has been done in order to save a few pounds at a time when millions of pounds are being handed to people who in many cases do not need it. I hope that the Government, even at this late stage, will reconsider that part of it. It may seem that in mentioning this at the end of my speech I regard it as a rather small item, but that is not the case, because I regard it as the worst flaw in the whole of the Government's financial arrangements this year. I hope that the Chancellor and the Government will reconsider it and wipe it out altogether as a stain on their proceedings.
  7.0 p.m.
  Sir Beresford Craddock: In view of the time factor I shall comment very briefly on one or two points made by the right hon. Member for Clackmannan and East Stirlingshire (Mr. Woodburn). I feel that it is my duty to correct him when he suggests that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) said that there should be a cutting down of some of the expenditure on the social services. That was quite unworthy of the right hon. Gentleman. My right hon. and learned Friend made no such suggestion. Indeed, he was tackling the very point which the right hon. Gentleman himself tried to make. We are faced with a very substantial burden of expenditure that it is quite impossible to avoid, and that difficulty will face us for many years to come.
  I also think that the right hon. Gentleman's remarks about the public schools were rather unworthy of a Privy Councillor. That sort of attitude disturbs me. I do not wish to enter into personalities, but I did not got to a public school myself and I had a struggle to get a good education; but from my experience and observation of life I feel that the public school system in England is a first-class system. I hope that it will be maintained and that nothing will be done to destroy it. Furthermore, I hope that even more boys are given a chance of a public school education.
  Mr. Woodburn: I think that it would be advisable for every child to have a
  1680
  period of residential education. The hon. Member may regard that as a form of public school education. What I think pathetic is that people should ruin themselves in the stupid fashion which I have mentioned in order to send their children to a public school.
  Sir B. Craddock: Like the right hon. Gentleman I come from over the Border, and I am sure that he will agree that we find a few stupid people in every section of society and in every country. I do not want to take up the time of the House with extraneous matters or, indeed, with vulgar fractions, but I feel that I am entitled to address a few remarks to the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson). I am sorry that he is not in the Chamber, but I warned him that I should be addressing some of my remarks to him, and saying why I think that I am entitled to do so.
  The right hon. Gentleman spoke about some of the proposals of the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the effect which those proposals would have on the old-age pensioners. I could not follow the right hon. Gentleman's argument and asked him whether he would give a concrete example in figures. With his usual bitter tongue, instead of trying to be polite about it, he said that if I would just listen to him it might improve my education. May I say—and I want it on the record—that I am always out to get more education and to learn something, but I prefer to choose my masters.
  The trouble with the right hon. Member for Huyton—and I have listened to him on many occasions when he has made speeches on the Budget and finance—is that he spoils fairly good matter with bitter personal attacks. For years he has been attacking my right hon. Friends personally. This is what I object to. I do not object to attacks on policy, but I do object to the personal attacks which one has listened to for years on the Prime Minister and the Chancellor and many other right hon. Members on the Treasury Front Bench. I think that it is poor. He seems to have got away with it fairly well. I think, however, that the time has come when a slight reply should be made to him.
  When my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was Chancellor of the Exchequer the right hon. Member for Huyton began

  1681
  his reply to the Budget proposals with a bit of doggerel which went something like, "Turn Gladstone's face to the wall, Harold"—all very amusing. I will be kind to the right hon. Gentleman and flatter him by giving him a little doggerel of my own. I hope that he will read it and inwardly learn and digest it:
  "Turn your face to the wall, Harold.
  Sez I, sez I, to myself.
  I deserted B., to follow G.,
  Now I find myself on the shelf.
  But the winds of change are blowing, Harold,
  May they come with a mighty rush,
  May they blow behind me and sweep away G,
  I pray them, my leader, to crush."
  I want to turn to rather more pleasant matters for a few minutes. I should like to join in the congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Mr. Buck) on his maiden speech. I am sure that we all agree that it was a very excellent effort. It reminded me with slight feelings of nostalgia of my own maiden speech which I made on the Budget of 1950, when we all sat elsewhere and the late and much respected Sir Stafford Cripps was Chancellor of the Exchequer. On that occasion one of the principal spokesmen of the Conservative Opposition was my right hon. and learned Friend who is now the Chancellor. At that time, when I was a newcomer, he gave me some very kindly advice. Therefore, apart from other considerations, I am delighted to see him in his high office, and I wish him every success possible in the future.
  For many a long day I have held the view that there has been, and still is, a section of thought in this country which feels that the world owes us a living. I do not subscribe to that point of view. I have taken the view, and I have expresed it in the House and on the platform on many occasions, that we shall be in a very difficult and sometimes dangerous position for some years to come.
  Mr. C. Osborne: We are now.
  Sir B. Craddock: I am very glad to know that my knowledgeable Friend the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. C. Osborne) agrees, because I am sure that that is right.
  Until we can get our reserves up to a far higher figure than they stand today I believe that we shall always have these
  1682
  difficulties. We saw from the return published yesterday that there had been a fall in our reserves. I do not think that that should worry us too much because, as I think the financial Press said, it was mostly hot money leaving the country, and our reserves, even with that loss, may be in a sounder position than they were even a few days ago. Nevertheless, I feel that until we get our reserves up to £3,000 million or £4,000 million, three to four times what they are today, we shall always have these difficulties and our economic and financial position may well remain precarious.
  Viewing our financial and economic problems against that background, I ask myself how my right hon. and learned Friend's Budget proposals fit into the picture. I believe that he has tackled this very difficult problem in a very sensible and, if I may say so, courageous manner. His proposals are designed to result in a very small deficit overall, and it is courageous in the highest degree that he should have tackled this problem in this way.
  It will, naturally, take time to improve the position, but I hope that in his Budgets of the next, say, five or six years, the Chancellor will continue the good work, when I believe that it will be possible each year, for some years, to improve our reserves by between £200 million and £250 million and, as a result, build them up to a very satisfactory sum. From what one knows of his proposals already, I am sure that he has that in mind.
  Despite what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Huyton said about giving me further education, I think that no matter how long we are in this House we are always learning. One thing we learn is that no matter what is said on the other side of the House, or even from the back benchers here, there is little chance of persuading the Chancellor to make substantial alterations in his proposals.
  Another is that after we have listened to one or two speeches from the Front Benches, and after one or two back benchers on either side have spoken, there is little more to be said. It is in that position that I find myself now. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) has touched on the very points with which I had hoped to deal,

  1683
  but, if I may, I shall make my remarks as I intended, because, as I think my right hon. and learned Friend already knows, my approach to these matters is somewhat different from his.
  Let us consider these two so-called regulators. I agree that to add 10 per cent. to Customs and Excise Duties is a far better way of dealing with consumption, if it has to be out down, than was the old means of severer hire-purchase regulations, and the like. Speaking of hire purchase, I hope that the Government will maintain the present rates for some time to come. Being a little old-fashioned in my outlook on financial matters, I am not very keen about hire purchase. It has its good points, and can play an important part in the economy, but the danger is that with it, as with so many other things, there is abuse.
  I was interested to read in the financial columns of The Times the other day an article dealing with the report issued by an organisation whose main function is to deal with hire-purchase transactions. The article said that this report suggested that in a very few years the hire-purchase debt may rise to as much as £2,500 million. I must say that if it is to increase at that rate it should be watched very carefully indeed.
  I agree with my right hon. and learned Friend that, apart from the fact that the payroll tax can be used to take consuming power from the economy if necessary, it may have the effect—or ought to have the effect—of encouraging the efficient use of labour. I must confess, however, that I share the doubts that have already been expressed as to whether this particular method will have the desired effect even if it has to be put into operation.
  I want to give the House an example that always comes to my mind when the discussion is about the efficient use of labour. A few years ago, there was a recession—though not quite as bad as the recent one—in the motor car industry. With some of my colleagues, I met some of the directors of the various Midlands firms in order to see whether there was any way in which we could help.
  I was absolutely staggered to be told by a director of one company that it had for years been carrying on its pay-
  1684
  roll 2,000 more employees than it really needed. With the best will in the world I could not regard that as efficient use of labour—or, indeed, as efficient management. While I am not happy about my right hon. and learned Friend's suggestion of a payroll tax, I believe that consideration should be given in future to the efficient use of labour—
  Mr. Douglas Houghton: Did those people tell the hon. Gentleman why they were doing that? Did they give him a reason for doing it?
  Sir B. Craddock: I am much obliged to the hon. Gentleman for asking that question. I did not want to touch on it, because it is sometimes rather a delicate matter. They gave two reasons. First, it was being done because of the restrictive practices of the trade unions. Secondly, in that recession there was such competition for labour that they had to keep those people on, so to speak, to have a surplus. As I say, I had not intended to enlarge on it, but I am much obliged to the hon. Gentleman for giving me the chance of giving the reasons.
  I am glad that my right hon. and learned Friend will keep on the two regulators only as a temporary measure, so to speak; that, if brought in, they will have to come before the House for ratification at least once a year. That is absolutely essential. I have the very greatest admiration for our Civil Service, but I feel that there is far too much power, not only in Whitehall but in the town hall. We have to watch that very carefully. The more one sees of these matters and the more one considers them the more one must feel that quite a strong case can be made out for the Ombudsman.
  I take a different view from that of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, East on the increased duty on fuel oil. One of the things that alarms me whenever a tax is increased is that the cry goes up from somebody, or some section, whether it is the individual or industry, "This will hurt us." It is inevitable that when one is compelled to increase taxation, someone will suffer.
  Quite frankly, what disturbs me about industry today is that whenever anything like this happens, the increase is passed on to the consumer. I should have

  1685
  thought that one of the main objects of business, would be to try, if possible, to absorb these increased costs so that it would not be necessary to pass them on to the consumer. This additional tax brings in £50 million a year and, I can see no very strong objection to it.
  It has been asked whether this tax is designed to help the coal industry and, in fairness, I cannot feel that it is wrong if it does. It is our duty to help our own industries. To use a hackneyed but, nevertheless, true phrase, "Charity begins at home", and I would like to see more help given to our own industries rather than that we should pour money overseas where there is doubtful security in the long-term future.
  I want, finally, to refer to Surtax. I shall not go into all the arguments for and against what I consider to be an excellent measure. It has been said that it will increase incentive. I believe that it will, particularly in the salary bracket of £2,000 to £5,000 a year. I will give the House an example which came to my notice. The son of a constituent of mine, an able young man of 34 or 35, is occupying a responsible position as the manager of a branch of a large company in the north of England. Strange to say, he is earning the same sum as Members of Parliament are paid, namely, £1,750 a year.
  His company want him to come to London and to take a responsible position at its head office at a salary of £3,500 a year. He will not do it and his argument is that he will have to sell up his home and come to London and buy a new house—with which he may be helped by the company—and that his living expenses, and so on, will be higher and, above all, that he will come into the Surtax range and not be any better off than he was with £1,750 in the North.
  There must be thousands of similar cases throughout the country, and my only regret about Surtax is that unearned income, as it is called, has not been included. The phrase "unearned income" is a misnomer. I prefer to call it "savings income" and increased savings is one of the things we need and such a concession would encourage saving.
  Mr. S. O. Davies: There may be some inducement to the Surtax payer, but does not the hon. Member agree that it would be a tremendous incentive to the £10 or £12-a-week family man if anything were done by the Government to improve his conditions in industry?
  Sir B. Craddock: I am sure that the hon. Member would agree that during the past few years every section of the taxpaying community has had some relief from Budgets introduced by successive Chancellors and that this class of taxpayer should be given some relief as an act of common fairness, justice and decency.
  I am sure that the Bill will be carried through the House, but, much more important, I am certain that the Chancellor's proposals have been accepted by thinking people throughout the country, as sensible and courageous.
  7.24 p.m.
  Mr. J. Grimond: I have known the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Sir B. Craddock) for a long time, but, as he says, we are always learning new things. I knew that he was a successful musician and successful politician and a successful business man, but I never knew that he was a poet, and I congratulate him on this new outbreak, rather late in life, and I look forward to further maiden poems in the House of Commons.
  His closing remarks struck me as odd. If the Budget has commended itself widely to thinking people, they have not made that very clear at the ballot box. I am interested in the reaction to the Budget on the Tory benches, because it is about the same year by year. Hon. Members opposite praise it in general and condemn it in every particular.
  The Chancellor must be particularly disappointed by the reaction to what is obviously one of his pets—his little scheme for a payroll tax. It has been referred to on the benches opposite as an interesting ballon d'essai, but it is clear that the Tories hope that the balloon will never leave the ground. Most keen balloonists want to get afloat at some time, but I have a feeling that that will never happen in this case, because there are few more vulnerable things to attack than a balloon. Hon. Members who saw the film "Kind Hearts

  1687
  and Coronets" will remember the words: "I shot an arrow in the air; it fell to earth in Berkeley Square". If the Chancellor brought in a payroll tax, that might happen.
  The other think that usually happens on the benches opposite is that there is a paean of praise for the the incoming Chancellor. Each new Chancellor is hailed with high hope and a shower of compliments, but when he departs he is sent upstairs, or even further away. The curious thing is that for most of the people in the country these high hopes and new departures are not apparent. What is apparent is that our economy has remained very much in the same rut for the last ten years. We have lacked growth and we have always been on the edge of a balance of payments crisis.
  The Budget's unpopularity in the country is due not solely to the Chancellor's preoccupation with Surtax payers, but to the growing realisation of the Government's complacency with the country's economic performance. The troubles of our economy stick out a mile. As has so often been said, we lag behind other great industrial countries in our rate of growth and we are losing our share of the export markets. At the same time, our reserves are constantly in danger of falling below the tolerable limit and we get nowhere near earning a surplus of £300 million which Conservative Chancellors have told us is the minimum we need.
  Every now and again, The Times publishes one of those little graphs showing how the value of the £ has declined quite steadily and almost at the same rate under Tory Governments as under Labour Governments—and what trouble the Labour Government got into in the days when the Tories were the Opposition!
  In the circumstances, one would have expected a Finance Bill deliberately designed to encourage productivity and efficiency. The first question we have to ask is whether there is anything in this Finance Bill which will do that. The only thing which Government speakers have pointed to as an incentive to productivity is the reduction in the Surtax rate. I do not deny that there are people in the £2,000–£5,000 bracket who are deterred from changing their
  1688
  jobs because of the high rate of taxation. That is the point. It does not follow that they will get up earlier or work harder because they have had this concession, but it will create more mobility at an admittedly important point in the economy. I admit that, but the change should have been introduced as part of a general revision of taxation, with a graduated Income Tax and some scheme for encouraging wider share ownership—co-ownership and profit-sharing—with a tax on short-term capital gains and on increases in land values. In that context it would have made sense and would have been combined with a general incentive to the community.
  I do not altogether despair of the Government bringing in a capital gains tax, because we can be sure that Conservative Governments will encourage something and then knock it on the head. As the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) pointed out, the Government had done just that by encouraging horticulturists to change over to fuel oil and then putting an extra tax on it. Having encouraged trustees to go into the equity market, they will soon introduce a capital gains tax.
  There are no other major proposals in the Budget aimed at meeting the country's pressing need for a more efficient and lively economy. The various Government spokesmen have made no effort to make out a case that there is anything else in the Budget. With the present difficulties with exports, I should have thought that the Government would have attempted to reduce costs. Instead, they have increased the duty on fuel oil, which cannot be considered encouraging to industry, agriculture or horticulture and which is certainly not a direct inducement to lower costs. They have perpetuated the double taxation of companies and, whatever the Chancellor may say, the result of the increase in Profits Tax must be to reduce, at least to some extent, the amount of money available for investment.
  One would have thought that we could have had a cut in tariffs to make our economy rather more lively, and to reduce costs, but when an hon. Member asked a Question the other day, the President of the Board of Trade still refused to remove the duty on machinery

  1689
  of under £2,000 in value, even if it was not made in this country, but which was essential for a small business which, in turn, might help the export trade.
  I do not suggest that the increase in the vehicle licence will be a very severe addition to costs, but I protest against the argument put forward by the Chancellor in favour of it. The argument seems to be that if a duty has not been increased for some years, it is therefore its turn for an increase now. I protest against that, and we cannot accept the new proposition that any taxation which has not been increased for five years must automatically go up.
  If we examine this Budget for its relevance to growth it fails, and growth is, I maintain, if not the most essential one of the two most essential needs in the economy. The other is to have growth without ravening inflation. The Chancellor's object with the proposed regulators which are to be brought in is to prevent inflation in the economy. They are to be used to skim money income if the circumstances demand it. The first criticism which I have of these regulators is that if they are brought in early in August we should either have to have Parliament back or we should lose one of our most cherished privileges—the right to discuss taxation, if not in advance of its being levied at any rate soon after.
  There is a genuine difficulty here with any regulator, and that is that we must bring it in quickly. I agree that it is somewhat anomalous that we debate some minor matters at some considerable length, but we are under no obligation, and seldom do, to debate very important increases in the rate of interest. There is an anomaly in the situation in that we can increase the Purchase Tax by regulations, but I beg the Government to realise that there is great anxiety about the possible size of these new departures—which has been said to amount to £200 million—particularly with the payroll tax. I beg them also to realise that however we may admire and respect them—much or little—it is not enough to say, "We would not do anything wicked". The point is that it is the duty of the House to see that the Government could not do anything wicked; not to rely on their good will.
  If we look at the payroll tax, I do not deny that there may be a case for
  1690
  a tax designed to increase the use of machinery in some industries at the expense of labour if an industry is using too much labour. This tax is not designed to do that, but is simply designed as an economic regulator, in which case it could have some very undersirable results in its present form. It would fall with peculiar severity on some industries which cannot avoid employing much labour, and among these industries are the shipyards and the nationalised industries. The nationalised industries would be pushed into the red by the tax and would simply go back to the taxpayers with demands that their deficits must be met. I very much doubt whether that is what the Government desire. Surely, if we should have this tax at all, there must be some method of differentiation. I appreciate that there is some differentiation in the Bill as between different classes of employed, but the difficulty is that with this sort of taxation there must be differentiation between districts or between industries.
  Mr. Jay: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will realise that, as it stands, it would apply also to the police and the fire service.
  Mr. Grimond: I agree, and to education and farming, and it will hit all the people in the north of Scotland where some labour is employed on the farms and could not be dismised.
  Let us look at the circumstances in which the regulator might be used when inflation at home is drawing in more imports than exports justify. What are the export industries going to say at this juncture when they have to face this direct and deliberate addition to their costs? I do not think that the Government will have a very happy time. The argument is, quite rightly, that the charge is too small to affect the general employment of labour in, for instance, the motor industry, but this is going to be a direct overall increase in costs which in some industries will be serious.
  Furthermore, the implication behind the tax is most peculiar. It surely is that either labour is too cheap—and, if so, why not put up wages—or that we should up value the £ because the whole of British costs are too cheap and out of step with the rest of the world. This cannot have been seriously in the

  1691
  minds of the Government. Finally, it is another extension of the growing tendency to use industry for tax collection. I do not think that we realise how much time and energy is taken up in industry by doing this work of tax collection.
  As to the other regulator, the increase or decrease in the Purchase Tax, this seems to me more defensible, but it is a haphazard instrument. What the Chancellor is going to do is for purely economic reasons and because we may get into balance of payments difficulties, to increase the duty on those commodities that already bear a heavy duty, whether there is any justification or penalising them any further or not. We simply increase or decrease the cost of things that already bear a high rate of excise duty. We may want to do that or we may not, and it is quite conceivable that we may not, and I should think that for that purpose this is a very blunt instrument, and most of the economic instruments we have had have been blunt enough.
  I should like to see in this Bill an indication that there is going to be radical change in budgetary methods. I should like to have seen a longer term Budget for capital needs and I should also like to have seen targets at which we may aim some plans for growth and some method of relating the Estimates to the taxation that has to be raised to meet them. I should like to have seen a real incentive to productivity. I therefore believe that this Budget and this Finance Bill are not giving the nation the lead that it needs. I do not believe that growth is sufficiently in the forefront of the Government's mind. I do not believe that the Government have realised that if they are to tackle something like Surtax, it should be done as part of a general overhaul of the whole system of taxation.
  Indeed, if I felt that this was the beginning, the turning over of a new leaf by the Tory Party, I should take a more favourable view, but leaf after leaf has been turned over in this painful book, and still we are in the position in which we continue to face this dilemma of stagnation, on the one hand, or the threat of inflation on the other.
  7.38 p.m.
  Sir Alexander Spearman: The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond)
  1692
  seems to think that we have had a rather humdrum Budget. As he knows, I quite often agree with him, but this is not one of those occasions. I believe that my right hon. and learned Friend's Budget will go down in history as a most notable one, because he has brought up to date, or, at any rate, brought more up to date, the machinery for guiding the economy.
  In this House, we all support the policy of full employment, though we do not all agree on defining what is the optimum figure of full employment. It seems to me that we do not sufficiently realise that, like many other things, a price has to be paid. We have to plan and manipulate the economy so that there is always a fair balance between the supply of goods and the demand for them, and, above all, we must combat inflation, because inflation is always hurtful and can be disastrous. I do not believe that, with the previous machinery, it was possible for the Chancellor to do that as well as it should be done.
  I do not believe that the economy can be guided by fiscal changes at yearly intervals, because there are so many unforeseen and unforeseeable things which occur in twelve months. For that reason, the Chancellor has had to rely a great deal on the monetary weapon. I believe that that is indisputable and that used drastically enough it is immensely effective. But the monetary weapon does hit investment and most of us wish to restrict excessive demand by cutting down consumption. For that reason, I believe that fiscal measures must be taken in conjunction with the monetary weapon all through the year and, therefore, I warmly support the introduction of the regulators.
  There are two things that I wish to say about these regulators. First, I still regret that the Chancellor has not seen his way to bringing in a sales tax of some sort, because I believe that that would be a more flexible and effective weapon which would distort the economy less. I have always been told that one of the objections to it is the number of collection centres which would be necessary. It has been suggested to me that that might be solved by having a flat-rate tax on retailers' turnover to be administered by the Inland Revenue, which has already the knowledge of profits which should enable it to check

  1693
  and prevent tax evasion. I wonder whether the Treasury has considered this and, if not, whether it is not worth very careful examination.
  My second point about the regulators concerns the timing of them. When there is something unpopular to do, it is very tempting to wait until the need to do it is obvious to everyone. In this case, if my right hon. and learned Friend waits until it is obvious he will have waited too long. Surely it is much better to prevent a dangerous situation occurring by taking relatively small steps than to try to cure a dangerous situation, which means taking drastic steps. I make the guess that the time may not be far off when my right hon. and learned Friend will have to use at any rate one of these regulators.
  I should like, briefly, to give my reasons for saying this so that my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary can comment on them and destroy them if he will. I think that it is possible to make a rough guess about the increase in resources in the course of the year because, with employment at its present level, there can be no great increase in production above the average increase in growth, which is about 3 per cent. If there is a 3 per cent. increase in the gross national product this year, that will give added resources of about £750 million. On the other hand, Government expenditure on services is increasing by about £100 million. Investment looks like going up by about £400 million. That leaves a balance of £250 million.
  But the Chancellor has predicted an increase in consumption of 3½ per cent. I am not sure that he has not understated the figure. Three-and-a-half per cent. is £525 million, so that it looks as though we are faced with a gap of over £200 million. In making this rough and ready calculation, I have ignored the reduction in stock accumulation, because I cannot see that that is likely to decline by more than £350 million, which is the amount of the balance of payments deficit.
  The second reason why I believe that this is a very notable Budget and will, I hope, be a pattern for Conservative thought in future is that my right hon. and learned Friend seems to be striking at poverty rather than at inequality. I
  1694
  do not believe that the nation as a whole minds very much—[Interruption.] I am excluding those who are trying to get votes—if the well-off become a bit better off if in the process the poor become less poor.
  I cannot believe in people who say that the heavy tax burden is not a disincentive. If, by further exertions, by risks to his possessions or health, or by taking less leisure, a person who, before the Budget, was earning £5,000, can increase his income to £6,000, in this country he will get only £400 of this increase. In the United States, France and Germany he would get nearly double that sum. This must be some disincentive to greater effort. Some hon. Members, including the hon. and learned Member for Crewe (Mr. Scholefield Allen), seemed to think that the only thing that mattered was to encourage exports. I am as aware as anyone of the urgent need to increase our exports. But it is no solution just to divert more goods to the export market.
  It is no good exporting more unless we can either expand production or cut down demand here. Unless we do that, all that will happen is that prices will increase. If we export more or import less the result is higher prices. Balance of payments deficits and inflation are alternatives. They are symptoms of the same disease. I think that, on the whole, the deficit on balance of payments is probably the lesser evil of the two, because it is more easily reversible.
  I am sorry that the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. W. Wilson) is not present, because I propose to comment, not on the speech that he made today, but on the one he made in the Budget debate. He made a most remarkable statement. He said:
  "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…."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 18th April, 1951; Vol. 638, c.980.]
  The right hon. Gentleman often chooses to amuse rather than to instruct us, and perhaps I am wrong in taking seriously what he said on that occasion, but it is inconceivable that a serious-minded man could say that production in this country or in the United States of America could have increased since 1951 as much as it increased in Western Europe.
  Mr. James Dempsey: Why?
  Sir A. Spearman: In 1951, in Germany, France and other Western European countries there were the men, the "know-how" and the skill, but there was no capital equipment, partly because of the devastation of the war and partly because, particularly in France, they were tremendously backward in their organisation and modernisation. Therefore, a very small investment would produce an enormous return.
  Let me give an extreme and obvious example. If a small piece of a long railway line is not working, the investment spent on repairing it would bring a gigantic return. If the right hon. Gentleman starts at one, it is easy to get a 100 per cent. increase. If he starts at 100 it is a good deal more difficult. If he walks at one mile an hour, he can quadruple his speed fairly easily, but if he walks at four miles an hour he will find it very difficult to walk four times as fast. So far behind was Western Europe in capital equipment that, in spite of reservoirs of labour which we do not have, natural resources which we do not have and a less heavy tax burden, the income per head is still lower there than it is here.
  Mr. Cyril Bence: Some of those things may be true in respect of Germany, but I hope that the hon. Member appreciates that for six years France has had the serious problem for her national economy of having to use 600,000 troops.
  Sir A. Spearman: I said earlier that France's equipment in 1951, or even in 1956, was infinitely less than ours. What matters is the point from which one starts.
  I do not say that there is anything to be complacent about concerning our position, although I take a different view from the gloomy one of the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland. Since 1952, the gross national product has increased by 25 per cent., an average of 3 per cent per year. From 1948 to 1953, for which period the present Government were not largely responsible, the annual growth was 2½ per cent. From 1953 to 1960, when the present Government have been responsible for the economy, the
  1696
  growth has been 3¼ per cent., which is a little more than in the United States and double the pre-war figure. I repeat that there is nothing to be complacent about, but, equally, there is no need to take as gloomy a view as is suggested by those whose political outlook colours their views.
  If we could get more mobility of labour or fewer restrictive practices, we could push up the growth a little more. The quickest way to increase growth would be for the Government to make it impossible for incompetent firms to carry one. Too often there is pressure from both sides of the House, not least from the right hon. Member for Huyton, to make it easy for the incompetent to carry on. It is not only in war that it pays to reinforce success rather than failure.
  My fear is that consumption will increase rapidly. It looks to me as though wages will increase at a bigger rate than hitherto. If that happens, there will be no surplus capacity. Almost every industrialist will be able to sell almost everything he makes. In that event, there will be no competition to keep prices down and there will be immense competition for labour. The result will be that wages go up at a faster rate than production. That, inevitably, means inflation. The remedy is to check demand.
  I should like to ask my right hon. and learned Friend two questions. I believe that if he is to take action in time, he may have to use his regulators. Can he use them before August? Can he use them before the Finance Bill is passed? If not, should he not consider taking powers so to do?
  7.53 p.m.
  Mr. John Diamond: The hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Sir A. Spearman) said that the Chancellor's Budget was a notable one, and with that I agree. It was not notable, however, for the reasons that the hon. Member suggested. It is a notable Budget because, far from being a Budget which gives to the rich and to the poor at the same time, it is a Budget which gives exclusively to the rich. I do not know to which part of the Finance Bill the hon. Member was referring when he made his statement, which to me was completely unintelligible, that nobody

  1697
  minded the rich being made richer if the poor became better off at the same time.
  Sir A. Spearman: The object of the tax concessions is not to reward the rich who have investments but to give an incentive to earners. I believe that that will stimulate production. The object is not to reward but to stimulate the economy.
  Mr. Diamond: I am glad that the hon. Member has altered his first point, because he made a mistake in what he said earlier. He is now making the different point that the Finance Bill will stimulate production, but again the hon. Member is wrong. There is nothing to show that the reduction in Surtax will stimulate production. There are four well-documented, authoritative, exhaustive reports to show precisely the opposite. I will not bore the House with them again; I quoted all of them when I had the good fortune to be called in the Budget debate.
  There is nobody here who has yet said, "I myself will work harder as a result of Surtax relief". We are always told of somebody who knows somebody else, or we are told that it must be the case that a certain class of person will work harder for reasons of mobility or something else.
  We were told of the man who refused to move from his job in the provinces to a job in London at a much increased salary because he could not afford to do so, notwithstanding the increase in salary, mainly as a result of the increased cost of living in London and partly because of the deductions which his higher income would bring in terms of tax. Only three weeks ago, a mother came to see me about her boy who had a good job in Gloucester. He had been offered a Government job in London but could not take it. He would have commenced at a small salary, but the cost of renting rooms in London was prohibitive. That boy was not in the £5,000, the £2,000 or the £1,000 a year range. He was well below that. The reason had nothing to do with Surtax.
  The hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby will forgive me if I say that it is a notable Budget but that he has made a notable speech in that he omitted to mention the whole impact of
  1698
  the Budget. I was sorry to hear the hon. Member, who usually is so fair and knowledgeable in economic matters, refer to a sales tax without dealing with the main argument against it. The reason why everyone on this side protests bitterly against it is that it is a regressive tax, and it is from regressive taxation by the Government that we suffer enough already.
  I wish to turn for a moment to the regulators, concerning which constructive views have been expressed from both sides. Of course, we welcome new ideas and we welcome good economic planning devices. What we do not welcome is methods which parade as economic planning devices but which are no such thing, which are too blunt or too inept to be economic planning devices.
  To make the point clearer, I turn first to the payroll tax. That tax satisfies the criterion that it is new and the criterion that it is intended to be a planning instrument. It is not a planning instrument. It is a lack-of-planning instrument. It is too broad, too wide and too clumsy to achieve any given object. It has been a little difficult for us to know what its object was, but we think that that has been made clear from the Chancellor's speech today. It is mainly an economic regulator, and, incidentally, the Chancellor tails us it will have the advantage of directing labour to where it can be most economically employed, thus economising in labour. I say that this cannot possibly happen, and for a variety of reasons I hope that we shall not see this regulator brought into being.
  I have said that I welcome new ideas and real economic planning instruments, but I go further. I welcome the decision of the Government to recognise that there may be occasions between Budgets when they must act fast and in secrecy—that is, without giving notice or warning, which a Budget debate would give, of what is to be done.
  I recognise all this in principle. The other regulator may satisfy most of these principles a good deal better, but the payroll tax does not satisfy any of them. As for its incidental effect on getting labour where it is needed, we all know that the shortage of labour is the shortage of skilled labour. Skilled labour is not ony valuable in itself but we should realise that it has charge of tens of

  1699
  thousands of pounds' worth of plant. The proportion of plant investment in each skilled labourer is extremely high, and it is getting higher. An employer who must keep expensive plant turning over and fully engaged absolutely must have skilled men to operate it, and however expensive a man might be he is a tiny cost in relation to the plant which he will operate and look after.
  It is, therefore, nonsense for anyone to think that an employer who is keeping a man on part-time and paying him £15 a week, and perhaps not even using him at all during a period which he thinks is a temporary depression which will improve later on, will get rid of the man because he has to pay £10 a year extra or 4s. a week to keep him. He will not do it. He will pay £1,000 a year if he keeps the man for a whole year. Does anyone suggest that the 53rd week, which the tax will amount to, will make a difference to the employer's decision? Of course it will not. Therefore, this tax is not likely to have a desirable effect in that respect.
  Its effect on marginal industries will be wholly damaging. It will be damaging in the North-East, in Scotland and in Northern Ireland, because it is there were employers can barely afford to keep their staff and workers fully employed that the extra cost will have an effect. This will be so not only where it is a case of keeping men fully employed, but where it is already difficult to keep disabled men employed. The first to go will be those who are least productive, not the most productive. They will be those whom we already find difficulty in keeping employed—the disabled workers, the unsatisfactory workers, the problem workers, and others of their kind.
  All these are the side effects of this payroll tax. It would be thoroughly unsatisfactory. The Government should realise that the motor car manufacter who because of the Government's lack of planning ability experienced a dip in his need for labour, and against whom this sort of legislation is aimed, was right and the Government were wrong. He did right in hanging on to labour which was not being used and which since the artificial hire-purchase restrictions imposed by the Government were removed is now again needed. Enormous capital invest-
  1700
  ment is represented in these men, in the training they get, in their ability to work on certain machines, and in their team work. The Government live in the clouds when it comes to this sort of thing, and to suggest that this 4s. a week will have any effect is totally unrealistic.
  This, therefore, is the main reason why we must dismiss the payroll tax, but there are other reasons. It does not conform at all with the principle that it should be the kind of tax which may be needed in an emergency. The House is right in demanding that if the Government anticipate needing a tax of this complexity and novelty, with all its possible side effects, they should say so and the House should be allowed to debate it fully at the time. It should not be introduced by a side-method, as it is intended at the moment to introduce it.
  No one can say what its exact effects will be, because no one knows when the Government will introduce it. We cannot discuss it in a vacuum, and when the Government want to introduce the tax the opportunity to discuss it fully will be denied to us. We shall have only a two-hour debate at ten o'clock or at one o'clock in the morning, unless the Government are generous and give us a little more time. That is an unsatisfactory way of debating, arguing and reconsidering a most important and far-reaching new tax of this kind.
  The Government have the powers of the other regulator, the Excise charges, which will give them £200 million. If the Government wish to have these powers as well, they should bring a Bill before the House and let us debate it. They should not bring in a payroll tax by a side-wind when it cannot be debated fully. If Excise Duty is to be put up by 5 per cent. or 10 per cent. notice cannot be given of it. Obviously unsatisfactory results would arise if the Government said, "We are bringing in a Bill in a month's time which will bring down or put up Customs and Excise Duties." Everything would go haywire, but there is nothing in the payroll tax which demands that it should be decided upon in secrecy.
  There is no reason why we should not have a Bill to go into Committee six months before the tax was needed. Indeed, there might be an advantage in having full warning of the coming of the

  1701
  tax. There is no reason for using a Statutory Instrument, which avoids giving notice, in the case of a payroll tax. Some of the Chancellor's hon. Friends have said that this tax is a ballon d'essai which will not leave the ground. I shall do my best in the Division Lobby not to prick it so that it never leaves the ground.
  The advantages of new ideas, of planning instruments, of secrecy and of power for the Government to act quickly at the right time are all arguments that appeal to me, and as far as the Excise Duties are concerned we should give these new ideas a try, subject to certain modifications. The regulator relating to Excise Duties satisfies all these criteria. It is something that we are well used to. We know exactly what we are giving the Government power to do. This instrument is not blunt.
  The Government already have power under the 1948 Act to vary Purchase Tax items not only between classes but between individual goods. If they use that power, combined with the power which from now on they are asking in respect of Customs and Excise, they need not have a blunt instrument at all. They could increase Excise Duties by a modest amount and deal with Purchase Tax items at the same time. This would provide a much more precise planning instrument than might appear on the surface. It requires secrecy, but that is something to which we are accustomed. Subject to polishing it up somewhat in Committee, I think we ought to give the Government an opportunity of showing how this instrument works in terms of good economic planning and of keeping the ship on an even keel and not waiting for it to go far too much over on one side and then being compelled to have a big heave and finishing up with its going far too much over on the other side.
  I should like to refer to the subject of Surtax, to which so many references have already been made, because it is absolutely essential that we should bring a little light to bear on this matter. I apologise for repeating what I have said on a previous occasion, but we must get out of our minds the idea that Surtax is a separate tax. It is, in fact, merely an imposition of additional rates of tax on income over £2,000 a year. Every hon. Member can read the Bill
  1702
  and find that statement there if he is not satisfied with what I am saying.
  Sir E. Boyle: I hope that the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) will also be impressed by that point, because it invalidates the peculiar calculations which he gave us today.
  Mr. Diamond: I am making my own speech. I have no difficulty in seeing eye to eye with my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton and helping him as much as I am able on the Committee stage. I do not appreciate the point put by the Financial Secretary.
  I listened to my right hon. Friend's speech and heard nothing which contradicts what I am now saying. But it is always solid ground to keep to the facts, so let us look at Clauses 9 and 10 of the Bill. Clause 9 reads:
  "Income Tax for the year 1961–62 shall be charged at the standard rate of seven shillings and ninepence in the pound, and in the case of an individual whose total income exceeds two thousand pounds shall be charged in respect of the excess at rates in the pound…"
  Clause 10 reads:
  "Income Tax for the year 1960–61 shall be charged, in the case of an individual whose total income exceeded two thousand pounds, at the same higher rates in respect of the excess as were charged for the year 1959–60."
  Those words cannot be denied. Surtax is simply a charge at additional rates of Income Tax in respect of income over £2,000. At least it was so until this Bill came along. I must make that point, because there is this idea that there are two classes of taxpayers—Income Tax payers and Surtax payers—and that Income Tax payers have had a good time, with their taxes having been removed by a benevolent Government, while the poor Surtax payers have had no relief whatever. Let us realise that the two are one and the same taxed at different rates. Let us also look at what has happened to the poor Surtax payer during the present Government's term of office since 1951.
  I shall take only three figures, not because I want to select figures which make my argument—any figure would do that—but because in a debate of this kind one cannot rely on hon. Members carrying the figures in their minds. The standard case is that of a married man with two children, and I will keep to him throughout. The hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby, who has left his

  1703
  seat—I understand that it may be necessary—mentioned the case of a young man getting somewhat over £2,000 a year.
  The first case I take is that of a man earning £2,500 a year. I want to show the relief he has had and what relief he is to get under this Bill which is supposed to give him such tremendous incentive to increase efficiency. This is the man who is the executive or manager who is helping in the export trade. And this is the figure which will give him added incentive.
  So far this man has had—I have not the figures with me—a modest reduction, but the reduction which is now proposed for him is that in every £ he will now earn, his tax instead of being 4s. 4d. will be 4s. 2d. That is 2d. in the £ relief for the £2,500 a year man, who is a good example, we are told, of the important junior executive, the sort of fellow who has considerable responsibility, the man the Government want to help because of his importance to the export drive. They are giving him, on his £50 a week, the large inducement of 2d. in the £. Presumably, he will now go to work singing every morning and saying what a wonderful thing it is to have a Conservative Government, because on every £ he earns he will get, from now on, an extra 2d. and will, presumably, roll up his sleeves as a result.
  Mr. Norman Cole: This relief is not intended to keep the man where he is now but as an incentive to get where he would like to get. In any case, I doubt if a £2,500 a year man, taking into account all the ordinary allowances, would be in the Surtax range.
  Mr. Diamond: I am quoting figures from the Financial Statement. I am giving the effective rate quoted in the tables. If the hon. Member for Bedfordshire, South (Mr. Cole) will look at the table on page 30 of the Financial Statement, he will see that a man, married with two children, and earning £2,500 a year, has an effective tax rate of 4s. 4½ d. That rate will be 4s. 2½ d., showing the magnanimous deduction of 2d. in the £ for his encouragement. I have to give that rate to begin with, because we understand by the figures that this vigorous and hard working individual with £50 a week gets nothing
  1704
  else in encouragement of the export drive.
  Let us look now at more substantial income earners who have been so neglected, we are told, by the Government hitherto—the men earning £5,000 a year and £10,000 a year. The man with £5,000 a year, married with two children, has already received, during these past ten years of Conservative Government, a reduction of £700. He now pays £700 a year less tax than he did in 1951–52. The man, also married with two children, who earns £10,000 a year pays more than £1,400 a year less than he did in 1951–52. Those are the reliefs which these so-called Surtax payers have received so far. Now this Bill proposes to give an extra £445 to the £5,000 a year man. He has already had £700 taken off his tax, so that in this coming year his total reduction will be increased to approximately £1,150. That is the reduction which he will have had in ten years.
  The man earning £10,000 a year will, according to the tables, have a reduction of £1,240 in one go under this Bill. He has already, however, had a reduction of £1,400, so the total will be approximately £2,640 as a result of combined Conservative Budgets since the Conservatives took office.
  Members opposite must think us absolutely devoid of feeling if we do not writhe at the injustice which these figures represent. We cannot understand them, and they cannot understand us in this matter. I cannot understand them saying that this is fair and proper. I think that it is loathsome to pick on the richest section of the community and give it these enormous gifts out of the general pool of the general wealth to which we all contribute. This does not only stem from earned income, but also benefits unearned income.
  It is loathsome to select that group of people and give them these advantages when, at the bottom of the scale, there have been new National Health Contributions and increased charges for the National Health Service. It makes me ashamed to be a Member of Parliament.
  Mr. Nabarro: The hon. Gentleman's argument might have been valid if he had taken the trouble to read the correct figures from the correct table. In the case of a married man with two children

  1705
  not over 11 the Surtax liability of a man with an entirely earned income of £5,000 is £445. After the change it will be £320. The net reduction is, therefore, £125 and not the figure he gave, which was many times higher.
  Mr. Diamond: As usual, the hon. Gentleman is wrong. He cannot even read. He is reading from the wrong table. He was reading from the table dealing with income half earned and half from investments.
  In this speech the Chancellor told us specifically that the benefit came from earned income, and every hon. Member, if he wants to be honest with himself, will agree that as we listened to the Budget speech we came to the conclusion that this Surtax relief would be relief for earned income. The Chancellor said that three or four times. I ask the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) to look at the table to see what happens when there is partly earned income and partly unearned income.
  Let us consider a man with £4,000 a year, half of each; £2,000 of that is therefore unearned. If he has £2,000 earned, as we know from the previous table, he gets no advantage at all. If, instead of having £2,000 earned, he has £2,000 earned and £2,000 unearned, he gets a reduction in Surtax from £235 to £157, a reduction of £80. That reduction is attributable solely to the fact that he has £2,000 unearned.
  The Economic Secretary can contradict me if I am incorrectly quoting a single figure. As a result of the Budget, the man who has an unearned income of £2,000 will get that additional relief because he has in addition £2,000 earned income, but if he has earned income alone he will get no relief. The tables are conclusive. I say that the Chancellor was misleading, not wrong, as the hon. Member for Kidderminster always is.
  The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Anthony Barber): The hon. Gentleman says that the Chancellor was misleading. My right hon. and learned Friend said:
  "But because Surtax is a tax on total income they will affect the total burden of tax on mixed incomes comprising some earnings and some income from investments. But the relief will only flow from and be related to the amount earned."
  That is the position.
  Mr. Diamond: But earlier the Chancellor had said:
  "Accordingly, I think it right to take action to modify, as far as earned incomes are concerned, the present rules. The changes I propose will be applicable to incomes earned—I repeat earned—during this new financial year and thereafter."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th April, 1961; Vol 638, c.820–1.]
  Mr. Barber: I can only say that if the hon. Gentleman can find anywhere anything which changes the rules relating to unearned income I have not seen it.
  Mr. Diamond: My point has been well made and well taken. The Chancellor was not helping hon. Members to understand fully the effect of his changes when he made his Budget speech. He left us with the impression that this would be a reduction on earned incomes, and earned incomes alone. The tables demonstrate that one gets relief on unearned income. The Economic Secretary has made the point that by reading the later words of the Chancellor one could read that into them. There is no question about it. We are all agreed that this relief on earned income is a relief on unearned income as well in its effect, and that this advantage will go solely to those who have these substantial incomes.
  All those who earn below £2,500, and the millions who according to the recent figures earn £12, £13 or £14 a week will get, I was going to say nothing; they will not get nothing, they will get a slap in the face. They are being told that they must not ask for more wages. They are being told that rises in wages are overtaking rises in production. They are being told that the country's balance of payments position is in difficulty. They are being told that they must work harder, and they are encouraged by £60 million odd being taken away from the sick and the needy and given to the Surtax payer. It is loathsome.
  8.26 p.m.
  Sir Harry Legge-Bourke: Coming out of the debate there has been one clear distinction between the two sides of the House. It was clearly demonstrated by the hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Diamond).
  I think that there is a genuine feeling among some hon. Gentlemen opposite that the principal object of a Budget is to do social justice, and therefore, because that is the principal object of a

  1707
  Budget, it must also be the object of a subsequent Finance Bill. There are other hon. Members—and I count myself as one of them—who believe that the purpose of a Budget and of the subsequent Finance Bill is totally different.
  It seems to me that the first object of any Chancellor, with his Budget and subsequently with his Finance Bill, is to ensure, first, that the £ sterling is kept as strong as possible; and, secondly, so far as it lies within the power of a Chancellor to do it by fiscal measures requiring legislation, to ensure that an unnecessary acceleration of inflation does not take place—in other words, that the internal value of the £ remains steady as well as the external value. If one accepts that the principal objects of a Budget are those which I have described, I think that one ought to like this Budget. If one says that the principal object of a Budget is to do social justice regardless of the other objects, obviously one dislikes this Budget intensely. I do not dispute that.
  The trouble has been that we have not had enough Budgets which were heartily disliked by people who believe that the object of a Budget is social justice and nothing else.
  Mr. Donald Chapman: Nobody has ever said that.
  Sir H. Legge-Bourke: There are other ways of bringing about social justice, and I support many of those measures. All those measures which went through the House between 1945 and 1950 in respect of the Welfare State still have my fullest support. But those are not matters for the Budget. We deal with questions of social justice to mankind in quite a different way from Budgets and Finance Bills—or we ought to.
  I welcome this Budget more than any since the war; indeed, this is the only Budget or Finance Bill debate that I have sought to take part in, and that is because, for the first time, it puts priorities which should be at the top right at the top. My hon. Friend the Member for Louth (Mr. C. Osborne) is always pouring out pæons of praise for the late Sir Stafford Cripps, but my feeling is that he was trying to do both things at the same time, which it is not possible to do. We cannot, at one and the same time, try to put the right priorities at the top and
  1708
  also make the Budget a vehicle of social justice.
  This Budget is designed to put the £ sterling as top priority, to be safeguarded in whatever the Chancellor does. He is right to put it there. In a negative way, the most socially unjust thing to do is to let the £ sterling go hang. Then the poorest always suffer first. Although the machinery devised in the Finance Bill should not have as its primary aim the dispensing of social justice, if the priorities in the Budget and Finance Bill are wrong social injustice follows very rapidly.
  But we must ask ourselves whether the methods that the Chancellor has chosen, if they are right for the £ sterling, are necessarily right for the prevention of inflation. In this respect, I am not quite so happy about the Budget. It is essential not only to look after the £ sterling and make it a reputable currency, in which other nations want to have their reserves; we must also ensure that, internally, either in the form of cost inflation or price inflation, we do not price ourselves out of the market in an endeavour to produce more of whatever it may be. This is where the argument lies in the Finance Bill. Inflation could easily be increased rapidly by some of the measures in it if they were used at the wrong time or at the wrong place.
  There are two Clauses above all others which matter to me. One deals with the right to alter Excise Duties internally, up or down by 20 per cent., and the other with the payroll tax. The figure that stares me in the face in this respect comes from a study of the Economic Survey for this year—a figure referring to our balance of payments situation. Since 1958, our imports of semi-manufactured goods have risen by £310 million and our imports of fully manufactured goods by £224 million—a total increase of £534 million. In the same period our exports under all headings have risen by only £360 million.
  Since 1958, our balance of payments has worsened by £428 million on visible account and £635 million on total current account. I believe that the Government genuinely think that what has been happening in the last few years has been a stacking up, which we are now to draw upon to increase our exports sufficiently to stop the rot that has set in.

  1709
  Imports of basic materials in that same period went up by only £174 million, compared with the increase of £224 million for fully manufactured imports. I agree that many of the semi-manufactured goods can be turned into useful exports on which we will earn money. But I do not believe that this Budget really tackles this problem, which has been under-estimated, even in the debate today.
  I welcome the point the Chancellor stressed in his speech, that the simplification of the Stamp Duty on bills of exchange would assist our exports. That simplification will be of enormous importance to British industry, particularly to some of the smaller firms which have to rely on this method and which dislike going into a lot of calculations.
  I am the chairman of a small company which is trying to export. Of the equipment we are selling, 40 per cent. of it is being exported without a single bit of assistance from the Government. It is the little things that annoy the smaller companies which wish to export, but which do not have the staff or the time to deal with these niggling matters. These companies appreciate such things as the simplification of the Stamp Duty on bills of exchange.
  We have to read the Budget in the light of the improved export guarantee machinery which has been announced by the President of the Board of Trade. That improved machinery ties up with this Budget, but I am still doubtful whether we are going to do the job in the time available to us. Every time the Government use any of the regulating powers which the Chancellor proposes to take in such a way as to inflate prices, our chances of succeeding in the task confronting the country will be made more difficult. I do not think that we shall solve the problem without taking powers additional to those proposed in the Bill. The Government will have to take emergency action over imports, as well as doing everything they can to increase exports.
  The time is overdue for us to take one power which need not necessarily upset the long-term policies which the Government have been trying to pursue. When we see that the balance of payments situation is getting out of hand, or is heading for a crisis, or that the
  1710
  market is collapsing—so that many workers will be thrown into unemployment—we should be ready to impose a direct embargo until the market has recovered.
  If the Government took that power they would probably never use it, but the threat of using it might have the desired effect. The Board of Trade often say, "You cannot do this, or you cannot do that, because the risk of retaliation is too great." I think that that is also the view of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Bolton, West (Mr. Holt), who is mumbling something.
  Mr. Arthur Holt Mr. Arthur Holt (Bolton, West) rose—
  Sir H. Legge-Bourke: I will not give way to the hon. Gentleman at the moment. If he does hold that view, it is a typically Liberal one.
  I do not believe that any sensible nation likes to see either its potential suppliers or its potential markets getting into such a mess in their own economies that they collapse. That is the weakness of saying that retaliation is the obvious danger. I am not frightened of retaliation. I am more frightened that people will switch away from Britain and will go into the dollar area rather than remain in the sterling area. That is what we have to watch, and I admit that if we took the sort of power I am recommending the Government would have to use it very carefully.
  We want more and more countries relying on sterling. We are backing the sterling area, and, of course, we want to increase the business in the sterling area. But if we do not do something to prevent unnecessary imports at a time when our balance of payments position is worsening with a positively terrifying rapidity, it seems to me that we have not much hope; and though hon. Members opposite may think that this Finance Bill is unjust, it will not be a patch on Finance Bills of the future.
  I shall do everything possible to assist the Chancellor to achieve his aims. I think that they are absolutely right. I hope to goodness that the methods he has chosen to achieve them will also prove right. But my right hon. and learned Friend must make careful use of the proviso in Clause 26, which deals with the payroll tax. I was a little

  1711
  shocked when he said today that he did not think that he could discriminate very much—this was the impression I got—between those upon which he would levy a payroll tax and those upon whom he would not.
  The proviso says:
  "Provided that different rates of surcharge may be prescribed for different descriptions of persons, and if it is so prescribed surcharges shall not be payable in respect of a prescribed description of persons."
  It all depends on the meaning of "description of persons". If we propose to distinguish between sexes or ages, and nothing else, that will not be sufficient. We must realise that a payroll tax could be very damaging to the small trader. I have heard that view expressed on a number of occasions.
  I can see quite plainly what the payroll tax is designed to do. That is a foundation stone laying ceremony. We are laying the foundation for an altogether new type of company taxation designed to ensure that every man employed in industry is equipped with the maximum amount of horse-power at his lbow to enable him to produce the maximum amount in the most efficient way and at the best possible price. Now we are laying the foundation upon which future Finance Bills will be designed. I applaud that process. But if we are proposing to use this tax for quite different purposes this year—as a "long stop" in the event of our not getting the Budget surplus in any other way—I hope that the Chancellor will be very careful about how he uses it.
  My right hon. and learned Friend could be very unjust in this connection. He may use this tax in such a way as to make it a highly inflationary factor in the economy. The cost of 4s. a head per week could be passed straight on to the consumer, which would be inflationary. For those reasons I say that my right hon. and learned Friend must be careful about how he uses this tax.
  Although in the external situation he must be careful against whom or in favour of whom he discriminates, I think that my right hon. and learned Friend is correct in seeking to put sterling on top and to make anti-inflation his next priority; and, in seeking to achieve these ends, to get a Budget surplus of £500
  1712
  million. I am entirely in favour of that surplus. The Chancellor could not get it if he tried to make the Budget an instrument of social justice. If hon. Members wish to know why, I beg them to read the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Preston, South (Mr. Green) during the Budget debate. We have been overspending. We have issued, roughly, £100 million a year in unbacked money. That seems to be to dictate a little retrenchment this year. I congratulate the Chancellor on having the courage to do it. I am sure that he is right and I wish him luck in his aim.
  8.45 p.m.
  Mr. Bruce Millan: I am not sure that I was able to follow all the arguments of the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke), but I gathered that he was making some rather fundamental and serious criticisms of the present state of our economy. From that point of view, a great deal of what he said will find agreement on this side of the House. It contrasted very much with the complacency of some of the speeches we have heard from his hon. Friends in this debate and in the debate on the Budget.
  I was not quite sure how he found the actual fiscal measures which have been taken in the Budget matching the seriousness of the economic situation. I do not think that the remission of bills or exchange stamp duty, for example, is more than a marginal contribution for the benefit of exports to the problem of the balance of payments, the problem of keeping the £ sterling strong and so on. Yet that was the only part of the Budget which the hon. Member mentioned with any approval and, as I say, it does not match up with the situation at all.
  I must also take issue with him when he says that we on this side of the House are primarily or exclusively concerned with the social justice aspect of a Budget and not concerned with other things such as the strength of the £ sterling. None of us has used that argument at all. The point we have made is that social justice is not incompatible with those other aims. What is wrong with the present Budget is twofold. It fails to tackle the really difficult and essential

  1713
  economic problems and, on the other hand, it is not a Budget for social justice but, on the contrary, is socially extremely unjust.
  There are a number of omissions from the Budget as regards aspects of the taxation structure of the country which call for action. The most important of these is a capital gains tax. I do not propose to say much about that now, but if we are talking in terms of social justice we ought to be talking in terms of spreading the tax burden fairly over large numbers of the community. The most obvious defect in the taxation system at present is the absence of capital gains taxation. There is another aspect of taxation about which I want to speak. When we have a particular form of taxation we ought to see that it is spread fairly among the people whom it is intended should pay it. We ought to see that my one means or another certain people whom it is intended should pay are not able to avoid paying taxation.
  Last year we had a number of very complicated provisions in the Finance Act dealing with the question of tax avoidance from the point of view of property companies, dividend stripping, and so on. Some of us took the view that the provisions in last years' Finance Act were not nearly foolproof enough and that there were a number of obvious defects in those provisions. Our view has been borne out by a number of things which have happened in the past year. Many hon. Members must have had cases drawn to their attention of people who have been able to avoid what the Government claim to be very important pieces of legislation contained in that Finance Act. The Government then admitted that at least one ought to try to do something about tax avoidance.
  I want to refer to another form of tax avoidance which has been mentioned not at all in this debate nor in the Budget debate, but which, perhaps, is just as important as avoidance of Income Tax. I refer to avoidance of Estate Duty. My right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) mentioned this afternoon that the spread of property-owning in this country was still very unbalanced, although we are meant to have a property owning democracy; a few people own a very large proportion of the
  1714
  property. That is despite the fact that we have had high rates of Estate Duty over many years. In the very large estates the rate of Estate Duty looks almost confiscatory.
  Although we have these very high rates of Estate Duty, the amount of money paid into the Treasury in Estate Duty is not rising in proportion to the growth of wealth within the community. One would expect increased receipts from this duty; because of the differential rates of Estate Duty, the increase in receipts ought to go up rather more rapidly than the growth of wealth within the community, because a good deal of the accumulation of wealth is among people who have a lot of money and who therefore ought to be paying the higher rates of Estate Duty. In fact we have had only small increases, and in some years none at all, in the amount being paid to the Exchequer through Estate Duty.
  The reason is that our Estate Duty legislation is riddled with loopholes, and increasing advantage is being taken of them, particularly by people with large estates. I want to mention one or two points to which the Chancellor ought to give attention. One is the question of gifts inter vivos—in other words, gifts which are given more than five years before the death of the donor do not rank for Estate Duty. One form of gift which is quite common and which must cost the Exchequer considerable sums is the gift inter vivos by way of marriage covenant, because such a gift need not conform to the five-year rule. A donor can make a gift by marriage covenant only a month or two before his death and it will not rank for Estate Duty. Obviously there is a case for making some exceptional rule for marriage covenants, but there might be an example where a man owns £50,000 and makes a covenant of £40,000 only a month or two before his death. It is not reasonable in those circumstances that the gift should completely fail to rank for Estate Duty. There is a case for some exceptional treatment of marriage covenants, but there is also a strong case for saying that these covenants which avoid Estate Duty should not be for amounts which are out of all proportion to the total estate of the donor, who is eventually the deceased.

  1715
  Another means of avoiding Estate Duty which is becoming increasingly common and is somewhat similar in principle to gifts inter vivos is the use of assurance policies. If a donor has an assurance policy on his own life which is for the benefit of his wife and children, then Estate Duty can be avoided when the policy is cashed on death; either it does not rank at all for Estate Duty purposes or, in other circumstances, it ranks only according to the amount of premiums which have been paid within five years of death.
  Substantial sums of money must be lost to the Exchequer in the avoidance of Estate Duty by means of these assurance policies, and the Government ought to look at this matter. It is only another example of the very favourable treatment which is given to assurance policies altogether in our taxation system. Sometimes I think that we give far too favourable treatment to assurance policies compared with other forms of saving in the whole of our taxation structure, and the Government certainly ought to look at this aspect of Estate Duty.
  All that the Government have done recently about gifts inter vivos is to introduce a provision into the 1960 Act which makes these gifts even more profitable than they are at present. It provides for reductions in the amount which ranks for duty under gifts given in the third, fourth and fifth year before the donor's death.
  Another matter which must again be losing the Government a good deal of money is the provision that agricultural property ranks only for Estate Duty purposes to the extent of 45 per cent. of its value. There may be a case for this in regard to the working farmer but there is no case for it with regard to the gentleman farmer or the landowner who has lots of other money in other forms of estate. There, again, I think that the Government are losing money and that they ought to do something about it.
  Another scandalous thing, in particular, is the provision that fixed property or immovable or heritable property abroad is not subject to Estate Duty. One sees in The Times—I have cuttings here and I have seen others recently—of people advertising and asking people in this country to buy leasehold property
  1716
  in the Bahamas, obtaining a good income during their lifetime and avoiding Estate Duty when eventually they die. I have a small cutting from The Times of someone in the Bahamas who advertises in these terms:
  "I am seeking a person or syndicate wishing to save quite legally from £100,000 to £1 million in inheritance taxes and meantime enjoy about 10 per cent. net free of income taxes on the property investment".
  An address is given in the Bahamas. This is happening on a large scale. These people draw an income from the property all their lives and when they die the property does not rank for Estate Duty. The people who are indulging in this practice are normally not small men with a few thousand pounds to spare but people with considerable sums of money.
  It is also possible, I understand, to make a gift of property in one or another of these territories in a foreign country and, even though the gift is within five years of death, because the property gifted is immovable property abroad no Estate Duty is payable. This is becoming a major racket, so much so that people who sell property in the Bahamas and elsewhere will guarantee that on death—that is, after Estate Duty has been avoided—they will buy back the property. Therefore, if one pays £100,000 for property in the Bahamas one avoids Estate Duty, the former vendors buy the property back, giving £100,000, less a discount, and sell it again to someone else who, in turn, avoids Estate Duty. This racket is indefensible, and obviously it has a number of refinements.
  There is also—and this may appeal to the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely—the balance of payments question involved. One is asked to think of entrepreneurs putting their money into risk-taking adventures abroad and helping with the development of underdeveloped areas and the rest. It would be interesting to know how much of the private investment abroad is in properties, in the Bahamas and elsewhere, for the sole purpose of avoiding estate duty.
  It is not everyone, obviously, who indulges in this sort of activity. To sum up, it amounts to this. Estate Duty now is a duty Chat one pays only if one wishes

  1717
  to. If one does not want to pay Estate Duty, there are all sorts of provisions—one might almost say that the Government encourage it—that enable one to avoid paying it. That is certainly not a wholesome state of affairs, and I would like to think that the Government might go into this whole question because, apart from the criticisms I have been making, it has an element of unfairness amongst different taxpayers, some of whom are willing not only to abide by the letter but also by spirit of the law while others are more concerned with avoiding as much taxation as they possibly can.
  The fact that people can avoid Estate Duty, the fact that there is the business expenses racket, the fact that the Government are giving away large sums of money in Surtax, and all the rest of it, breeds quite a cynical attitude among the ordinary wage and salary earners who pay their P.A.Y.E. every week and who, whether they wish to or not, cannot avoid paying their fair share of taxation. There is a feeling of cynicism and frustration about the present situation, and it is high time—it is long past time—that the Government looked at some of the obvious anomalies and dodges that are a disgrace to our present taxation system.
  9.0 p.m.
  Mr. Douglas Marshall: The hon. Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan) will forgive me if I do not follow him in his argument, but as I know that the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) wishes to address the House at 9.10 p.m., I have only nine minutes in which to make my two or three points.
  The important part of the Budget is the target of £500 million above the line. That is the Budget. It sets the pattern, and it is an extremely important pattern to set, not only in relation to £ sterling and to avoiding a new inflation, but also in relation to those in other countries that have not the free form of parliamentary life that we have, who can control their people's standard of living in such a way that capital injection in the country concerned can be determined by those who are dictating affairs. I am sure that, at heart, there is no one in this House who does not realise that within thirty or forty years from now that may well be a very serious matter for us.
  1718
  The decision on this £500 million above the line is the right one, but when it comes to how we should make the pattern from that decision then, in truth, possibly every hon. and right hon. Member would make a Budget of his own, and I very much doubt whether anyone would be completely in agreement with any other hon. Member's.
  Because of the shortage of time. I will refer to only two points. The economic regulators, which mean that the Chancellor of the Exchequer can take instant action and then seek an affirmative Resolution here, have been more or less accepted—and I am slightly surprised at it—by all hon. Members. They may have quarrelled with the type of instrument that has been devised, but I, who have listened to almost every speech—and I tried to speak during the Budget debate—have not heard anybody actually suggest that this new and novel method of treating our affairs, and not trusting only in the instrument of the Bank Rate and of hire purchase, is not a good thing.
  When we come to the actual instruments the Government have chosen, I confess that the payroll tax gives me considerable anxiety. The idea of such a tax, if used with a certain flexibility that might well make a certain area more profitable, might be a good one. I cannot think that an overall charge will get us very far. I say that because while in industry wages may be running at about £15 or £20 a week, so that the sum of 4s. is a very small consideration, in agriculture or in very small businesses it will be felt as an exceedingly heavy charge. There is not sufficient flexibility in this instrument, and I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will consider very carefully before he puts it into operation. On the other hand, if he has proposed it now so that it can be discussed as a novel instrument, with a view to introducing it in a more flexible form in the next Budget, possibly as permanent legislation, that might be a good thing.
  I shall not refer to the other regulator, because I have very little time and there are two other points I want to make. One is concerned with fuel tax. Nobody likes an extra tax, but if it is agreed that we should have £500 million above the line, if tax is reduced in one respect, we have to decide in what respect it is to

  1719
  be increased. I have every intention of adding my name to an Amendment asking my right hon. and learned Friend to reconsider the position of horticulture. This position is now absurd. First of all, the Government have made it possible for the industry to make itself efficient, and there have been agreements negotiated through G.A.T.T. and so on to alter tariffs so as to protect the industry, and then that protection has been smashed down by the increase in the tax on fuel oil. This increase is of considerable importance to the industry, and I sincerely trust that my right hon. and learned Friend will reconsider it.
  Finally, I must admit that I am extremely disappointed with my right hon. and learned Friend, as I have been disappointed with every Chancellor since 1945, because, like his predecessors, he seems to be incapable of understanding the wealth which might be derived by the insertion of a simple Clause in the Finance Bill designed for the development of the metalliferous mining industry of this country.
  Mr. Jay: Hear, hear.
  Mr. Marshall: I am very glad to hear the right hon. Gentleman say "Hear, hear", because he has supported me again and again through the years. It is strange that before an hon. Member becomes Chancellor of the Exchequer he appears thoroughly to agree with my view on this matter but the moment he gets to the Treasury something completely alters him. My view cannot be all that wrong, because Canada agrees with it, as do the United States of America, Australia and Eire. We are not getting anything from this industry at present, as far as new projects are concerned, and the Exchequer is not deriving any tax thereby. This is purely a matter of new development and incentive.
  The clock is striking for me and I never let down an hon. Member opposite. There are still the Committee and Report stages to come, and I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will think again about the matters which I have mentioned.
  9.9 p.m.
  Mr. Douglas Honghton: I am grateful to the hon. Member for Bodmin (Mr. Marshall) for curtailing his
  1720
  remarks so as to allow me to intervene at this stage, which I hope will be for the convenience of the House.
  The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer has derived little comfort from the debate. The Chancellor had to wait until a quarter to eight before there was a speech from hon. Members opposite which gave any real praise to the Bill. That came from the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Sir A. Spearman). It surprised me to hear him say that it was possible that the Chancellor would go down in history for this Budget.
  The nearest to the speech of the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby was that of the hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke), who said a few moments ago that the Chancellor's aim was plumb right, but went on to say that he hoped he was using the right sort of weapon. Again, in the very last speech of all, to which we have just listened from the hon. Member for Bodmin, serious anxiety about one important feature of this Bill was expressed by him.
  Another interesting feature of the debate is that we have heard more about planning from the benches opposite than for many a long day. Hon. Member's opposite are beginning to realise that the Chancellor's armoury for curbing inflation and regulating the economy has up to now been quite inadequate, has led to a good deal of hardship, and that it has, on the whole, demonstrably failed. In this Budget, the right hon. and learned Gentleman is adding to the weapons which he will use, but he is not there yet, and I think that experience will show that these attempts to regulate the economy by monetary and fiscal methods will not alone suffice. However, we shall examine both these regulators very much more closely later.
  I wish to congratulate the hon. Member for Colchester (Mr. Buck) on his maiden speech. I am sure that the whole House listened to it with appreciation, and if the hon. Gentleman is an addition to our debates on economic and financial affairs I can assure him that he will be very welcome. He said that Colchester combined ancient history with twentieth century vigour. I was

  1721
  waiting impatiently for him to say that the Surtax relief in this Budget would stimulate the twentieth century vigour of the leading citizens of Colchester. Instead, he turned straight to oysters, and at last the oyster has a champion in this House. But the end of the oyster, after all, is in being eaten at expensive restaurants generally much frequented by taxpayers or others on expense accounts, so the hon. Gentleman had an interest to declare on behalf of his constituency in the Chancellor's proposals.
  It was noteworthy that in his speech the hon. Gentleman expressed grave doubts about the proposed payroll tax and said that he hoped it would never be used. So this is the Government's new deterrent—this time an economic deterrent—and it is to be the fear of the use of it which will regulate our economy. We shall see.
  The hon. Member for Spelthorne (Sir B. Craddock), who I see is just coming back to his place, complained about some of the things my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) says in these debates about right hon. Gentlemen opposite and past Members of Conservative Administrations. Surely, the House enjoys these sallies. Hon. Members know that they are not uttered in malice, and I think it would be a very bad thing for our debates if we were deprived of the sparkling wit of my right hon. Friend, even though it is very frequently at the expense of hon. and right hon. Members opposite.
  Sir B. Craddock: My objection was that the right hon. Gentleman is too inclined to indulge in bitter personal attacks—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]—which I think is wrong.
  Mr. Houghton: Hon. Members on both sides of the House heard my right hon. Friend, and I doubt whether they would associate themselves with that criticism. However, the hon. Gentleman went on to read some doggerel. Last week, my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross) had some doggerel. If this goes on, it will be necessary to appoint a Parliamentary Poet Laureate, or, better still, to facilitate the return to the House of Sir A. P. Herbert, whom I once heard deliver a
  1722
  whole speech in verse, which was admirable and far better than that of the hon. Gentleman.
  The hon. Gentleman also challenged my right hon. Friend to produce some examples of the injustices being done to old people in this Bill. There may be some misunderstanding about that. There is nothing in the Bill which imposes additional Income Tax on old-age pensioners, but my right hon. Friend was referring to age exemption, age relief and small incomes relief. The old-age pension, having increased, will bring some people from the protection of age exemption into tax liability.
  I can give the hon. Gentleman an example. Take the case of a married man whose pension from his employment is £204, whose retirement pension is £208, and whose property tax is £28. His total income is £440. As a married man, he gets complete exemption under the age exemption provisions. His retirement pension will rise to £240 and his total income will be increased to £472. The tax that he will have to pay on that income is 7s. a week. Therefore, from complete exemption, he now has to pay 7s. a week, which comes out of his increase in pension of 12s. 6d. a week. I can give a similar example of a single man who will pay an increase in tax of 4s. out of the increase of 7s. 6d. in his retirement pension.
  What we are saying to the Chancellor is that we hope that he will favourably consider moving the limits of income to relieve those whose pensions are decreased by additional tax on that account. He has done it in Clause 12 in respect of the dependent relative relief. He has moved the income limits upwards in order not to disqualify a person from dependent relative relief because that relative is receiving the higher retirement pension. We are asking the Chancellor to review the limits for the three reliefs which I have mentioned so as to give them a corresponding advantage.
  Sir B. Craddock Sir B. Craddock rose—
  Mr. Houghton: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not interrupt me, because I want to sit down at twenty-five minutes to Ten.
  Sir B. Craddock: I only want to thank the hon. Gentleman—
  Mr. Houghton: I am obliged for that. We will be able to go into these matters more fully later. I hope that the Chancellor will seriously consider the matter to which I have referred.
  I wish now to pass to a matter which has received practically no attention in the debate except from my right hon. Friend the Member for Huyton. I refer to what is commonly called the expenses racket. My right hon. Friend referred to the stern words uttered by President Kennedy concerning a similar abuse of tax reliefs in the United States. The Guardian of 21st April states:
  "The President recommended that the cost of business entertainment and the upkeep of facilities for entertaining be disallowed in full as tax deductions. Restrictions should also be imposed on tax reliefs on the cost of business gifts, expenses of business trips combined with vacations and excessive personal living expenses on business travel."
  He also said—and this bears on the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan)—that there had been
  "unjustifiable use of tax havens…in order to shelter from tax."
  The President also had remedies in mind for that.
  The Chancellor said in his Budget speech that he found this a very troublesome and complicated matter and that he proposed to give it further thought. I will leave this with him. The Government should announce that they are resolved to end the manifestly undesirable social and fiscal consequences of the exploitation of expenses for tax relief. The Government should express their desire to discuss ways and means of doing this with the British Employers' Confederation, the Federation of British Industries, the T.U.C. and representative bodies or associations of executive and professional staffs, including the various professional institutions and learned societies. After those discussions, the Government should seriously get down to a plan to check this constant and ever-growing abuse.
  What is needed more than anything else is to require employers, and to adjust the tax rules to compel employers, to arrange the conditions of service, pay and expenses of their employees so that the Inland Revenue may cease to subsidise or act as scrutineers and auditors
  1724
  of employees' expense accounts, which are the employer's job and he should do it. It is not the job of the Inland Revenue.
  I come now to the troublesome payroll tax. There is general agreement on both sides that the Chancellor has thrown out of the window almost completely any idea that the payroll tax would be used for the purpose of encouraging mobility of labour, on which many exaggerated things are said, or that it will encourage very much the economical or efficient use of labour. Those, if they come about, will be by-products of the payroll tax. They are not its primary purpose.
  The Chancellor of the Exchequer said in his speech that the payroll tax would have the added advantage of helping in those three respects, but he said that the primary purpose of this tax was to reduce the purchasing power of the community. How will that be done through this instrument? It is not a revenue tax. It is an economic weapon. It is part of an economic blanket. If it means anything at all, the payroll tax will amount to economic sanctions against wage increases by making it more difficult for employers to concede them. What other purpose can it have, unless it is something worse? If a wage freeze is not enough, and it is the most that the payroll tax could achieve, will wage cuts follow? Is that the object of this tax? Could it be intended to enforce wage cuts?
  If a wage freeze is the economic aim of the payroll tax, what will all this do to industrial relations? Consider the circumstances in which the tax will be imposed. Almost certainly, it will not be imposed alone. If there is one weapon to be used and not both of them, it will be the other one; it will be Clause 8 and not Clause 26. If Clause 26 is called into action, Clause 8 will be called into action, too. That means that both will be in operation. That means, surely, that when this tax is put on, additional tax will be put on goods which attract Purchase and other indirect taxation. A double brake will go on and, surely, the result will be a sharp increase in price."
  If that brake is applied in a period of rising prices, when inflation is creeping in and has to be checked, the Chancellor will be imposing a payroll tax at the

  1725
  very moment when wage pressures will be mounting, and he will be directing it at the most explosive point in industrial relations. The other regulator, the higher indirect taxes, would at least leave people with the option of not buying goods at higher prices. A payroll regulator will either bring about a standstill in wages or go further and aim at reducing pay.
  What does the Chancellor think employers will do when the payroll tax comes into operation? Will they refuse wage increases and have trouble? Will they move to cut wages and have graver trouble, or will they decide to pay the tax and grant the wage increases? If so, what will be the economic consequences of their action? Will that mean higher prices or unemployment, or both? And when all this is going on, what kind of protection will the Chancellor give to retirement pensioners, to those on National Assistance, and to the thousands of people who are sick, disabled, and poor. I hope that the Financial Secretary will be able to plot his way through this uncharted sea and show the House just how his right hon. and learned Friend will reach his destination.
  I would remark on administration that I was astonished that an additional stamp was to be used for the purpose of collecting the payroll tax. How long a time will elapse between the Chancellor giving his sailing orders and the ship getting under way? I strongly fear that there will be sufficient time for all the opposition and the protests and the reaction to the payroll tax to mount to most formidable strength.
  That perhaps is enough for the Financial Secretary to be getting on with about the payroll tax. We shall have plenty of opportunity to probe further, but do not let us leave everything until the Committee stage. There is a great deal that we want cleared up before the Bill is given a Second Reading, and, judging by some of the criticisms and misgivings expressed on the other side of the House, hon. Members opposite must be waiting for an assurance before they will be willing to give it a Second Reading.
  When we come to the end of the day, however, the House and the country must realise that this Bill, being the Bill
  1726
  of the Budget, is a counter-inflationary Bill. It plans for the highest planned surplus above the line and the lowest planned deficit below the line for over ten years, and we should not let the Chancellor's promissory note on Surtax relief hide the fact that he is imposing over £80 million of additional taxation in the current financial year and that the only tax relief in the Bill, of over £1 million, is in consequence of higher National Insurance contributions. But there is not even in the Clause dealing with the National Insurance contributions any relief for the higher National Health contributions which are to be paid in July.
  The Chancellor has planned ahead to give in 1962–63 £83 million to Surtax payers in tax relief, which will be offset by £70 million of additional tax in the form of Profits Tax. In addition, there is the £3 million which he is hoping to get on the restriction of capital allowance to ordinary motor cars. He will also have the advantage of a full year of the tax on oil and on motor vehicles, so that in 1962–63 the Bill will produce net additional taxation of £70 million after setting off the cost of the Surtax relief.
  Taking the two years, 1961 and 1962, together, the Chancellor is imposing £230 million in extra taxes and giving Surtax reliefs costing £83 million in the same period, resulting in a net additional taxation of £150 million over the two years, with another £400 million of taxation up his sleeve in Clauses 8 and 26.
  Why has the Chancellor made his Surtax proposals this year—the year of higher National Health charges, of higher National Insurance contributions, and of a counter-inflationary Budget? Why is he leapfrogging into 1962–63 to promise Surtax reliefs then, when he could have made the promise next year, when he will see the economy at closer range than he can now? He has nailed the Surtax reliefs to his masthead for the Budget of 1962, and that, in our view, is a thoroughly reprehensible and unwise thing to have done.
  I repeat what I have said previously. If the Surtax provisions have no economic purpose—and I see no such purpose in them—why are they in the

  1727
  Budget at all? It cannot be for administrative convenience. All this talk about additional incentives has been ridiculed already in many quarters. I believe that this is a blatant, mid-term political move. The attitude is that if it is to be done at all, it should be done in the middle of a Parliament, and, if it is done then, it should be a good and hearty relief of Surtax so that the Chancellor does not have to tamper with it again. No doubt he is saying to himself that he can fill the gap a little nearer to the next General Election with more popular tax reliefs when the Surtax reliefs in this Budget will be forgotten.
  Can he really say that these Surtax reliefs are necessary for the expansion of the economy? What priority have they in economic terms? There can be no consideration of equity this year to justify reliefs on this scale and in these circumstances. Had the Chancellor felt it necessary to do something, he could have done something, and quite a lot, at considerably less cost to the revenue than the proposals he has made.
  We feel, therefore, that there is nothing in this Bill which will stimulate growth or will encourage expansion. The Chancellor is poising the economy on an extremely unstable point. He is placing the economic life of the nation in the hands of 300,000 Surtax payers. When he says, as he did at the conclusion of his speech today, that this Bill will give a dynamic boost to the economy, we all stand aghast and incredulous. He really cannot mean it. All he probably means is that this will bring some measure of peace into the torn Conservative Party. To write political motives into the profit and loss account and the nation's balance sheet is disreputable.
  9.34 p.m.
  The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Sir Edward Boyle): I am sure that the House is grateful to the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) for demonstrating, with such vigour and clarity, that my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has not only produced a very firm Budget for this year, but has already made extremely prudent budgetary provision for the financial year 1962–63 as
  1728
  well. With that part of the hon. Member's speech, I would certainly wish to associate myself. He has put a number of points which my right hon. and learned Friend will consider between now and the next stage of the Bill. I hope that he will forgive me, however, if I do not, in view of the time, anticipate the debate which we shall doubtless have on Clause 26.
  Before I come to the Opposition Amendment, I have tonight the pleasant task, to which I have been greatly looking forward all evening, of congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Mr. Buck) on what I think the House felt was an outstanding maiden speech. I think we all feel that the most difficult thing, in making a maiden speech, is to strike a precise balance between, on the one hand, confidence, and, on the other, due diffidence. I have never known that balance struck more happily than it was struck by my hon. Friend.
  I assure my hon. Friend that in saying that, I am not in any way staking a claim to be invited to a Colchester oyster feast, because it so happens that oysters disagree with me. My hon. Friend did very well to devote part of his speech to that subject and we all felt that his speech was well suited to a successor to so very thoughtful and sincere a Member as Lord Alport.
  I turn now to the Opposition Amendment. We have not today heard very much about the first half of it. It strikes me that the accusation in the Amendment that this Finance Bill makes
  "no proposals designed to solve the economic problems facing the country"
  comes rather oddly from the party opposite, because we all remember that large Budget surpluses were a highly important element in the economic policy of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite when they were in power.
  Only this morning I looked at the Budget speech of 1949, of the late Sir Stafford Cripps, in which he proposed to budget for a revenue surplus of £492 million, a figure very close to the surplus for which my right hon. and learned Friend is budgeting this year. I think that anyone who had the temerity to suggest to Sir Stafford Cripps that a surplus of £492 million was irrelevant to the

  1729
  economic problems facing the country in 1949 would have received a caustic answer at the conclusion of the debate.
  The fact is—hon. Members know it perfectly well, we all know it—that no Government can achieve a balance between our productive resources and the claims made on them without the use of some economic controls which are widespread and unselective in their incidence. My right hon. and learned Friend made his point of view clear in his Budget speech, when he said that the Budget should remain the chief instrument of general economic control, and a strong budgetary policy, so far from being irrelevant to our economic problems, is one essential pre-condition of our achieving in Britain at one and the same time a healthy balance of payments, a stable currency, and a high and rising level of prosperity.
  However much dispute there may be between us about certain features of this Budget, I think that there can be little dispute as to the problems which faced my right hon. and learned Friend when he was framing his Budget proposals. First, there was the danger that what my right hon. and learned Friend described in his Budget speech as
  "strong inflationary forces working on home demand".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th April, 1961, Vol. 638, c.800.]
  would, unless they were curtailed, put up costs and handicap our exports. In this connection, right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite seemed to me to have been over-impressed by the fact that the index of industrial production, after its very steep rise in 1959, has been on a sort of plateau since April of last year.
  In his Budget speech, my right hon. and learned Friend gave the House good reasons for thinking that there would be a large increase in the demand falling on our productive system during the rest of this year. I must say that all recent trends seem to have borne out what my right hon. and learned Friend forecast. If one looks first at private consumption, there has been a sharp increase in retail sales shown in the March figures, and I am sure that the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Sir A. Spearman), who made an extremely thoughtful speech, was right to draw attention to the very likely strong trend in consumer spending this year.
  1730
  On the side of capital investment, the signs of a continued upward trend are still appearing, and in the motor car industry hon. Members will have noticed the considerable recovery from the depressed state of the later months of 1958 which has taken place this year. Ministry of Labour figures for the numbers of workers temporarily stopped have reflected this recovery in a very striking way. Over the country as a whole the pressure of demand for labour is at a very high level, and there is every reason to expect, from now on, a substantial rate of growth in home demand.
  Whatever is wrong with our economy today it is certainly not an insufficient level of activity. I cannot believe that any hon. Member seriously doubts that my right hon. and learned Friend has been right to use his Budget as a means of keeping these expansionary forces within bounds and of moderating the total growth of home demand so as to leave room both for the expanding trend of capital investment and also for an increase in exports.
  Mention of exports leads me to the second problem which faced my right hon. and learned Friend, namely, the balance of payments. I want to make it clear that nobody on this side of the House wishes in any way to gloss over the fact that this is a very real economic problem—indeed, probably the most serious which faces this country today. It is true that there has recently been a slight tendency to improvement so far as commodity trade is concerned. Exports have been rising once again from the rather depressed level of last autumn, while imports have shown some tendency to fall. But the underlying situation remains unsatisfactory and, as hon. Members are well aware, in the last few months the inflow of capital funds which helped us out last year has been reversed.
  I totally reject the charge that this Budget will not make any contribution to the solution of our balance of payments difficulties. In my view, such an accusation simply cannot be sustained, whether one is considering either the short-term or the long-term. In the first place, as I have pointed out, the Budget will prove definitely disinflationary in

  1731
  its effect. It must always be disagreeable for any Chancellor to have to impose additional taxation, but this year my right hon. and learned Friend believed that some reduction in home purchasing power was essential, to make room for an improvement in our balance of payments.
  At this point, I should like to say a word to those, like my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith), who addressed us so interestingly this afternoon, who still hold, in a modified form, the view that no increase in indirect taxation can ever prove disinflationary. The simplest way to consider the matter is to bear in mind the fact that the problem of excess demand is not quite identical with the problem of rising prices. If we allow demand to outstrip our productive resources, then we are inevitably faced not only with rising costs, but also with balance of payments difficulties and problems of acute labour shortage. But it is equally true to say that there is only one way to cope with the problem of excess demand, and that is by limiting or curtailing the general level of purchasing power by some means or another.
  I can assure hon. Members that my right hon. and learned Friend recognises as clearly as anyone the disadvantages of very high rates of taxation, both direct and indirect. But I should have thought that post-war experience had shown very clearly that, granted high taxation is an evil, the consequences of an excessive level of home demand are more disagreeable still. At any rate, I should make it quite plain that, while my right hon. and learned Friend will take due note of all the points which have been raised today, he regards his prospective revenue surplus of £500 million and the very small prospective overall deficit as fundamental to his Budget strategy this year.
  Sir D. Walker-Smith: I did not say that all indirect taxation was necessarily inflationary. What I did say was that, prima jacie, taxation of industry is inflationary, because it increases costs of production.
  Sir E. Boyle: I heard my right hon. and learned Friend's speech. The Chancellor, when opening the debate today,
  1732
  pointed out that the proposed tax on oil would affect industrial costs by only a small fraction of 1 per cent., and it is important for hon. Members to remember that.
  My right hon. and learned Friend also raised the question of arrangements that have been made for dealing with stocks of heavy oil. I can assure hon. Members that there is no question of retrospection. The position on Budget day was that some stocks of heavy oil were in the refineries and bonded warehouses and were already under Revenue control for purposes of the duty on light oils, and, under the law, when heavy oils became liable to duty this would apply to deliveries from these refineries and warehouses.
  Other stocks of heavy oil were already out of bond, and it would have been completely inequitable to have treated heavy oils differently, according to whether they were in or out of bond. In order to avoid this inequity, they were all made liable for duty upon delivery for home use.
  My right hon. and learned Friend's Budget surplus is not the only way in which the Budget will contribute to the solution of our balance of payments problem. I believe that, in the long run, the proposals for the two new economic regulators will prove even more important. These regulators will enable my right hon. and learned Friend, if it should be necessary between one Budget and the next, to take action effectively to lower or to raise the level of home demand. What is more, these regulators will enable him to curtail demand in such a way that the main brunt of the correcting action will not fall on capital investment.
  We can discuss these regulators in detail when we come to the Committee stage of the Bill, but I should like to repeat tonight what I said in the Budget debate, namely, that if these proposals are approved I believe that my right hon. and learned Friend will be in a stronger position to promote a steady rate of economic progress than any other Finance Minister in the Western world.
  I must ask any hon. Member who is critical of the principle of these regulators whether he has any alternative. Would any hon. Member prefer the

  1733
  Government to rely on general monetary measures, or more selective measures, like hire-purchase controls? Does any hon. Member really suppose, if we were to return to a system of selective physical controls, that it would be possible to lessen the pressure of home demand by anything approaching £200 million, which can be done by the application of one of these regulators alone?
  No Government can manage without the use of some general economic regulators, and I believe that it is only right, in the economic circumstances of today, that the Chancellor should have the powers for which he is asking. In answering my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby, I can say that neither of these regulators can be used until the Finance Bill has been passed, but I believe that it will be of enormous value to have them in reserve. It will increase confidence in our ability to manage our economy and to avoid the risk of a dangerous crisis.
  The second part of the Opposition Amendment criticises the Surtax reliefs and complains that my right hon. and learned Friend has done nothing to relieve the difficulties of the great majority of taxpayers. I must make two points clear on this part of the Opposition Amendment. First my right hon. and hon. Friends and I do not feel in the least apologetic in defending these Surtax reliefs. Secondly, we reject absolutely the charge that the Government have favoured Surtax payers at the expense of other members of the community.
  It is easy to forget just how much the present Government have done in recent years to help the overwhelming majority of taxpayers. Comparing personal allowances and reliefs now in force with those that were in force ten years ago, one finds a great improvement which has helped all taxpayers, including the great majority with lower incomes. In 1951, the single person's allowance was £110; it is now £140. The married man's allowance in 1951 was £190. It is now—
  Mr. H. Wilson Mr. H. Wilson rose—
  Sir E. Boyle: I have some more figures here which I wish to quote. The right hon. Gentleman addressed the House for quite a long time, but when I have given my figures I will gladly give way and
  1734
  allow the right hon. Gentleman to give one or two.
  The married man's allowance in 1951 was £190. It is now £240. The earned income relief fraction in 1951 was one-fifth. It is now two-ninths, on all the lower ranges of earned income. The child allowances in 1951 was a flat £70; it is now £100 for children up to 11, £125 for children between 11 and 16, and £150 for children over 16. May I add that I think this increased child allowance has proved a particularly timely concession at a period when, thanks to the success of the Government's education policies, more and more children are staying on at secondary schools and other schools of every kind beyond the statutory school-leaving age.
  The reduced rates of tax on the first slices of the taxable income of individuals in 1951 were 3s. in the £ on the first £50 of taxable income and 5s. 6d. in the £ on the next £200. At that point, in 1951, the standard rate of 9s. 6d. came into force. Today, the first £60 is taxable at 1s. 9d.; the next £150 at 4s. 3d.; the next £150 at 6s. 3d., and today the standard rate thereafter is not 9s. 6d., but 7s. 9d. I give these figures to show the substantial reduction which we have made in taxation on lower incomes.
  Mr. H. Wilson: Did not the hon. Gentleman himself tell us, in a Written Answer on 20th March, that the 1951 figures have to be increased by 26½ per cent. because of the rise in the cost of living since that time? The figures he gave show a reduction of those personal allowances. Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that, according to his own table of figures, given on 20th March, the burden on lower incomes is higher in relation to the increased cost of living even than in 1951?
  Sir E. Boyle: One thing which the right hon. Gentleman ought to remember when considering these figures is that today there are about 11½ million people with incomes of between £500 and £1,000 a year after tax has been paid, compared with the figure of between 2 million and 3 million people with that rate of income in 1951. The figures of the right hon. Gentleman are correct, but if we are to argue about statistics there are an enormous number of statistics which have to be taken into account.

  1735
  I hope that the House will not forget that there has been, on a calculation in a Fabian pamphlet, a 20 per cent. rise in the standard of living of working-class families compared with 1950, and that we are spending about 90 per cent. more on the social services today than ten years ago. With respect to the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson), it is no good talking as though ordinary people on low incomes are not, on an average, substantially better off today.
  I do not wish to weary the House with a great many more figures, but perhaps I may refer to one other category of persons which we should not forget, and which has been mentioned in the debate, namely, the elderly people living on small fixed incomes. It is worth remembering that the income limit for age relief was £500 in 1951. It is £800 today. My right hon. Friend the present Minister of Aviation introduced age exemption in 1957, and this exemption was raised by Lord Amory in 1958, so that no single person of retirement age pays tax on an income below £275, nor a married couple past retiring age if their income is less than £440. I reject completely the charge that the Government have neglected the needs of poorer taxpayers.
  For the last few minutes of my speech I wish to pass to the Government's Surtax proposals, considered on their own merits. We on this side of the House stand firm in our belief that it is absolutely right—right in economic terms and, I add, right in moral terms—for the level of Surtax on earnings to be revised at a time when the nation has been growing steadily richer.
  As I said in the Budget debate, no Labour Chancellor would have dared to levy Surtax on a man earning £1,000 a year in 1938. By the same token, it cannot be right to levy Surtax, on top of what is still a high rate of Income Tax, on a man earning £3,000 a year today. We shall never have a properly competitive economy, characterised by real enterprise and drive, if we apply severe discouragement through the tax system to a key group of our technical, managerial and professional people.
  It surely cannot be right that our tax treatment of men earning salaries in the region of £3,000 or £4,000 a year should
  1736
  be substantially less generous than that of our two principal trade competitors. On this point, I must say a word about the speech of the right hon. Member for Huyton, who said that the direct tax system today was more regressive than before the war and tried to prove the point by comparing relative yields of Income Tax and Surtax before and after the war.
  I shall use the moderate language of one historian criticising another in footnotes, and say that I hope the House will not assume without question that the right hon. Gentleman's calculations were necessarily correct, or bear the implications he said they did. A system of direct taxation does not become more regressive merely because a larger proportion of the yield of direct tax is levied under the heading of Income Tax rather than Surtax.
  The right hon. Gentleman, in his calculations, completely ignored the fact that the standard rate of Income Tax today is 7s. 9d. compared with 5s. 6d. in 1938–39. If we are considering the progressive nature of the tax system it must be a relevant consideration that the top rate of Surtax before the war left a man with 5s. in the £, on all incomes over £30,000; whereas the top rate in 1962–63, after my right hon. and learned Friend's proposals come into force, will leave him with not 5s., but 2s. 3d., not on all incomes over £30,000, but on incomes over about £20,000.
  The right hon. Gentleman made great play with the fact that Surtax yielded 16 per cent. of the total yield from direct taxes before the war. Sixteen per cent. of total yield of direct taxes today would amount to about £600 million. If Surtax yielded £600 million today under present conditions it would mean that the average Surtax payer would be able to keep less than £50 of the surtaxable slice of his income. I ask the right hon. Member seriously to think whether it would be possible to fulfil the "Wilson Four-Year Plan" under these conditions.
  It just is not true to say that we have a regressive tax system today. As I pointed out in the Second Reading debate on the National Health Service Contributions Bill, our highly progressive system of Income Tax and Surtax yields a higher proportion of total tax revenue today than it did when the

  1737
  party opposite was in office—44½ per cent. as compared with 43 per cent. in the financial year 1951–52. This per-centage figure will be even higher next year. It is nonsense to make out that the taxpayer today is not paying a fair share of what my right hon. and learned Friend requires.
  On the moral issue, I just cannot see how it can possibly be regarded as a mark of a just society to penalise success and blunt reward for exceptional ability. I cannot see that it makes any sense at all to write off Surtax payers, in the words of the Amendment, as
  "a minority of wealthier sections of the community."
  Of course, it is a mark of a just society that we should extend opportunity to those who are the least fortunate, for example, to a child severely handicapped through no fault of its own. But it is equally just and right that we should not appear to penalise unfairly a professional man with a family, increasing his earnings from year to year as the result of his own ability and effort.
  We on this side of the House believe in ensuring, as far as we can, fair treatment for every section of the community. We are not going to be deterred from
  the pursuit of this objective merely because one most important section of the community is less numerous than the rest.
  Many points were raised in the debate which we can discuss further in Committee. A number of my hon. Friends from Northern Ireland, are concerned, for example, about the payroll regulator, and I am authorised by my right hon. and learned Friend to say that in formulating any more permanent proposals, should he decide to do so, he will give serious consideration to the special circumstances affecting Northern Ireland.
  These and many other matters we can consider in Committee. I believe that my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby was right when he referred to this as an historic and important Budget. I believe that it will help us to fulfil all the economic objectives which are most important to the nation, and I confidently invite the House to reject the Amendment and to give the Bill a Second Reading.
  Question put, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question:—
  The House divided: Ayes 309, Noes 223.

  Division No. 158.]

  AYES

  [10.1 p.m.

  Agnew, Sir Peter

  Bryan, Paul

  Dance, James

  Altken, W. T.

  Buck, Antony

  d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

  Allan, Robert (Paddington, S.)

  Bullard, Denys

  Deedes, W. F.

  Allason, James

  Bullus, Wing Commander Eric

  de Ferranti, Basil

  Arbuthnot, John

  Burden, F. A.

  Digby, Simon Wingfield

  Ashton, Sir Hubert

  Butcher, Sir Herbert

  Doughty, Charles

  Atkins, Humphrey

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

  du Cann, Edward

  Balniel, Lord

  Campbell, Sir David (Belfast, S.)

  Duncan, Sir James

  Barber, Anthony

  Campbell, Cordon (Moray & Nairn)

  Eccles, Rt. Hon. David

  Barlow, Sir John

  Carr, Compton (Barons Court)

  Eden, John

  Barter, John

  Carr, Robert (Mitcham)

  Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

  Batsford, Brian

  Cary, Sir Robert

  Elliott,R. W. (Nwcstle-upon-Tyne, N.)

  Baxter, Sir Beverley (Southgate)

  Channon, H. P. G.

  Emery, Peter

  Bell, Ronald

  Chataway, Christopher

  Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn

  Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)

  Chichester-Clark, R.

  Errington, Sir Eric

  Bennett, Or. Reginald (Gos & Fhm)

  Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)

  Farey-Jones, F. W.

  Berkeley, Humphry

  Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)

  Farr, John

  Bevins, Rt. Hon. Reginald (Toxteth)

  Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)

  Fell, Anthony

  Bidgood, John C.

  Cleaver, Leonard

  Finlay, Graeme

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Cole, Norman

  Foster, John

  Bingham, R. M.

  Collard, Richard

  Fraser, Hn. Hugh (Stafford & Stone)

  Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel

  Cooper, A. E.

  Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Bishop, F. P.

  Cooper-Key, Sir Neill

  Freeth, Denzil

  Black, Sir Cyril

  Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.

  Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.

  Bossom, Clive

  Corfield, F. V.

  Gammans, Lady

  Bourne-Arton, A.

  Costain, A. P.

  Gardner, Edward

  Box, Donald

  Coulson, J. M.

  George, J. C. (Pollok)

  Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hon. John

  Courtney. Cdr. Anthony

  Gibson-Watt, David

  Boyle, Sir Edward

  Craddock, Sir Beresford

  Glover, Sir Douglas

  Braine, Bernard

  Critchley, Julian

  Glyn, Dr. Alan (Clapham)

  Brewis, John

  Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.

  Glyn, Sir Richard (Dorset, N.)

  Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter

  Crowder, F. P.

  Goodhart, Philip

  Brooman-White, R.

  Cunningham, Knox

  Goodhew, Victor

  Brown. Alan (Tottenham)

  Curran, Charles

  Gough, Frederick

  Browne, Percy (Torrington)

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Gower, Raymond

  Grant, Rt. Hon. William

  MacArthur, Ian

  Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)

  Green, Alan

  McLaren, Martin

  Roots, William

  Gresham Cooke, R.

  Maclay, Rt. Hon. John

  Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard

  Grimston, Sir Robert

  Maclean, SirFitzroy (Bute&N.Ayrs.)

  Russell, Ronald

  Grosvenor, Lt.-col. R. G.

  McLean, Neil (Inverness)

  Sandys, Rt. Hon. Duncan

  Gurden, Harold

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

  Scott-Hopkins, James

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  MacLeod, John (Ross & Cromarty)

  Seymour, Leslie

  Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)

  Macmillan, Rt. Hn. Harold(Bromley)

  Sharples, Richard

  Hare, Rt. Hon. John

  Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)

  Shaw, M.

  Harris, Reader (Heston)

  Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)

  Shepherd, William

  Harrison, Brian (Maldon)

  Maddan, Martin

  Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir Jocelyn

  Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesf'd)

  Maitland, Sir John

  Skeet, T. H. H.

  Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)

  Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir R.

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

  Harvie Anderson, Miss

  Markham, Major Sir Frank

  Smithers, Peter

  Hastings, Stephen

  Marlowe, Anthony

  Smyth, Brig. Sir John (Norwood)

  Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

  Marples, Rt. Hon. Ernest

  Spearman, Sir Alexander

  Henderson, John (Cathcart)

  Marshall, Douglas

  Speir, Rupert

  Henderson-Stewart, Sir James

  Marten, Neil

  Stanley, Hon. Richard

  Hendry, Forbes

  Mathew, Robert (Honiton)

  Stevens, Geoffrey

  Hiley, Joseph

  Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)

  Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)

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

  Maudling, Rt. Hon. Reginald

  Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm

  Hinchingbrooke, Viscount

  Mawby, Ray

  Storey, Sir Samuel

  Hirst, Geoffrey

  Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

  Studholme, Sir Henry

  Hobson, John

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

  Summers, Sir Spencer (Aylesbury)

  Hocking, Philip N.

  Mills, Stratton

  Sumner, Donald (Orpington)

  Holland, Philip

  Montgomery, Fergus

  Talbot, John E.

  Hollingworth, John

  More, Jasper (Ludlow)

  Tapsell, Peter

  Hope, Rt. Hon. Lord John

  Morgan, William

  Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

  Hopkins, Alan

  Morrison, John

  Taylor, Edwin (Bolton, E.)

  Hornby, R. P.

  Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles

  Teeling, William

  Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Patricia

  Nabarro, Gerald

  Temple, John M.

  Howard, Hon. G. R. (St. Ives)

  Nicholls, Sir Harmar

  Thatoher, Mrs. Margaret

  Howard, John (Southampton, Test)

  Nicholson, Sir Godfrey

  Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)

  Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John

  Noble, Michael

  Thomas, Peter (Conway)

  Hughes-Young, Michael

  Nugent, Sir Richard

  Thorneycroft, Rt. Hon. Peter

  Hulbert, Sir Norman

  Oakshott, Sir Hendrie

  Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin

  Hurd, Sir Anthony

  Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

  Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)

  Hutchison, Michael Clark

  Orr-Ewing, C. Ian

  Tilney, John (Wavertree)

  Iremonger, T. L.

  Osborn, John (Hallam)

  Turner, Colin

  Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

  Osborne, Cyril (Louth)

  Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.

  Jackson, John

  Page, John (Harrow, West)

  Tweedsmuir, Lady

  James, David

  Page, Graham (Crosby)

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

  Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale)

  Vane, W. M. F.

  Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

  Partridge, E.

  Vaughan-Morgan, Sir John

  Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

  Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)

  Vickers, Miss Joan

  Jones, Rt. Hn. Aubrey (Hall Green)

  Peel, John

  Vosper, Rt. Hon. Dennis

  Joseph, Sir Keith

  Percival, Ian

  Wakefield, Edward (Derbyshire, W.)

  Kerans, Cdr. J. S.

  Peyton, John

  Wakefield, Sir Wavell (St. M'lebone)

  Kerby, Capt. Henry

  Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth

  Walder, David

  Kerr, Sir Hamilton

  Pike, Miss Mervyn

  Walker, Peter

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Pilkington, Sir Richard

  Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Sir Derek

  Kimball, Marcus

  Pitt, Miss Edith

  Ward, Dame Irene

  Kirk, Peter

  Pott, Percivall

  Watkinson, Rt. Hon. Harold

  Lagden, Godfrey

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Langford-Holt, J.

  Prior, J. M. L.

  Whitelaw, William

  Leavey, J. A.

  Profumo, Rt. Hon. John

  Williams, Dudley (Exeter)

  Leburn, Gilmour

  Proudfoot, Wilfred

  Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)

  Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

  Pym, Francis

  Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)

  Lewis, Kermeth (Rutland)

  Quennell, Miss J. M.

  Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

  Lilley, F. J. P.

  Ramsden, James

  Wise, A. R.

  Lindsay, Martin

  Rawlinson, Peter

  Woodhouse, C. M.

  Linstead, Sir Hugh

  Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin

  Woodnutt, Mark

  Litchfield, Capt. John

  Rees, Hugh

  Woollam, John

  Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey(Sut'nC'dfield)

  Renton, David

  Worsley, Marcus

  Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)

  Ridley, Hon. Nicholas

  Yates, William (The Wrekin)

  Longbottom, Charles

  Ridsdale, Julian

  Longden, Gilbert

  Rippon, Geoffrey

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Loveys, Walter H.

  Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley)

  Colonel J. H. Harrison and

  Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

  Robinson, Sir Roland (Blackpool, S.)

  Mr. J. E. B. Hill.

  McAdden, Stephen

  NOES

  Abse, Leo

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

  Chapman, Donald

  Ainsley, William

  Bowen, Roderic (Cardigan)

  Chetwynd, George

  Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

  Bowles, Frank

  Cliffe, Michael

  Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

  Boyden, James

  Collick, Percy

  Awbery, Stan

  Brockway, A. Fenner

  Corbet, Mrs. Freda

  Bacon, Miss Alice

  Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

  Craddock, George (Bladford, S.)

  Bence, Cyril (Dunbartonshire, E.)

  Brown, Thomas (Ince)

  Crosland, Anthony

  Benson, Sir George

  Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

  Cullen, Mrs. Alice

  Blackburn, P.

  Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

  Darling, George

  Blyton, William

  Callaghan, James

  Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

  Boardman, H.

  Castle, Mrs. Barbara

  Davies, Harold (Leek)

  1740

  1741

  Davies, Ifor (Gower)

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

  Randall, Harry

  Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Rankin, John

  Deer, George

  Jones, Elwyn (West Ham, S.)

  Redhead, E. C.

  de Freitas, Geoffrey

  Jones, Jack (Rotherham)

  Reid, William

  Delargy, Hugh

  Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

  Reynolds, G. W.

  Dempsey, James

  Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

  Rhodes, H.

  Diamond, John

  Kelley, Richard

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Dodds, Norman

  Kenyon, Clifford

  Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

  Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. M.

  Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

  Robertson, J. (Paisley)

  Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John

  Ledger, Ron

  Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)

  Ede, Rt. Hon. C.

  Lee, Frederick (Newton)

  Ross, William

  Edelman, Maurice

  Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)

  Royle, Charles (Salford, West)

  Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)

  Lever, Harold (Cheetham)

  Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.

  Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

  Lever, L. M. (Aldwick)

  Short, Edward

  Edwards, Walter (Stepney)

  Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)

  Silverman, Julius (Aston)

  Evans, Albert

  Lipton, Marcus

  Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)

  Fernyhough, E.

  Loughlin, Charles

  Skeffington, Arthur

  Finch, Harold

  Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

  Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

  Fletcher, Eric

  McCann, John

  Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)

  Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)

  MacColl, James

  Small, William

  Forman, J. C.

  McInnes, James

  Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

  Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

  McKay, John (Wallsend)

  Snow, Julian

  Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. Hugh

  Mackie, John

  Sorensen, R. W.

  Galpern, Sir Myer

  McLeavy, Frank

  Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank

  George, Lady Megan Lloyd(Crmrthn)

  MacMillan, Malcolm (Western Isles)

  Spriggs, Leslie

  Ginsburg, David

  MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)

  Stewart, Michael (Fulham)

  Gooch, E. G.

  Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

  Stonehouse, John

  Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.

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

  Stones, William

  Gourlay, Harry

  Manuel, A, C.

  Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R. (Vauxhall)

  Greenwood, Anthony

  Mapp, Charles

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

  Grey, Charles

  Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.

  Swain, Thomas

  Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

  Marsh, Richard

  Swingler, Stephen

  Grimths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)

  Mason, Roy

  Sylvester, George

  Griffiths, W. (Exchange)

  Mayhew, Christopher

  Symonds, J. B.

  Grimond, J.

  Mellish, R. J.

  Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

  Gunter, Ray

  Mendelson, J. J.

  Thomas, George (Cardiff, W.)

  Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)

  Millan, Bruce

  Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

  Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvil (Colne Valley)

  Milne, Edward J.

  Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline)

  Hamilton, William (West Fife)

  Mitchison, G. R.

  Thomson, G. M. (Dundee, E.)

  Hannan, William

  Monslow, Walter

  Thornton, Ernest

  Hart, Mrs. Judith

  Moody, A. S.

  Timmons, John

  Hayman, F. H.

  Morris, John

  Tomney, Frank

  Healey, Denis

  Mort, D. L.

  Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn

  Henderson, Rt. Hn. Arthur(Rwly Regis)

  Moyle, Arthur

  Wainwright, Edwin

  Herbison, Miss Margaret

  Neal, Harold

  Warbey, William

  Hewitson, Capt. M.

  Noel-Baker, Rt. Hn. Philip(Derby, S.)

  Weitzman, David

  Hill, J. (Midlothian)

  Oliver, G. H.

  Wells, Percy (Faversham)

  Hilton, A. V.

  Oram, A. E.

  Wells, William (Walsall. N.)

  Holman, Percy

  Oswald, Thomas

  White, Mrs. Elrene

  Holt, Arthur

  Owen, Will

  Whitlock, William

  Houghton, Douglas

  Padley, W. E.

  Wigg, George

  Howell, CharlesA. (B'ham, PerryBarr)

  Pargiter, G. A.

  Wilcock, Group Capt. C. A. B.

  Hoy, James H.

  Parker, John

  Willey, Frederick

  Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

  Parkin, B. T.

  Williams, D. J. (Neath)

  Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

  Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)

  Williams, Ll. (Abertillery)

  Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

  Peart, Frederick

  Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)

  Hunter, A. E.

  Pentland, Norman

  Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

  Hynd, H. (Accrington)

  Plummer, Sir Leslie

  Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)

  Hynd, H. (Attercliffe)

  Popplewell, Ernest

  Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.

  Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)

  Prentice, R. E.

  Woof, Robert

  Irving, Sydney (Dartford)

  Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

  Yates, Victor (Ladywood)

  Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas

  Probert, Arthur

  Jeger, George

  Proctor, W. T.

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)

  Pursey, Cmdr. Harry

  Mr. John Taylor and

  Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

  Mr. G. H. R. Rogers.

  Bill read a Second time and committed to a Committee of the whole House.
  Committee Tomorrow.

  PUBLIC ACCOUNTS
  Vice-Admiral John Hughes Hallett discharged from the Committee of Public Accounts; Sir Gerald Wills added.—[Mr. E. Wakefield.]

  WAR PENSIONER, SCOTLAND (MOTOR CAR)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. E. Wakefield.]
  10.14 p.m.
  Mr. William Hamilton: I would like to draw the attention of the House to the case of Mr. G. A. Rogers of Oakley, in Fife. This is the second Adjournment debate I have had on this case. The first debate took place on 25th October of last year, on the first day of our return from the Summer Recess. I think that the results of that Adjournment debate were highly successful from the point of view of both Mr. Rogers and myself, and I should like to take this opportunity of thanking the Ministry of National Insurance for the consideration it gave to this case and the results of that consideration. Mr. Rogers got substantial back payment of his pension and was very pleased with the outcome.
  The point I now want to make is that money alone does not alleviate the hardship of this case. Money can never give this man, his wife and his family, the normal life that they could have expected to enjoy before the terrible war experiences of Rogers took their toll. It was a recognition of those harsh facts that impelled me in the former debate to request the Scottish Office to examine the possibility of supplying a motor vehicle to my constituent.
  I shall not repeat the history of the case. Suffice it to say that Rogers is now 39 years of age, and his wife, I think, is of a comparable age. As a result of his war experiences on the Russian run—continually bombed back and forth, twice within an ace of being drowned—this man is now completely unemployable. He is in receipt of the unemployability supplement and of the constant attendance allowance, and is on 100 per cent. pension.
  Financially, as I have said, that is probably satisfactory, but it certainly cannot be called affluence. Even assuming that it is financially satisfactory, it remains the fact that Rogers and his wife are confined within the four walls of their house for the rest of their lives. Rogers is so incapacitated that he cannot even get to
  1744
  a football match at Dunfermline, three miles away.
  I made my representations for a car in the first instance through the Ministry of National Insurance as long ago as 29th February, 1960. That letter was sent to the Scottish Office, from whom I received a reply dated 8th April, 1960. In other words, there was a delay of nearly six weeks before I got that reply. I make little complaint on that score, because one understands that investigations had taken place, but in view of the anxiety of Mr. Rogers and his wife at that time about the outcome, I think that the Department ought to do something to inject a greater sense of urgency into its officials particularly in cases of this kind. These cases must, by their very nature, be rare, and I think that the hon. Gentleman should tell his officials that these cases do come along, and they must be treated with the very highest priority, because I must point out that this sort of thing was twice repeated later on.
  Rogers had been examined at the Limb and Appliance Centre at Edinburgh on 28th September, 1959, and found to be ineligible for the supply of a motor-propelled vehicle. The grounds for refusal were:
  "…disability—psychoneurosis—does not bring him within the groups of severely disabled who are given motor propelled tricycles because of total or almost total loss of the use of both legs. He does not need a tricycle to get to and from his work…."
  That is the burden of our complaint not only in this but in other cases, because many of my colleagues in the House have similar cases and this is not the first time that this kind of matter has been raised. The letter goes on:
  "I am afraid that I can only confirm that it is not possible to solve Mr. Rogers' problem by supplying a motor propelled tricycle."
  That was in April, 1960.
  I again raised the matter in August, 1960, when the hon. Gentleman was more forthcoming and gave more information about the supply of Morris Minor motor cars being available to ex-members of the Forces and the Mercantile Marine in receipt of 100 per cent. disablement pension. But only three categories qualify—the double amputee with at least one above the knee, those who suffer from paraplegia and are

  1745
  unable to work, and those suffering from physical disability which results in total loss or almost total loss of both legs. That was the further information which the hon. Gentleman gave to me. He also said that further extensions of this scheme were being made, but only to help those who would be able to work—still this provision—and therefore Rogers was rejected.
  That was the position when I took up the Adjournment debate on 25th October last year with a Scottish Minister in attendance. On that occasion, the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance indicated that arrangements were made to have Rogers further medically examined in connection with his application for a motor-car. Again, there was delay. That debate was on 25th October, but I did not get a reply from the Scottish Office until 2nd February of this year—a delay of three months—during which time I had I do not know how many letters from Rogers. The hon. Gentleman must remember that he is a nervous case. His nerve is completely shattered, and he and his wife were living on tenterhooks for three months wondering what was to happen and whether a bit of pleasure could be injected into their lives. I could do nothing about it, because the letter was in the Department.
  The reply came on 2nd February, and if it had contained worth-while news one would have said that it was well worth waiting three months, but in fact there was no advance whatever. A medical examination had taken place, but he was still ineligible for a car. The quotation I take from that letter is this:
  "The only possibility would be if he required it for the purposes of employment, but I understand that he is not at work. If his circumstances should change in this respect it would, of course, always be possible for his case to be reconsidered."
  But, of course, the hon. Gentleman knew then that Rogers was in full receipt of the unemployability supplement, so that, in effect, one Minister was saying that he can never be employed, while the hon. Gentleman was saying, "If he gets a job, we might consider giving him a car."
  It seems to me to be quite absurd. Here we have a man who was in the service of his country in one of the most dangerous exploits of the war, who suf-
  1746
  fered grievous physical harm during that Russian run. It may well have been that another man on the same ship could have suffered almost identical harm, but, in the nature of things, he might have been able to get a job, while Rogers was not. A man who gets the job, which in itself is giving that man additional pleasure and additional independence, gets a car, while a man who cannot get a job does not get a car. To me, this is quite outrageous.
  It took the hon. Gentleman six weeks again to say "No". I took the case up on 2nd March of this year, when I asked the hon. Gentleman to look at it again, and there has been this further delay of almost exactly six weeks to the day again to say "No". Up to now, I have been rather restrained in presenting this case, and nobody knows more than I how difficult that is. I find it very difficult to restrain myself in these circumstances, when I see cases like this and look around elsewhere and see the greatest extravagance in other fields. The hon. Gentleman knows full well that for the last few weeks I have been conducting a campaign against extravagance in other fields, particularly with Royal Palaces. I need not quote all the specific examples which I have mentioned in the House. I merely quote two. This year, £6,000 is to be spent on renewing the railings round Holyrood House. This year, £50,000 is to be spent on the provision of a home in Kensington Palace for Princess Margaret. These moneys are to be spent when I am pleading for a little car for a man who gave his all for his country. In these circumstances, it is very difficult to be reasonable.
  I do not know what discretionary powers the Joint Under-Secretary of State has nor what humanity there is in him. I believe that there is some. All that I ask him to do is to look at this case again and to strain the law to breaking point to provide this man and his wife with a tiny prospect of enjoying their lives a little more than their immediate future seems to hold for them.
  10.26 p.m.
  The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. T. G. D. Galbraith): I should like to begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. W. Hamilton) on the persuasive way in which he has presented his case, which

  1747
  is a very moving one, and also on the reasonable manner in which he presented it. I know how strongly he feels about this case. I congratulate him, too, on his persistence in trying over a fairly long period to obtain for his constituent what he believes to be his constituent's due as some slight recompense for all that he suffered during the war in the service of his country. This is an aspect to which no one can be unsympathetic; indeed, it is recognised in the preferential treatment which is already accorded to Service pensioners.
  As a result of the previous correspondence which I have had with the hon. Gentleman, and in the light of this debate, I have taken the opportunity to review the whole case most thoroughly and to look particularly at the possibility of helping Mr. Rogers further. These are the reasons why it has sometimes taken rather a long time to reply to the hon. Gentleman's communications. These delays are a sign not of inefficiency but of seeing whether it was possible to help Mr. Rogers. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept that. Apart from that, I do not think there is any disagreement between the hon. Gentleman and myself about the facts. Broadly, they are as he stated them.
  Before I go into the details of this case, it might be for the convenience of the House if I first explained the arrangements which are made for the operation of the scheme for the provision of tricycles and cars to war pensioners so that the House may have the matter in perspective. The scheme goes back to the end of the First World War, when severely disabled war pensioners were supplied with invalid chairs or hand-propelled tricycles, if they needed them for the purposes of their employment. By 1920, motorised units had become available and two categories were recognised as being eligible for them—those with amputations and those who were paraplegics. In 1934, a third category was added, that of permanent loco-motor disablement, other than paraplegia.
  Subsequently, the design of these tricycles was improved, but in spite of this in 1948 the right hon. Member for Middlesbrough, East (Mr. Marquand) announced that it was the intention of the then Government
  1748
  "…to provide a limited number of small cars, not exceeding 1,500…to certain classes of very seriously disabled war pensioners who may elect to receive a car in place of the motor propelled tricycle to which they are entitled…."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th July, 1948; Vol. 454, c.1103.]
  This principle enunciated by the right hon. Gentleman still guides this Government, though in fulfilment of our election promises the ceiling which previously existed has been removed in accordance with the answer given in this House to a Question on 4th April, 1960. So the categories of eligibility for these vehicles remain today broadly the same as they were in 1948, when the issue of cars was first made.
  I am certain the hon. Gentleman will appreciate that in a scheme such as this for the supply of tricycles and mini-cars to war pensioners it is absolutely essential that all the pensioners should be able to feel that they can rely upon a uniform treatment of all applications. The present Government, therefore, as well as the previous one, have tried to achieve uniformity first of all, by having certain medical categories for eligibility and, secondly, by vetting in the central Government Departments all the applications that are received so as to ensure that the scheme is uniformly administered throughout the whole country.
  The medical categories of pensioners who are eligible are those which I described to the hon. Gentleman in the letter which I sent him on 5th October. For the benefit of the House I should like to repeat them. They are: first, those who have suffered amputation of both legs, at least one above the knee; secondly, those who are suffering from paraplegia and who to all intents and purposes are unable to walk; and, thirdly, those who are suffering from a physical disability—I emphasise the word "physical"—which results in the total or almost total loss of use of both legs. In addition to these three main groups, less severely disabled pensioners are brought within the scheme if they need cars in order to get to their work. This is the point which the hon. Gentleman made, and I will later on deal with it in greater detail.
  Unfortunately, as the hon. Gentleman will realise from this description of the various categories, Mr. Rogers does not come within any of them, and it is this fact which creates all the difficulty.

  1749
  The hon. Gentleman may wonder-indeed, he indicated that he did wonder—why Mr. Rogers, since he has a 100 per cent. disability pension, and since he cannot walk, should not qualify for a car. The reason for this is that we have not felt able to give cars or tricycles to those whose inability to walk derives from anything other than a direct physical defect. So those who suffer from heart complaints that affect the use of their legs, or lung complaints that affect the use of their legs or, as in this case, nervous complaints which produce hysterical paralysis which affects the use of their legs are not eligible for cars or tricycles. If people suffering in these ways from indirect physical complaints were eligible it would vastly increase the scope of the scheme.
  The trouble—I do ask the hon. Gentleman to accept this—is that Mr. Rogers is not just a borderline case who may be pushed over the border with a little goodwill and a little stretching of a point here and there. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that if that was all there was to it there would be no difficulty at all. But the trouble is that if Mr. Rogers were granted a car, it would mean creating an entirely new category, which involves considering 1,700 cases in Scotland alone—because that is the number of disabled pensioners in Scotland who are in receipt of supplementary allowances similar to those which Mr. Rogers is receiving. I may add that the United Kingdom figure for people in the same category as Mr. Rogers is as high as 19,000, a very considerable figure. The suggested change would obviously involve substantial extra costs beyond those of the scheme announced in April last year.
  To widen the medical categories of eligibility in this way so as to include severely disabled pensioners with hysterical paralysis, heart, lung or other systematic diseases which affect locomotion is thus clearly a development of considerable magnitude and though I fully understand the hon. Member's reason for making the suggestion, I am afraid that the development would be on such a scale that it is something which the Government cannot contemplate.
  The hon. Member, as well as making the point about 100 per cent. disability,
  1750
  asked why ability to work should count particularly in this matter. Ever since the inception of the scheme—which goes back a long time, long before the present Government were in power—ability to work has been one of the principal criteria for considering eligibility of the less severely disabled. It is the less severely disabled to which it applies.
  I agree that it may seem unfair that the most incapacitated pensioner like Mr. Rogers should get the least help. But we must recognise that the longer a man can work, the better it is for him mentally—quite apart from the benefit in earnings to himself and his family. If a car can keep him at work, I think he should have a car, even if by itself his medical condition would not have entitled him to it. That is why work is an important criterion.
  I have told the hon. Member in correspondence that we are always willing to look again at Mr. Rogers' application for a car if he finds employment. From what the hon. Member has said, this seems unlikely at the moment. But the welfare officer of the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance can sometimes help even badly disabled people to get a job. If the Ministry is successful in this, they will get in touch with the Department of Health, as is their practice, so that the new circumstances can be considered. I am sorry, therefore, that on this point, this is as far as I can go to help the hon. Member.
  I admit that the hon. Member did not go as far as he might have gone in asking why we could not cut this or that item of expenditure or increase the level of taxation and use the money to pay for an extension of the car service. It is easy for people who have warm-hearted inclinations to make suggestions of that sort. We all have sympathy with that attitude, but it is quite another matter when one has the responsibility for raising the money and, in the process of doing that, having too high taxation and killing the goose that lays the golden egg. That is a consideration which hon. Members opposite are in constant danger of forgetting. Yet these are the things which must be remembered if one has the responsibility within the general framework of an expanding service—I stress that it is expanding—of deciding what are to be the priorities. In an ideal world, it is

  1751
  easy to decide what should be done, but we have to work within practical limits.
  I should like to quote a remark of my hon. and learned Friend the then Minister of Health, who, replying to a debate on this subject in June, 1960, said:
  "It is obvious that there will be times when our will is not matched by our means, and there will inevitably be times when our purse does not allow us to go as far as our hearts would take us."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 30th June, 1960; Vol. 625, c.1676–7.]
  That is unfortunately still the position with regard to the extension which the grant of a car to Mr. Rogers would involve.
  I therefore regret that I am not able to satisfy the plea of the hon. Member. I hope, however, that I have shown him that Mr. Rogers' case has been considered thoroughly and sympathetically and with a real desire to grant his wishes rather than an attempt to reject them.
  I can assure the House that there is nothing negative about the Government's approach to this problem. All the time, within the limits set, we are trying to stretch points and to give cars in borderline cases. I remind the hon. Member that Conservatives do care, although he may not believe it. I hope that I have shown him what is perhaps more important than sympathy—that over the years our good intentions have resulted in a considerable improvement in the lot of the war pensioners. I see no reason why this process should not continue, but the expression of this general hope, is I am afraid, as far as I can go tonight.
  10.40 p.m.
  Miss Margaret Herbison: My hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West (Mr. Hamilton) will be far from satisfied with that reply. What is the reason for the Government's refusal to grant Mr. Rogers one of these
  1752
  cars? It has been made clear in the Joint Under-Secretary of State's reply that it is the financial cost to the country. He tells us that there would be 19,000 of these cases.
  I would like him to calculate what the cost would be of providing cars for these people, and how that would compare with the £83 million that, in a full year, the Surtax payers are to get. Would not a generous Government have thought that they could give some happiness, some hope, to 19,000 of these people—
  Mr. Hamilton: And their wives—
  Miss Herbison:—by using part of that £83 million? Does not the Joint Under-Secretary of State think it strange that if a pensioner has a broken back, is a paraplegic, or has lost his limbs, the Government will give him a car, yet if he has the type of disability of Mr. Rogers—a disability which leads to depression not only for the victim but for his family when they come into contact with him—they will not give him a car? Is it not just as important that this group of severely disabled people should have the same treatment as the paraplegics or those who have lost their limbs?
  The Joint Under-Secretary of State said the pensioners want to be convinced that there is uniform treatment of allocation. Because of that, he cannot stretch a point for Mr. Rogers. I agree that pensioners and almost all decent minded people want to have uniform treatment of allocation—
  The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half-an-hour, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House without question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.
  Adjourned at sixteen minutes to Eleven o'clock.

EDUCATION
  Science and Mathematics
  Science and Mathematics
  PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (SPEECH)
  PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (SPEECH)
  FREEDOM FROM HUNGER CAMPAIGN
  FREEDOM FROM HUNGER CAMPAIGN
  DISARMAMENT
  DISARMAMENT
AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
  Dock Strike
  Dock Strike
NATIONAL FINANCE
  Department of Technical Co-operation
  Department of Technical Co-operation
  Expenses Claims (Leaflet)
  Expenses Claims (Leaflet)
HOME DEPARTMENT
  Fire Services (Pay and Conditions)
  Fire Services (Pay and Conditions)
  Firearms (Prosecutions)
  Firearms (Prosecutions)
  Civil Defence (Nuclear Warfare)
  Civil Defence (Nuclear Warfare)
  Whitehall Demonstration (Police Officers)
  Whitehall Demonstration (Police Officers)
  Surrendered Firearms
  Surrendered Firearms
  Commonwealth Immigrants
  Commonwealth Immigrants
  Economic Situation, Northern Ireland (Study Group)
  Economic Situation, Northern Ireland (Study Group)
  Crimes of Violence
  Crimes of Violence
  Caernarvon Assizes
  Caernarvon Assizes
LOCAL GOVERNMENT
  Coventry Corporation (Grants)
  Coventry Corporation (Grants)
SCIENCE
  Space Vehicle Tracking Station, Winkfield
  Space Vehicle Tracking Station, Winkfield
SCOTLAND
  Teachers
  Teachers
WIRELESS AND TELEVISION
  Coloured Television
  Coloured Television
TRADE AND COMMERCE
  Companies Act, 1948 (Auditors)
  Companies Act, 1948 (Auditors)
ROADS
  Council of Europe (Road Traffic Rules)
  Council of Europe (Road Traffic Rules)

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Norwich

BUSINESS ADVERTISEMENTS AND USE OF WORD "BANK"
3.4 p.m.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they have powers to stop financial institutions calling themselves "banks" in the course of advertising for funds from the general public, when in practice their business is not such as is usually understood by the public to be covered by the description "banking".]
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (THE EARL OF DUNDEE): My Lords, the answer is, No. The powers of the Board of Trade in regard to the use of the word "bank" are in respect of its use as part of a company name or of a business name. It has been the policy of the Board of Trade since the Companies Act of 1947 not to allow a company name or a business name to be registered if it includes the word "bank" unless the facts of the case justify its use. There is, however, no power to prevent the use of the word as part of a business description. This is a defect in existing legislation which the Board of Trade have noted for consideration when the opportunity presents itself.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his Answer. In default of this legislation, I take it that the Government's policy must be caveat depositor.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I stated that there is no power to prevent the use of the word "bank" in a business advertisement or anything of that kind. That will have to wait until we
1356
get an opportunity, of which I think there may be some prospect before long, of new legislation on the subject.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, the noble Earl, the Minister, will be aware that in the Moneylenders Act there is a provision which prevents a certain class of man from describing himself as a "bank". Surely, there should not be any difficulty in extending that to other people.

PROPOSED PAYROLL TAX
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: 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 it is estimated the yield will be during the financial year 1961–1962 from the proposed surcharge on employers (payroll tax) if imposed at the maximum rate of 4s. per employee per week, as regards (a) the public corporations; (b) Government Services; and (c) the local authorities; respectively.]
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, it would be misleading to give without qualification a figure for the yield in 1961–62, since the surcharge can at most be imposed for only three-quarters of that year, and of course may not be imposed at all during the year. On the hypothesis suggested by the noble Lord I think the best answer which I can give your Lordships' House is that the monthly rate of payments on behalf of Government servants (Civil Service, Armed Forces and National Health Service) would be about £1¾million; on behalf of local authorities (teachers, police, fire services and local authority employees) about £1½million; and on behalf of public corporations—that is the nationalised industries—rather over £1½million.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: My Lords, does the noble Earl appreciate that these are very heavy figures? I understand that in the case of the London County Council alone the amount involved in a full year would be in the region of £750,000. Whilst I do not object to some taxation by order, subject to Parliamentary approval, this

1357
is a very heavy burden, particularly on some of the public corporations that are losing money; and in the case of the railways, of course, their job is to get the staff, not to squeeze it out. Are those considerations in the mind of the Government?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: Certainly, my Lords. I gather from the noble Lord's supplementary that he is not wholeheartedly in favour of this potential new tax. He says that the burden is so heavy; but he will, of course, appreciate that the tax may not be imposed at all. I think the point is that if we are expected to use fiscal methods of controlling the economy it is a good thing that there should be power to use them, either upwards or downwards, at any time of the year, and not only in the month of April.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, while I accept that this tax might have some possible value as a long-term tax, are the Government aware that it must be completely misconceived as an anti-inflationary tax and that it is not possible for firms to alter overnight their employment? And is the noble Earl aware that it is precisely the directional effects of an unplanned kind to which the Radcliffe Committee objected so much in the type of instruments that the Government are apt to use on these occasions?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I am aware that there are objections—sometimes strong objections—to every tax which is ever imposed; and there is also usually something to be said on the other side as well. I do not think we can debate the merits and demerits of this proposal, especially as it is only a potential tax, at Question Time.
LORD LATHAM: Would the noble Earl say whether the figures he has given are gross or net?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: No, my Lords: they are the amount of the levy.
LORI) LATHAM: In some cases, of course, it would therefore be possible to charge them as against the sums otherwise due for taxation?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I think that is another question, but I will certainly look into it.
LORD WILLIAMS OF BARNBURGH: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl whether we can take it from his figures, which think he said were monthly, that this would mean that ordinary ratepayers would be called upon to pay £18 million a year? Was that the intention of the Government—to penalise ratepayers, as distinct from workers in general industry?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, these figures which the noble Lord asked for were not only for local authority employees, but also for civil servants, the Armed Forces, National Health Service and public corporations. I do not want to take up time now by breaking down the figures between them. With regard to the point about rates, I think the sums involved would be treated for grant purposes like any other unforeseen variation in costs.
LORD WILLIAMS OF BARNBURGH: But did the noble Earl not say that the estimate was £1½ million a month for local authorities, and would that not be £18 million a year to be paid exclusively by the ratepayers?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: Not necessarily exclusively by the ratepayers. That would depend on its effect, if any, on the grant. But of course, the noble Lord is assuming that, if it were imposed, it would be it-noosed for twelve months in the year. On that assumption, it is correct to say that it would mean £18 million in a whole year.
LORD LATHAM: My Lords, is it intended in regard to local authorities that the grant will be increased by precisely the same amount as the payroll taxes?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: No. The surcharge will add to the costs borne by the local authorities and will be treated for grant purposes like any other unforeseen variation in costs. Whether or not the level of grant would be adjusted would depend on whether, in the Minister's judgment, the total rise in these costs would impose a burden of such magnitude that it should not be left to fall entirely on the local authorities.
LORD LATHAM: That means, then, that there will be a very heavy burden, not yet ascertainable, cast upon local authorities?
THE EARL of DUNDEE: That depends upon what is meant by "very heavy", and also on whether the tax is imposed.
LORD HAWKE: My Lords, I hope that my noble friend will not think that, because all the supplementaries have come from the other side of the House, we on this side of the House heartily approve of this particular form of tax.

HOSPITAL ADMISSIONS UNDER MENTAL HEALTH ACT
3.11 p.m.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: 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. in the event of an application for admission to a hospital being made under Section 25 or Section 26 or Section 29 of the Mental Health Act, 1959, what are the rights of a hospital to refuse to admit such a patient; and upon whom does the obligation lie to make the arrangements required by subsection (3) of Section 60 of the Act, and what are the rights of a hospital to decline to be the hospital specified in an order under Section 60 of the Act.]
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, the Mental Health Act does not define the duties of hospitals in regard to the admission of patients. But Regional Hospital Boards have been asked to ensure that, whatever the admission procedure, psychiatric emergencies are admitted immediately, and that patients requiring treatment less urgently are admitted with due regard to the accommodation available and to their need for admission. My right honourable friend the Minister of Health, has indicated that it is for one of the two doctors whose evidence is needed for the purposes of Section 60 to make the arrangements required by subsection (3) of that section.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his Answer. I should like to ask whether he is satisfied that these arrangements are working smoothly in particular, that there is no delay in the admission of patients; and that there is, no danger
1360
of patients being, so to speak, "hawked around" from one hospital to another in an attempt to gain admission. As regards Section 60, can he assure the House that a court cannot find itself in the position of being unable to make a hospital order simply because no hospital can be found which is willing to accept the patient?
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, perhaps I may reply first to the last of the noble Baroness's supplementary questions. There could be circumstances in which a hospital could not be found to take a patient who the court thought should be ordered Ito go into hospital under Section 60. But my right honourable friend knows of only one case in which there has been difficulty, and that is the case of Peter David Hastings, of which the noble Baroness perhaps has knowledge. He was imprisoned; but within a few weeks after that he was, in fact, transferred to a special hospital. That is the only case of difficulty of which my right honourable friend is aware. In reply to the noble Baroness's earlier question, so far as I know these arrangements are working smoothly and satisfactorily.
LORD TAYLOR: My Lords, could the noble Lord say when the instructions were issued to the Regional Boards?—because I 'think there has been a little difficulty over some of these acute admissions, and it may have been cleared up since.
LORD NEWTON: These instructions were issued just before the Mental Health Act came into force, in the memorandum of guidance which was issued to all hospital authorities on the working of the Act. If my noble friend knows of any cases of difficulty, I shall be very glad to look into them.
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, would not the noble Lord agree that the difficulty that has occurred arises from the phrasing he himself has used: urgency and less urgency? Differences of opinion, even in the medical profession, arise on the question of "less urgency".
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, I imagine that there are differences of opinion within the medical profession, as within any other profession. But it was a deliberate provision in the Act that the

1361
order of admission should be determined by need, and not by the type of admission procedure: because a patient who is willing to go into a mental hospital as an informal patient may well be in more urgent need of treatment than another patient in respect of whom compulsory powers have been used.

COMMONWEALTH PARLIAMENTARY CONFERENCE IN LONDON
LORD PETHICK-LAWRENCE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will make a statement about the Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference to be held in London later this year.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE FOR COM MONWEALTH RELATIONS (THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE): My Lords, as the House knows, the Seventh Commonwealth Parliamentary Conference will be held in London in September of this year. Her Majesty the Queen has graciously consented to open the Conference in Westminster Hall on Monday, September 25. Members of both Houses will be invited to attend this ceremony. Her Majesty has given permission for the Conference to hold its other sessions in the Royal Gallery. This Conference will be a meeting of great importance, and I am sure your Lordships on all sides of the House will join the Association in giving a warm welcome to our fellow members from overseas and will do all they can to make this meeting an outstanding success.
LORD PETHICK-LAWRENCE: My Lords, I thank the noble Duke for his Answer, which I am sure will be of great interest to a very large number of people.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, I should like to inform the House that shortly before 4 o'clock my noble and learned friend the Leader of the House will be making a statement about security.
1362
I should also like to tell your Lordships that it has been agreed through the usual channels that there should be an adjournment for dinner this evening between 7 and 8 o'clock, and those of your Lordships who wish to have dinner are asked to give early notice to the Refreshment Department.

BIRMINGHAM CORPORATION BILL
Read 2a, and committed to an Unopposed Bill Committee.
DARTFORD TUNNEL BILL
Read 2a, and committed to an Unopposed Bill Committee.
REPUBLIC OF SOUTH AFRICA (TEMPORARY PROVISIONS) BILL
Brought from the Commons; read 1a and to be printed.

COTTON INDUSTRY DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL (AMENDMENT No. 4) ORDER, 1961
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, this Draft Order amends the Cotton Industry Development Order, 1948. Under the Industrial Organisation and Development Act, 1947, the Amendment is being made at the request of the industry, and its purpose is to enable the Cotton Board to collect levy for the purpose of industrial research from firms which process man-made fibres, in the same way as a levy is now collected from cotton-spinning firms. The Amendment requires an Affirmative. Resolution of both Houses, and I beg to move that it be approved.
Moved, That the Draft Cotton Industry Development Council (Amendment No. 4) Order, 1961, be approved.—(The Earl of Dundee.)
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, this is obviously a non-controversial matter. The only thing is that it is rather surprising we have not done it before. But certainly we on this side of the House welcome it.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

ROAD TRAFFIC BILL [H.L.]
3.20 p.m.
Order of the Day for the House to be again in Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Chesham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD MERTHYR in the Chair.]
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: May I just mention that, with regard to the first two Amendments, Nos. 39 and 40, the same point arises as occurred last week; so if Amendment No. 39 is agreed to, No. 40 will not be called. I would therefore respectfully suggest to the Committee that it might be convenient to debate these two Amendments together, and, indeed, possibly also the two next following ones, Nos. 41 and 42.
Clause 4:
Removal of disqualification
4.—(1) Where an order disqualifying a person for holding or obtaining a licence to drive a motor vehicle has been made by a magistrates' court or, on appeal from a magistrates' court, by a court of quarter sessions, the court to which an application under subsection (1) of section one hundred and six of the principal Act (which enables the court to remove the disqualification) may be made shall be the court of quarter sessions for the county or borough which is or includes the area for which the magistrates' court acted.
LORD MOLSON LORD MOLSON moved to leave out subsection (1) and to insert instead:
"(1) Section one hundred and six of the principal Act is hereby repealed."
The noble Lord said: I should like to speak to Amendment 41, as well as to No. 39, as in fact the two, taken together, do make an amendment in the law. These two Amendments, taken together, raise an important matter of principle and one which I think it is appropriate for us to consider on this Bill. There has been a remarkable measure of agreement throughout this debate that the most appropriate way of dealing with traffic offences is by disqualification of drivers who are convicted. That has been common ground between the Government and their critics, and I therefore hope that my Amendments may be acceptable to both.
Ever since 1930 it has been accepted that in certain cases where an individual has been convicted of a traffic offence the court may disqualify him. I wholly accept the view (as I think do the majority of your Lordships) put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, on Second Reading: that disqualification should not be regarded as a penalty, but rather as the removal or withdrawal of a privilege. Now there has been from the beginning a curious difference between this sanction and others that may be imposed by a court. In the case of a fine or imprisonment, there is no right, after an appeal has been heard and has failed, for the person concerned to go again to the courts and ask for the remission or removal of the penalty. A person sent to gaol, for example, cannot, after the lapse of a certain period of time, go to the courts and say that he thinks he has been in gaol long enough, and ask to be let out. The purpose of my Amendments is to bring this particular sanction in line with what is the general custom of the courts.
In the Act of 1956 we did, in fact, limit this right. Then, by what is now subsection (2) of Section 106 of the consolidating Act of 1960, we provided that in most cases a convicted person could not go to the courts and ask for the removal of a disqualification until about half the period had been served. Both Parliament and the Government have been trying to encourage the courts increasingly to use this power of disqualification, but I am sorry to say that, so far, we appear to have failed. The Parliamentary Secretary, during the Second Reading debate, mentioned that something like one-half of the sentences of disqualification are removed by the courts after the lapse of half the period that was originally imposed. I submit to your Lordships that that is an abuse of the existing provisions of the law. I am proposing, by these Amendments, to leave the full rights of any accused person under Section 105 of the principal Act to appeal against a decision to disqualify him; but that, in the event of his appeal failing, or of his not exercising that right of appeal, what has been imposed upon him in the way of a disqualification should be the final decision of the court, and it should not be open to him to go and ask that the matter be reopened.
There is no good conduct relevant to this matter than can be advanced as a reason for a remission of the period of disqualification. The only relevant conduct, of course, would be to have been driving a motor car with care, consideration and skill—and, of course, ex hypothesi, a person disqualified cannot do so. It may be argued that the effect of removing this right to go again to the courts would be to make the courts less willing to impose a period of disqualification. I do not believe that that is so. I believe that the effect would be that the courts would know, when imposing disqualification upon an accused person, that that period of dis-disqualification would stand, and that they would therefore consider with the utmost care what was the proper period for which to disqualify him.
Clause 4 of the present Bill is, in my submission, worse than Section 106 of the 1960 Act, because it proposes that the right to ask for removal of a ban of disqualification should, in certain cases, be exercised by the defendant's going to a court different from that which had originally imposed the disqualification. Surely there can be no justification for allowing a matter that has been carefully and conscientiously considered by one court, with a full disclosure of all the circumstances of the case, to be reopened at a later time before another court. It would mean that another court, with less information and not so well informed of the full circumstances of the case, would then be entitled, at a later time, to review and modify the decision of the earlier court.]: believe that it is in accordance with the general principle of this Bill and with the views which have been expressed by noble Lords in all parts of the House that disqualification should be increasingly used as a sanction for driving offences. I submit that, when once such a ban has been imposed by a court, and when either a right of appeal has been exercised and has failed, or when the accused person has not exercised his right of appeal, the matter should be regarded as finally settled, and it should not be open to him to ask at some later time that the whole matter he reviewed. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 34, leave out subsection (1) and insert—
("(1) Section one hundred and six of the principal Act is hereby repealed.")—(Lord Molson)
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I would support the noble Lord, Lord Molson, in everything he has said, except, perhaps, in one minor detail. He does not desire disqualification to be treated as a penalty, but rather as the withdrawal of a privilege. I am not so concerned with niceties of language like that: I am concerned that this House and Parliament should stiffen the deterrent. Because, as the noble Lord quite rightly said, the courts have failed lamentably in the past to give expression to the will of Parliament and to stiffen the deterrents against breaches of the Road Traffic Acts. There is no doubt that, as the noble Lord, Lord Molson, quite rightly said, the disqualification penalty has in future to be looked upon as the major deterrent to wrongdoing against the traffic laws: and I have never quite seen the sense of permitting an application for a remission of this deterrent. I think it was originally one of those compromises in which Parliament occasionally indulges, and which I think only weaken the law. I think it is generally accepted now that this deterrent of disqualification must be stiffened.
I was interested in, and I would quote to your Lordships, a case which was reported in The Times only this morning, where an appeal was made for the remission of a sentence of disqualification in a certain case of dangerous driving. I will not mention who it was, but it was somebody very well known to all your Lordships; and he happens to be a wealthy man. The judge, Mr. Justice Hinchcliffe, said that he had no doubt that the principal punishment was the disqualification and, rejecting the application, added:
"In my view, it is important to keep dangerous drivers off the road for a long period".
That is a dictum which I think we can all endorse.
I hope that the Government will accept this Amendment. I hope that as this Bill goes through this House they will accept a lot of Amendments which will do what I think the Government

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want to do. The Parliamentary Secretary in his Second Reading speech, which I characterised then as admirable (and I have no wish to resile from that), said that the Government intended to be tough. Well, it is no good being tough at one moment and then very lenient or excessively lenient at another. Therefore I hope the Government will accept this Amendment which, I think, will make some small quota toward what is expressed to be the general desire of the House.
3.31 p.m.
LORD SILKIN: I do not wish to add anything to the admirable and, in my view, unanswerable case which the noble Lord, Lord Molson, made in support of his Amendment. It seems to me that the disqualification must be regarded as part of the penalty. It seems quite illogical that you should be able to go back to the court for a variation of one part of the penalty, whereas it is unthinkable that you would go back for any other. My purpose in rising is to say that, although I have down an Amendment, No. 40, which is apparently in some conflict with the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Molson, because it presupposes that this particular provision to which he is objecting will be retained, and merely relates to machinery, I am wholeheartedly in support of his Amendment. Therefore, if his Amendment is carried, I shall be delighted not to move my own. It is only in the unlikely event of his Amendment not being carried that I shall move my Amendment. I hope the noble Lord will press this matter as hard as he can, and I can promise him my own support, at any rate, and I hope the support of my noble friends.
LORD ELTON: I should like warmly to support the Amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Molson, and everything which has been said by the other noble Lord, I think one further point which might be made is that we can be quite sure, in view of the statistical evidence which we have had over the last few years, that the persons who have been disqualified have almost certainly richly deserved to be so disqualified. Your Lordships may remember, for example, that in 1957, out of 4,889 convictions for dangerous driving—which then carried
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with it automatic disqualification on the second conviction—only 35 per cent. were disqualifications. Many of those must have resulted from the automatic disqualification of persons who had been convicted for the second time. Only in 357 cases out of the 4,889 was the disqualification for more than one year. The following year the percentage rose from 35 to 36; and so it goes on.
The weapon of disqualification is not being used. The persons about whom we are now thinking are not the ordinary motorists. We are so apt to feel that, "There, but for the grace of God, go I". These are not ordinary motorists; they are the potential killers and manglers. These are the persons thanks to whose presence on the road, when one's wife or son is out late at night in a car and the telephone rings, one cannot help wondering whether it is not news saying that they are unconscious in 'hospital, because they had had the bad luck to encounter these persons who make a practice of driving every now and again on the wrong side of the road round a corner, or of showing off that they have cars capable of going over 120 miles an hour, or who cut in when there is five yards too little room. The noble Lord is surely right—although I think the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, differed here—that it is a privilege to take a lethal weapon on the road. As I say, these are not ordinary motorists but people who have shown that they have not got self-restraint, or consideration for others. Very often they have not got the competence to be entrusted with a lethal weapon like a motor car.
As the noble Lord so rightly asked, how can they have earned a remission? They may not have committed a burglary in the meantime. They may have done a lot of washing up for their wives and may be admirable citizens; but, of course, that has nothing to do with the offence, which is that of endangering the lives of other road users. Naturally, they cannot have earned any remission, because, ex hypothesi, as the noble Lord said, they cannot have been on the roads. I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, said: that this is one of those compromises which always lead to failure of one kind or another. It is a compromise—a concession—to that feeling which we all have, that we are all

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motorists and that we must not be too hard on the motorist. But let us remember that we are now thinking of a very small minority, the potential fillers of the hospitals. I urge Her Majesty's Government to accept this Amendment, because I think one of the best results possible would accrue from this Bill.
LORD LINDGREN: I cannot accept the sweeping allegations which have been made by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, just now, against motorists, even those who are convicted, but in general I accept this Amendment. However, one would be foolish not to see the flaws within the Amendment. After all, a large number of motoring cases, in the initial stages, particularly those concerning a person who, perhaps, is not so "fly" as some others, are taken before a petty sessional court, before lay magistrates. I am not attacking lay magistrates here, because I am one myself, and more often than not I take the chair in my own petty sessional court. But the weakness of the Amendment is this—and we might as well recognise it and see whether something cannot be put in its place. The noble Lord, Lord Molson, said that a person who is convicted of a crime, after having exercised his right of appeal, is given no further consideration with regard to a reduction of his sentence. Legally, that is true. But almost daily the Home Secretary reconsiders a case which has been to appeal, where very often the person has been convicted of an offence and sentenced to maybe four, five or six years' imprisonment, but he is allowed an additional remission by the Home Secretary in the light of circumstances brought to his notice from one quarter or another.
Therefore, I think there ought to be an opportunity given somewhere for a consideration of a case which a person has taken to a petty sessional court, at which court, perhaps, that person had not been legally represented. Perhaps, because of the circumstances, he was rather ashamed of himself for having been found guilty of an offence; perhaps he did not even use his right of appeal. But there ought: to be some opportunity, at a later stage, for the matter to be revised. Equally, I can see the reason behind putting an application to another court into the clause. In the petty sessional courts, again accepting the fact
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that those operating them are all laymen, and also accepting that they may receive excellent advice from the clerk to the court, there are still prejudices; and if there is a prejudice within a court, a person might think he would stand a better chance of an unprejudiced revision of his case in some other court.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: Would the noble Lord forgive my interrupting? He used the words, "prejudice within the court". Would he explain precisely what he means?
LORD LINDGREN: Lay magistrates are ordinary men and women. They have not legal training. Sometimes they may have a prejudice against a particular type of offence. It might be argued whether or not a bench of magistrates ought to hear these cases; but on the whole it works well, as things generally do in this country, though not always logically. A person charged with being drunk in charge of a car may live in the area and know that four out of five of the magistrates are rabid teetotallers. In this instance, whether these lay justices are right or wrong, that individual may think that he would have a better chance by going to quarter sessions.
In spite of these two weaknesses which I can see in the noble Lord's Amendment, in general I am in favour of it because I feel that the basic penalty is disqualification. Many who have other penalties placed on them do not feel them to any degree. What does disturb them, and what is likely to be a check on further misconduct, is disqualification.
EARL HOWE: I hesitate to intervene, but I have heard of a friend of mine, who happens to be a foreigner, who the other day, while driving round the new works at Hyde Park Corner, found something a little in his way, and his car touched a "No parking" sign, although he did not touch it sufficiently hard to upset it. He went on to the next turning where he waited, and the policeman who had seen this happen stopped him and said, "You are drunk." My friend said. "I am sorry that you take that view, officer; I have had nothing to drink at all." The policeman said, "Then you are drugged." My friend said, "I haven't been to a doctor or anything like that." The policeman made a report

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about it, but in the end my friend received a letter to say that the police did not intend to take any further action.
We could agree with much that has been said by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, and other noble Lords on disqualification, if it were not for the fact that under the Bill the discretion of disqualification is taken right out of the hands of the courts. Suppose, in the case of the friend I have mentioned, he had been "had up"; he would have faced a very difficult charge and might have been convicted. That would have resulted in a period of disqualification under the Bill. Where a motorist has misconducted himself on the road and a court takes the action of disqualifying him, I think we should probably all agree; but where, as in Clause 3 (3), there is automatic disqualification, this seems to me quite different, and it should be possible for the driver to bring the facts before a court and have them looked at impartially before the sentence is imposed.
LORD SILKIN: Is the noble Earl suggesting that after such a person has had a trial, been found guilty, has appealed and the conviction has been upheld, he should then have another opportunity of putting the facts before a different tribunal altogether? Where do you stop?
EARL HOWE: That is why I so regret the provisions in the Bill, which take this matter entirely out of the hands of the courts. I am against the automatic disqualification, and with a Bill like this there should be power to bring the matter before a court. I know it can be said that there is power, but the court is not going to be the same one before which the motorist was charged in the first instance.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD CHESHAM): My noble friend will forgive me. I have been trying to follow him and it seems to me that he is making a case against a clause which we have already discussed. At the moment we are discussing Amendments to do with getting a licence back after disqualification. I was wondering whether the noble Earl had some point on that.
LORD SWAYTHLING: We have been asked to discuss all the Amendments to Clause 4 at the same time, before the individual Amendments are put; therefore I shall speak to your Lordships about Amendment No. 42, which I put down for two reasons. The first is that while I see that there is a great deal to be said for removal of the power to restore licences, I still think that, on the whole, it is a good thing to leave that power to the courts. The right to restore licences in cases where circumstances have changed since the licence holder was disqualified should be conferred on the courts. Such cases come before the courts from time to time, and I have heard that in certain cases the licences are restored, but in the majority of cases, if there is no change in circumstance, the licences are not restored.
I should feel more sympathy for the removal of the power of restoration if it was confined to the cases which the noble Lord, Lord Elton, mentioned, where disqualified drivers were disqualified for dangerous driving or some other offence that has caused considerable danger to other users of the road; but in the Bill as it now stands there is compulsory disqualification in cases which are not dangerous. In these cases I feel that there is ample reason for the power of restoration.
The second reason why I put down this Amendment is one I mentioned on Second Reading: that is, that I heartily disapprove—and every magistrate I have spoken to equally disapproves—of the suggestion that applications for the restoration of licence should go before quarter sessions in future. To my mind, they should always go to the court which imposed disqualification, which knows the details fully. There may be many more disqualifications owing to the compulsory disqualification under the Bill, and it may well be that quarter sessions will be completely flooded. At the moment the calendars of quarter sessions are very much overloaded, and if every application for restoration of licence goes before them, some quarter sessions may find their calendars completely unworkable. For all these reasons I have put down this Amendment to leave out Clause 4. If it were left out, the law would remain as it is at present.
LORD ELTON: Did I hear the noble Lord say that some of the offences which under this Bill will involve obligatory disqualification do not involve danger?
LORD SWAYTHLING: Yes, I did say that. There is one that I hope will be moved out of Part I, and that is paragraph 7, the use of a motor vehicle uninsured or unsecured against third party risks. When we come to debate that we shall see whether it is left in Part I. It does not actually involve danger, but it is a serious offence, although one that might well have mitigating circumstances. The driver of the vehicle might well think that he was secured, but find that he was not. That is the sort of case I have in mind.
3.51 p.m.
LORD CHESHAM: I have listened carefully to what your Lordships have been saying about this Amendment because it is necessary for me to get my own position absolutely clear. I have heard little from any noble Lords who have spoken, at any rate so far as the principle is concerned, with which the Government are not in agreement. We started drafting this part of the Bill thinking (and with this your Lordships largely agree) that disqualification is an effective weapon, and thinking, in addition, that it was at the present time too easy to get a licence back after disqualification. We thought that part of the reason for this was that magistrates' courts were a little too lenient. I know that exception is taken to the way we have done it, but, for reasons which I will come to later, we thought it should be done so that there should be some right of review but that it should be more difficult.
It is said that there are objections to going only to quarter sessions, and this I must think about carefully. But it was intended to make it difficult; that was the whole point of the operation. While it is reasonable to say it is better to go back to the court which imposed the disqualification to discuss its removal, because they will know all about it, that would be so only if the same magistrates were sitting, which perhaps a year, eighteen months or two years later might not be the case.
I have heard your Lordships supporting my noble friend Lord Molson and
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hoping that this Amendment will be accepted, but I cannot accept it just like that, because I think it goes a little too far. I feel, although my noble friend does not agree, that to take away any right to have the case reconsidered in any circumstances could produce some hardship. An instance which comes to my mind is that of a young man in a wild, drunken state at the age of nineteen who might have his licence suspended for life, which at the time might be a reasonable thing to do; but to take away his right to have the disqualification removed at the age of 45, when he had settled clown, reformed and changed completely in every way, might be going too far. There are no doubt other cases that could be cited.
LORD SILKIN: Could the noble Lord give us an example of reform as applied to a person who has been convicted of dangerous driving and been disqualified?
LORD CHESHAM: I thought I had just given a hypothetical example: that there might be a good deal of difference between a wild young man of nineteen who drank, and that same man at the age of 45, when he had become a respected and solid citizen, who no longer drank, was the father of three and looked up to by all the parish. I think he might have a case for being allowed to have another go.
LORD ELTON: May ask if a case is known of a boy of nineteen having been disqualified for life?
LORD CHESHAM: I do not know of one. I was trying to produce the kind of instance in which it is not reasonable to take away the right altogether. Perhaps I did it badly. But I do feel it is not reasonable to take away that right altogether. Then, although my noble friend does not agree, I think it would rather inhibit courts from applying longer sentences—although I think his point that it will make them consider more carefully is a good one. The noble Lord, Lord Swaythling, prefers the present state of affairs. While I agree with him when he says that he thinks there ought to be preserved some element of the ability to get the licence back, I am afraid I do not agree with much else that he said. We think that the status quo, which is what would be preserved if we accepted

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Amendment No. 42, is too weak and is resulting in too many people getting their licences back too easily.
I am not quite sure what I should do, because I do not feel that I can accept this Amendment; but, on the other hand, I am sufficiently impressed by what I have heard not to wish to reject it. I would, therefore, if I may, put forward the suggestion that if my noble friend does not press the Amendment to-day we can look at it again in the period before Report and try to find some form of Amendment which, while meeting the objections that I have, will also be in accordance with the wishes that your Lordships have expressed.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: Before the noble Lord, Lord Molson, speaks, would the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, mind answering a question? What virtues do the Government attach to chairmen of quarter sessions, or even to recorders, in matters of this kind that are not possessed by magistrates' courts? My experience has been that in matters such as this they are just as soft as the delinquent magistrates' courts. What is the advantage of making the application for the restoration of a driving licence to quarter sessions? Is it the view of the Government that quarter sessions are tougher or more knowledgeable, or what is it? Perhaps the noble Lord will tell me.
LORD CHESHAM: What was in mind was roughly what the noble Lord has said: that they would be tougher, more coldly analytical and more knowledgeable. In short, we thought that a man would have more of a job to get his licence back on presenting the facts at quarter sessions than he does at a magistrates' court.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: Would not the noble Lord agree that that assumption can be proved or disproved by statistics? Would he look at those statistics? They are available. My impression is that the statistics would show that quarter sessions do not possess the virtues of being either tougher or more knowledgeable, as the noble Lord attributes to them. I may be wrong, but that is my general impression after making inquiries all over the country.
LORD CONESFORD: May I say to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, that one of the virtues of the court that is now suggested in Clause 4 is that there will be a legally qualified chairman. I apologise to my noble friend who moved this Amendment for having missed his speech—I was detained elsewhere. I hope that my noble friend, whose Amendment has clearly commanded a great deal of support, will respond to the suggestion that has been made by the Minister in reply. I think this Amendment has great virtue, but I think there may be cases which need to be provided for. I must say that I thought the particular example given by my noble friend Lord Chesham was a rather improbable one. I think it would be very improbable that a young man would have received a life disqualification. If he had received such a disqualification, he would certainly have appealed, with some prospect of success.
I think that this matter is not incapable of compromise. Under the section in the principal Act which it is proposed to repeal, there is already a time limit before which no application can be made, and I think further restrictions are possible to guard against the possible case of an extremely long disqualification. It may be necessary to give some sort of protection in the case of an exceedingly long disqualification, but in general I think this Amendment has merits, and I would suggest to my noble friend that he might well respond to the Minister's suggestion.
LORD CHESHAM: I should like to thank my noble friend for what he has said, because the kind of provision which already exists is rather what I have in mind. I will look again carefully at what noble Lords have said, and I will certainly not disregard what the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, has said, which is that we should be tough about disqualification. That is one of the last things I would disregard. I should like to say that if my noble friend Lord Molson accepts my suggestion I will, of course, look into the point that he raised when considering the whole thing.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I am grateful to the noble Lord. I accept what the noble Lord, Lord Conesford,

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said. The chairman of quarter sessions has legal training, but the appeals for the restoration of a licence are hardly ever based on legal grounds; they are always on compassionate grounds. My experience has been that a chairman of quarter sessions, or a recorder, has more compassion than the chairman of a magistrates' bench or a bench of magistrates. If you are to give a right of appeal I see no reason for changing it from a magistrates' court, because in my experience they are tougher than chairmen of quarter sessions or recorders.
LORD SILKIN: I do not want to dictate to the noble Lord what he is to do about this Amendment, because it is his Amendment, but I should like to say what I feel about it. I find it difficult to reconcile the line taken by the noble Lord, Lord Molson, with which a number of noble Lords are in agreement, with the idea that it should still be possible to go back to the court to get the disqualification removed. Would the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, say more clearly what he has in mind? He says that he is in sympathy with the Amendment. But being in sympathy with it would lead to the result that you could not go back for the removal of disqualification. Has he in mind the possibility that there might be certain extreme cases which he would set out in the clause—that is, he would amend Section 106 of the principal Act by making it far more difficult to go back in the normal case, but that there might be certain exceptional cases which he would stipulate? If that is what he has in mind we may possibly "do a deal ". I would suggest that if the noble Lord, Lord Molson, feels disposed to accept the proposal, it might be possible to have discussions on this matter before the Report stage to see whether he is satisfied with what is proposed, or, alternatively, so that he may have an opportunity of putting this Amendment down at the Report stage, if he is not satisfied.
LORD CHESHAM: May I answer the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, before my noble friend makes up his mind? No, that is not what I had in mind. If the present proposal regarding quarter sessions does not find favour, as it does not seem to do, what I was considering was something in the nature of the present provisions. I had in mind
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—I say this without commitment—that the period before which you might go back and apply for your licence to be restored should be greatly extended. It would be much longer before you would have the right. I think there is room for manœuvre and consultation, and I should certainly be pleased to consult with my noble friend on that matter to try to reach a satisfactory solution.
LORD SWAYTHLING: Do I understand from the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, that when he looks into this matter further he will also consider the question of necessarily going to quarter sessions?
LORD SILKIN: Is there not some Amendment on that?
LORD CHESHAM: Yes. That is what I had in mind. If this provision does not seem quite right, we could look at it in another way and see whether it can be done by altering the periods before which you may not apply.
LORD MOLSON: I naturally want to respond to the appeal of my noble friend the Parliamentary Secretary, especially as he has expressed such sympathy with the point of view of myself and my noble friends. I have had personal experience of being in the same position that he is in, of wishing to make a concession and of not being able to do so without the authority of the Minister. At the same time, I want an assurance from him that, if I accept a compromise, it is going most of the way towards getting what noble Lords who have spoken to-day unanimously desire, even my noble friend Lord Howe, who drew attention to certain difficulties that might arise. In point of fact they were all matters of an erroneous conviction which could, and should, have been put right by an appeal. I am not proposing to do anything to take away the right of appeal.
In 1956, there were so many cases of licences being returned to convicted drivers very soon after the court had disqualified them that when we were drafting the Act of 1956 we put in subsection (2) of what is now Section 106 of the principal Act. What in fact has happened? My noble friend the Parliamentary Secretary told us on Second Reading that approximately half the disqualifications which are properly

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imposed after due trial do not last the whole of their time. As soon as it is possible under the principal Act for convicted drivers to go to a court, they go, and in 50 per cent. of the cases they are successful in getting their licences restored to them long before the court which tried the original offence considered that it was desirable that they should do so. If I do not press this Amendment, which has obtained, I think I can say, unanimous, if not unqualified, support from all those who have spoken this afternoon, I want an assurance that disqualification will be removed only in quite exceptional cases.
I cannot say that I was altogether reassured by my noble friend's remark about a young man of 19 who is drunk and drives dangerously; he suggests that at the age of 45 or 46, his actual words were "he should have another go". I am not at all anxious that people who drive dangerously should be allowed to "have another go." I have very much in mind the victims. Provided my noble friend will give me an assurance that when he is proposing a compromise it will be in only really exceptional cases, where disqualification has been for a long time, and that only then will it be open to some higher—I will not say the High Court, but some responsible court to remove the disqualification, then I shall be willing to respond to his invitation. But I ask for an assurance on those lines.
LORD CHESHAM: I can quite understand what my noble friend feels about this matter, but. I am sure he will appreciate the difficulty that I am in in giving him a positive assurance exactly as he has asked. Having offered to reconsider the matter and discuss it, I do not think I can give him an assurance that I will come to a definite and positive conclusion at a certain degree. What I can give him an assurance about is that I will do my best to meet the point he has made and which your Lordships have supported, and if I am unable to do so I certainly recognise that my noble friend is in no way inhibited from putting his Amendment down again at the next stage.
LORD MOLSON: I am much obliged to my noble friend, and in view of the assurance he has given I ask your
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Lordships' leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
4.13 p.m.
LORD SILKIN LORD SILKIN moved, in subsection (1), to leave out all words after "shall be" and to insert:
"magistrates' court or court of quarter sessions, as the case may be."
The noble Lord said: This Amendment has been discussed by every speaker who has spoken on the previous Amendment except myself. I should like to put the case for this Amendment, on the assumption, of course, that Lord Molson's Amendment will not be pressed at a later stage and that there will be some opportunity on the part of some people to apply for the removal of the disqualification. I think the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, explained that the reason why it is proposed in the Bill that such an application should go to quarter sessions is to make it more difficult. I am sorry, but I cannot accept that as a good reason. I think if people are to be given a certain legal right it must not be made too difficult for them to take advantage of it; you have to facilitate it. It seems to me that that is the case against the provision in the Bill. It makes it too difficult for a number of people, assuming that it is thought right to give them this opportunity, to take advantage of it.
The first point is that going to quarter sessions involves delay, and if it is one of those exceptional cases where a disqualification ought to be removed, it should be removed without the need for long delay. Secondly, application to quarter sessions involves personal expense. There are some people who do not mind, but there are others—and perhaps the most deserving cases—who cannot afford to instruct solicitors and counsel, which would be essential to appearing at quarter sessions. I am not making the case, but I think the noble Lord was perfectly right in saying that it is desirable to go back to the same court, especially if it is intended to prolong the period which must elapse before it will be possible for the defendant to go back. I agree that there is no guarantee that the same bench will be sitting nor is there any guarantee that, if a man goes back in six months' time, with the multiplicity of cases that magistrates have, even if

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it is the same bench, they will remember the details of his particular case. Of course they will not. They have so many that they could not possibly be expected to remember. So that is not my case. My case is simply that if this right is to be given to people, it should not be made so difficult that they cannot take advantage of it.
We should not prohibit certain people from taking advantage of it on the ground of expense or on the ground of delay. I will move this Amendment, but in view of the fact that the noble Lord has given the undertaking that he will look at this point again, I will not press it. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 3, line 40, leave out from first ("the") to end of line 42 and insert the said new words.—(Lord Silkin.)
LORD DENNING: As I could not be here earlier, may I say a word on this Amendment? If my noble friend Lord Molson's Amendment is not accepted, I certainly hope that this Amendment will be. I happen to be a chairman of quarter sessions, and I am sure that it much better for the court which has dealt with the original disqualification to deal with the removal of the disqualification, if there is any power to do it. One does remember; the case one has heard soon comes back to one. I think it far better that the court which dealt with the case, if there is power to remove a disqualification, should deal with that also. Apart from that, as I was not here earlier, I may say that I hope there will be no power to remove the disqualification and that Lord Molson's Amendment will eventually be accepted.
LORD ELTON: Before we leave this clause, I hope that it may be relevant, since so much of what we have said has turned on the exceptional case, to say how disturbed I was by the imaginary case quoted by the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, of the boy of 18 who is disqualified for life and then, at the age of 45, is a good father and should have his licence restored. Obviously the noble Lord would not quote an instance which he did not believe could possibly happen, and it surely shows an extraordinary—I will not say ignorance, but
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lack of knowledge of what happens in court, to suggest that a boy of 18, after a drunken frolic, could conceivably he disqualified for life. May I remind the noble Lord that last year, in a stipendiary magistrates' court an adult, dead sober, was convicted of dangerous driving which killed a mother and two children, and he was not disqualified? Will the noble Lord tell me that a boy of 18 could ever be disqualified for life? If that sort of argument is needed to support the view for exceptional treatment, I must say that I find it disturbing. I do not suggest for a moment the noble Lord is misleading anybody, but I think he must be misinformed.
LORD CHESHAM: If I am misinformed, I have misinformed myself. Perhaps I am guilty of an error of judgment. Perhaps I did not give sufficient consideration to an imaginary case which I drew out of the air for myself. The noble Lord must not read any undue depth or any hidden meaning into what I said. I will withdraw, if he wishes, that hypothetical case; but that does not prevent me from thinking that there are cases where the complete removal of this power would create hardship. I shall be extremely cautious and go no further than that. It does not quite apply to Lord Silkin's Amendment, but as my noble friend said that, I thought that I had better reply. I am obliged to the noble Lord for the way he spoke to his Amendment, and in view of what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning has said, I should like to embrace this Amendment within the compass of the reconsideration that was mentioned on the previous one.
LORD SILKIN: In view of that, I beg leave to withdraw this Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): My Lords, I beg to move that this House do now resume.
Moved, That the House do now resume.—(Viscount Hailsham.)
On Question, Motion agreed to, and House resumed accordingly.

OFFICIAL SECRETS ACT PROSECUTION
4.21 p.m.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I feel that it would be for the convenience of the House if I repeated here a statement which was made by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister in another place a few moments ago. The statement is as follows:
"With permission, I think it right to make a statement about the grave case of George Blake.
"As the House knows, Blake pleaded guilty yesterday to five counts charging him with offences against Section 1 of the Official Secrets Act. I am informed that he has ten days within which to apply for leave to appeal against sentence; and, if he does apply, some time must elapse before the matter is discussed.
"I naturally wish to give the House as much information as I can consistently with the national interest and without prejudicing any appeal against the sentence.
"Blake, who is a British subject by birth, served with credit through the war in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. In 1948, he was temporarily employed as Vice-Consul, Seoul, where he was interned by the Chinese and held for nearly three years in captivity. Although he no doubt underwent a certain amount of ill-treatment in common with others who were interned, he was subject to none of the brain-washing which military prisoners suffered. After his release, and after having been subjected to a very thorough security vetting, Blake was employed for a period with British Military Government in Berlin and subsequently attached for a time to the Foreign Office in London. In September, 1960, he was sent to learn Arabic in the Lebanon. Blake was never an established member of the Foreign Service.
"There is no reason to doubt that until 1951 he gave loyal service to this country. It was during his internment in Korea that he decided, as he said 'to join the Communist side'. It would appear that he voluntarily became a convert to what most of this House would regard as an evil faith. However
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regrettable we may regard such a conversion, it does not of course constitute criminal conduct. But to this he added treachery to the State. He agreed, in his own words, 'to make available to the Soviet Intelligence such information as came his way in the course of his duties'. It was for doing this that he was tried and sentenced.
"I would again emphasise that his action was not the result of brainwashing or intimidation while a prisoner. Nor did he fall to any of the other kinds of pressure which are sometimes employed in these circumstances. He received no money for his services. He was never at any time a member of the Communist Party or any of its affiliated organisations. What he did was done, in the words of the Lord Chief Justice, as the result of ' conversion to a genuine belief in the Communist system'.
"In these circumstances suspicion would not easily be aroused in relation to a man who had served his country well for some eight years, who gave every appearance of leading a normal and respectable life, but who had decided to betray his country for ideological reasons. Indeed, having agreed to work for the Russians he was careful not to arouse suspicion and to conceal his conversion to Communism.
Eventually, however, his activities were uncovered, and the result was his trial at the Old Bailey. He had access to information of importance and he passed it on.
"As my right honourable and learned friend the Attorney General said in open court, he has done serious damage to the interests of this country. As to that it would not be right, nor would it be in the public interest, for me to say more than was said in open court yesterday. I can, however, assure honourable Members that Blake's disclosures will not have done irreparable damage. In particular, he did not have access to secret information on defence, nuclear or atomic matters.
"Such cases as this are, I hope, extremely rare; but by reason of their very nature they are very difficult to detect or prevent by any security procedures. No such procedures can

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guarantee to catch a man who changes his allegiance and skilfully conceals his conversion. I do not therefore think that any inquiry such as that now being conducted in relation to another case—with which Blake's case has no connection and affords no parallel—would serve any useful purpose. But I can assure the House that I am reviewing all the circumstances with very great care to see whether there are any possible further measures which could be taken to protect this country from treachery of this kind."
My right honourable friend concluded:
"While I recognise to the full the responsibility that rests on Her Majesty's Government, I should be very willing to discuss with the right honourable gentleman the Leader of the Opposition and any Privy Counsellor that he might wish to have associated with him the circumstances of this case and the matters that arise from it."
My Lords, that is the statement which my right honourable friend made.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Leader of the House for having communicated to us here the Prime Minister's statement. I do not propose to make any detailed comment at this present time upon this very grave matter. I think that, from the point of view of those on this side of the House, we should await the discussion which obviously is going to take place between the Leaders in another place and see what steps might then be concerted in order to do what we can to improve the security conditions for the safety of our country. There can be no doubt about the grave disquiet in the country as a whole at this additional case, probably of even greater dimensions than the other at this time, and I am quite sure that the offer of the Prime Minister to confer with the Leaders of the Opposition and to consider going into the matter again with other Privy Counsellors is probably the best immediate step that can be taken.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Viscount for saving that, and for the way in which he said it.

ROAD TRAFFIC BILL [H.L.]
4.30 p.m.
Committee stage resumed.
Clause 4 agreed to.
Clause 5:
Endorsement of licence
5.—(1) Where a person is convicted of an offence specified in Part I or Part II of the First Schedule to this Act, the court shall order that particulars of the conviction, and, if the court orders him to be disqualified, particulars of the disqualification, shall be endorsed on any licence held by him and particulars of any conviction or disqualification so endorsed may be produced as prima facie evidence of the conviction or disqualification.
(7) Where an order has been made in respect of a person under this section requiring any licence held by him to be endorsed with any particulars he shall be entitled, either on applying for the grant of a licence or, subject to a payment of a fee of five shillings and subject to surrender of any subsisting licence, on application at any time, to have issued to him a new licence free from the particulars, if the application is made not less than three years after the date of the conviction in consequence of which the order was made or, if it was a conviction of an offence under subsection (1) of section six of the principal Act, not less than 'ten years after that conviction.
LORD TEYNHAM: A previous Amendment which I moved, which was not accepted by Her Majesty's Government, would have had the effect that if, in the opinion of the court, the offence involved actual danger would count towards those offences for which obligatory disqualification would be imposed within three years. On that occasion the Government said they would look at the matter again with a new form of wording. I should like to take the opportunity of moving this Amendment to say that there is a precedent for the making of a statement on an endorsed licence of whether or not, in the opinion of a court, the offence involved actual danger. Where, for instance, the driver of a public service vehicle is charged with exceeding the speed limit it is frequently stated on the summons that no danger was involved; and I cannot help feeling that this Amendment might be very useful to the courts in future. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 11, at end insert—
("Provided that where any person is convicted of an offence specified in the said Part

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II the particulars of such conviction to be endorsed on the licence held by him shall include a statement as to whether in the opinion of the court the offence involved actual danger.") —(Lord Teynham.)
LORD ELTON: I may have missed what the noble Lord, Lord Teynham, said on his earlier Amendment but could he tell us what he means by "actual danger"? Am I right in thinking that what he has in mind, roughly, is that if a dangerous driver, whether drunk, incompetent or careless, drives his vehicle over the path there is actual danger if there happens to be a child there or within a few yards, which might be knocked down, but that there is not actual danger if nobody happens to be there at that moment? If that is so, we need to provide against not actual but potential danger. It is the kind of person who is capable of driving over a path that we want to restrain—the kind of person the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, referred to in your Lordships' House in an earlier debate as "a potential accident looking for somewhere to happen." Would not this Amendment, as worded, simply mean that that kind of person could commit indiscretions without penalty until the moment he actually hit somebody?
LORD TEYNHAM: I do not want to become involved in discussing a previous Amendment, especially as Her Majesty's Government are to look at the wording of that Amendment. We shall be debating the whole matter again on the Report stage and I think it would be a great mistake to do so now.
LORD LATHAM: I would say how much I agree with what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Elton. I am the more disposed to agree with him in view of the fact that a few months ago, I and my wife, with my grandson, were on a main road travelling to Bournemouth. There was a concealed turning. A motorist came along travelling much too fast. He could not get round the corner and went right on the pavement; and but for the fact that, for some reason or other which I cannot remember, we had stopped, I am afraid we should all have been killed. It is the potential danger, not the actual danger, that is important in this connection.
LORD CHESHAM: There was quite a full debate on a similar Amendment
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moved earlier by my noble friend Lord Teynham, and we certainly do not want to go into that again. I believe that the reasons advanced at that time, on which my noble friend withdrew his Amendment, are still valid, as is the undertaking given by my noble Leader that this matter will be reconsidered; and the points that have been made by the noble Lords, Lord Elton and Lord Latham, will cetainly be included in that reconsideration.
LORD TEYNHAM: In the circumstances, and in view of what has been said by the noble Lord replying for the Government, I beg to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
4.36 p.m.
LORD SWAYTHLING LORD SWAYTHLING moved, in subsection (7), after the words "date of the" to insert "last" [conviction]. The noble Lord said: I feel that Her Majesty's Government might accept this Amendment, and the others in this series, for they are quite simple. The endorsement on a licence is very useful evidence. Usually when a motorist has been convicted and the police are asked whether anything previous is known, they are able to state the full facts. From time to time, however, they report that "Nothing is known", yet when the licence is examined it is found to contain an endorsement. I feel, therefore, that it is a good thing to have the endorsement on the licence. Under the section as it stands it would appear that the endorsement can be removed from the licence after a certain period. It further appears that the endorsement should not be removed until there has been a continuous period with a clean licence.
I am suggesting, therefore, that no endorsement should be removed from a licence until the expiration of the period of the last endorsement on the licence. Speaking now in relation to the third of this series of Amendments, which are bound together, I feel that it is all the more necessary for the removal to occur after the expiration of the period of disqualification, for, as I mentioned on Second Reading, one motorist who had been disqualified for ten years appeared before a court again immediately he came back on the road. As a period of ten years had elapsed since the endorsement on his licence, I feel there must

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be a period during which no endorsement is allowed to be wiped out. I beg to move.
Amendment moved.
Page 5, line 23, after the second ("the") insert "last".—(Lord Swaythling.)
LORD CHESHAM: The nub of this argument really consists of what view one takes of endorsement. In the past, endorsement has always been considered as part of the punishment, involving some kind of stigma, and the effect of the Amendment of the noble Lord would be to preserve the status quo. The position to-day is that if a motorist has more than one endorsement he cannot get it removed until he has had three clear years from the last endorsement. But, as we know, this Bill is bringing in a new viewpoint, and the principle of cumulative obligatory disqualification for persistent bad behaviour. That involves endorsements, and it is quite firmly the view of Her Majesty's Government that an endorsement should no longer be regarded as part of the penalty and a stigma but only as a convenient record which can be put before the court. We have felt it right to restrict the number of endorsements on a licence to those which the court would require to see.
Of course, it is up to a motorist whether he has endorsements removed when that is possible, or does not bother to do so. But that is the reason why cannot quite agree with the noble Lord, Lord Swaythling, that even if we preserved the status quo the full facts would be shown on the licence; because, in fact, they are not. In certain circumstances a motorist can now apply to have endorsements removed, and he will continue to be able to do so. So that, I am afraid, is not good enough as a permanent record. Although it is not very difficult, we do not want the courts necessarily to have to go thumbing through and checking the dates of numbers of endorsements which they do not need to see. They will have to check the dates, anyway, to see that the obligatory disqualification provision applies. Therefore I think it is reasonable that the endorsements, which we think should be regarded as a record, should be limited, as much in the motorist's interests or the driver's interests as anyone
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else's, to only those with which the court should be concerned.
LORD SWAYTHLING: I do not quite follow the noble Lord's assertion that my Amendment would continue the practice of regarding endorsements as a stigma. The very purpose of my Amendment is to have them as a record on the licence. The licence has to be produced in court, and the court can see the previous endorsements which the police may not have produced at the time. I thought it all the more useful when cases of a disqualification have prevented the driver from driving from the date of his endorsement until possibly just before the time of the occurrence for which he is before the court.
LORD CHESHAM: I quite see the noble Lord's point; but I do not think that he, in turn, saw mine. The only way of making a licence a current record is by making it impossible for endorsements to be removed. Even if I accepted the noble Lord's Amendment, endorsements would stay on for longer than they otherwise would, but they would still not be a full record of a driver's past, because after three years they could be taken off. That is the gist of the noble Lord's Amendment: that they can be taken off. Therefore, the endorsements, except for a very temporary period when they need not be complete, are not a complete record of the driver's murky past. That record is kept by the licensing authority, and that is available to the court when they need it. They must continue to rely on that in view of the unreliability of a string of endorsements on a licence.
LORD SWAYTHLING: In view of what the noble Lord has said—I quite agree with him—I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 5 agreed to.
4.44 p.m.
Clause 6 [Alteration of penalties certain offences]:
On Question, Whether Clause 6 shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I did not move Amendment No. 49 because I want to await and hear what the Government have to say as a result

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of their deliberations on Clause 3, but I should like the noble Lord who is in charge of the Bill to tell me at this juncture what the policy of the Government is upon the question of monetary penalties. That is what Clause 6 deals with. I must confess that I am very bewildered, and I expect other noble Lords are, by the action of the Government—who are now pinning their faith to disqualification as the major deterrent, with which I do not quarrel—in increasing monetary penalties by approximately 100 per cent., in face of the fact that those penalties, although they have been progressively increased over the years, have not proved a deterrent.
I touched on this point during the Second Reading debate and I was supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger. In an Answer to Questions before we opened the Second Reading debate, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for the Home Office had to make some alarming admissions. I think it would be as well to refresh your Lordships' memory of the figures that the noble Earl, Lord Bathurst, gave your Lordships' House. In 1959, which is the last year for which figures are available, the average penalty—monetary penalties are what I am now talking about—for driving under the influence of drink was £24, when the maximum was £100. For being drunk in charge of a vehicle, which is not, I would submit to the Committee, such a serious offence as actually driving a vehicle while under the influence of drink, the average penalty was £28, when the maximum was £50 for the first offence and £100 for the second. For dangerous driving the average penalty was only £15, when the maximum under the Act was £100 and for careless driving it was only £7, when the maximum penalty was £40 for the first offence and £80 for the second.
The noble Earl, Lord Bathurst, had to make this confession: that in 1959 there were only four cases out of 7,177 convictions, or 0·06 of 1 per cent., where the maximum was imposed for dangerous driving and in the case of careless driving the maximum fine was imposed in only 0·001 of 1 per cent.—75 out of 55,268 convictions. That is the record of the magistrates' courts of this country in using the monetary penalty as a deterrent to these offences. That makes
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the case, in my view, for automatic penalties. It is no use burking the issue that magistrates' courts have been negligent in their duty of using the penalties in the Road Traffic Act as a deterrent to wrong doing on the roads and bad behaviour on the roads, which has resulted in the problem which we are trying to face to-day.
I have said publicly that it is not for magistrates' courts or any other court in this country to flout the will of Parliament, and the will of Parliament has been expressed in Road Traffic Acts. The noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chief Justice, said in open court that it was the duty of all courts to pay regard to the expressed will of Parliament. But can you say that the figures that I have read out to you are expressing the will of Parliament? I am quite prepared to listen to all the excuses that are made on behalf of magistrates. I once took it upon myself to address meetings of magistrates all over the country, and the excuses I had for this were remarkable. But I should like to give a case—and this may interest the noble Lord, Lord Swaythling, who, if I have sensed his interjections aright, does not like criticism of magistrates' courts. It may also interest the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, because this must be a typical example of the type of magistrates' court he was telling your Lordships about earlier this afternoon. I quote from The Times Law Report of April 19.
This was a case before the Divisional Court on appeal from the Tunbridge Wells magistrates. The man was summoned for driving under the influence of drink. He was so drunk when they took him into the police station that he could not stand—what is known to those of us who have had experience as "flat out". This bench of magistrates dismissed the case because they said they were not satisfied that the man was sufficiently drunk not to be able to drive a car half an hour previously. Those are the grounds upon which they dismissed the case, and the matter went to the Divisional Court. The Lord Chief Justice said that he did not understand the decision of the justices, which was "thoroughly perverse". Mr. Justice Salmon, agreeing with the Lord Chief Justice, said that
"the argument on the defendant's behalf would not have deceived an ordinarily intelligent

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child of 12, let alone a bench of magistrates doing their best to arrive at a just result in accordance with the evidence."
Why is it that, when Parliament goes on increasing the monetary penalties, magistrates pay little or no regard, with the sort of result that I have just read out? Yet we are asked by the Government in this Bill, in spite of the record, again to increase the penalties by 100 per cent. What I want to ask the noble Lord is: what is the Government's reasoning behind this? We heard a most interesting speech by the noble Viscount the Leader of the House when we were discussing Clause 3 of this Bill, during which he said that this Bill was a carefully thought out measure that was tackling this road accident problem on a very high and scientific basis; and, so far as I gathered, we had to agree with a certain principle. What is the principle behind this? I should like the noble Lord to tell me, so that we do know what we are doing. After what we have heard from the Government Front Bench during the course of this Bill, I would suggest that what they should do, if they want to carry out their avowed intention, is to decrease the monetary penalties and increase the enforcement of disqualification. That would appear to me to be the logical thing to do.
One of the chief reasons given me by magistrates is that they always have to consider carefully the means of the defendants. As to the value of money and the amount of money in the pocket of the average defendant who owns a motor car, the fact is that one has decreased and the other has increased considerably. Where I think the magistrates go wrong, and where I think the Government are going wrong now, is in failing to recognise that penalties are punishments. If you fine a man for wrongdoing, you are inflicting a punishment. You have not to say to him, "Look here, my dear fellow; what can you afford to pay?" You are not collecting a subscription for a charitable organisation: you are inflicting a penalty; and a penalty, I have always understood, should be something that hurts a bit. I do not say that it has to be so outrageous that it inflicts too severe a penalty upon the recipient. But, after all, dangerous driving is a real scourge. If you say that the average case is of average seriousness, and should
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attract at least the average fine—and that is how my logical mind works—if the maximum is £100, the average fine should be £50. Yet the average was £15. What kind of punishment is that? The defendant may have had other penalties included: he may have been disqualified at the same time.
LORD LINDGREN: I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but will he not agree that magistrates have to take into account, particularly in dangerous driving cases, that some of the witnesses may have come from, say, Scotland? There are always the costs; and nine times out of ten the prosecuting counsel asks for an advocate's fee. So, in addition to the fine, there are costs and an advocate's fee. I think it is quite common that, in a number of cases where magistrates know that the costs which would otherwise fall on the county rate are likely to be £10 or £15, they may tend to knock the fine down a little.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I am grateful to the noble Lord; and I appreciate all that. But so did Parliament. The noble Lord has been a Member of another place. When Parliament said that the maximum penalty should be £100, did it fix that figure by a wild guess, by thinking of a number? Is that what the noble Lord voted for in another place, when he passed the 1956 Road Traffic Act? He fully had in his mind that all these fines had to be plus costs. The magistrates seem to think that those in Parliament are lunatics; that they sit and pass these laws but do not expect them to be carried out. But most Members of Parliament, at least, have knowledge of all the facts which the noble Lord has stated.
How can we expect to cure this problem, which has now reached the stage of being one of the greatest social evils we have? As we are talking in this House, and as we are making all the excuses that possibly can be made as to why licences should not be endorsed, why courts should not disqualify, why they should not remit disqualification when it has been imposed, and why they should not take any notice of figures such as those I have quoted, the accidents are mounting up and up. What do the Government intend to do? We could all find excuses as to why things should not be done, but I am trying to press the

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Government to find reasons why something should be done. If the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, wants to be tough, I am going to suggest to him that, now that the Government have accepted the principle of making compulsory a figure as regards disqualification, they might also consider making compulsory a figure as regards fining. Because if they do not, if that has not dawned upon them yet, I see no reason to increase the penalties by 100 per cent. in this Bill.
I should welcome some suggestion from the Government as to how they can enforce the existing penalties. If they could enforce the existing penalties, I should think they would be quite enough. But if we are to follow the Government's thinking on this question, I suggest that they should make the monetary penalties for some of these offences about £1,000: for that might persuade the magistrates to increase the fines, on the averages we see to-day, to a suitable figure. I thought that this was the appropriate place to raise this question. I did not want to get into a discussion on my Amendment, which was put down only so that I could raise this matter. But I shall return to this question on Report stage, in the light of what the Government have to say about their thinking on Clause 3 and what the noble Lord tells me this afternoon as to what is the Government policy. What are we to understand the policy of the Government to be when, in spite of the record of fining by courts to date, they now propose to increase the maximum by 100 per cent.?
5.0 p.m.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: I do not know whether the noble Lord wanted to have a reply to his remarks immediately on the question that Clause 6 stand part. He began by saying that he was a little bewildered by all the Government statements on matters connected with this clause.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: Forgive me; I said nothing of the sort. The noble Earl must be very careful what he says when he purports to quote. I have been puzzled by the Government's statements on the policy of this Bill, not on this clause. This is the one clause which refers to monetary penalties in the Schedule, and this is the only time I
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can bring up this matter. What I am puzzled about, if I may tell the noble Lord quite plainly, is this. If the Government are going to pin their faith on disqualification as a major penalty—and the noble Lord who moved the Second Reading of the Bill practically said that—and monetary penalties have been decreasingly effective, then what is the policy behind increasing the maximum monetary penalties in the Bill by 100 per cent.? That is what puzzles me.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: The noble Lord has exactly confirmed what I began to say. He said that he was bewildered by the Government's statement on matters arising out of this clause, which he quite properly extends to many other parts of the Bill. I was also a little bewildered by the fact that the noble Lord did not move either of the two Amendments in his name on the Order Paper; but I am very glad that he should have chosen the alternative of speaking on the Question, That the clause stand part. With a great deal of what he said I most profoundly agree, and I do not wish to carry the matter any further. The noble Lord said that in many, or most, cases the disqualification was a much more effective deterrent than a fine. With that view, of course, the Government agree. But one of our little difficulties in getting this Bill through your Lordships' House is that of persuading your Lordships, on certain points, that we are not being too severe in the matter of disqualification.
The noble Lord also said that, by and large, magistrates have not been imposing sufficiently severe penalties. With that the Government also agree; indeed, it was stressed by my noble friend Lord Chesham in moving the Second Reading of the Bill. I do not know whether the noble Lord wishes me to say anything about the only remedy which, so far as I can make out from his remarks, he would put before your Lordships—namely, that instead of having maximum fines, we should have minimum fines, in the hope that the average penalty would, by that means, be raised. I am doubtful if it would have that effect. To introduce a system of minimum fines would be contrary to the established principles of the administration of justice. For one thing, as your Lordships know, the

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Magistrates' Courts Act, 1952, particularly requires that magistrates, in imposing monetary penalties, must have regard to the means of the person who is being fined. It seems to me that if we were to impose by law a minimum fine for a certain offence, it might have the opposite effect from that intended. Its effect might be that magistrates and juries would decline to convict because they considered that the minimum penalty that would result from conviction was unjustly high, at least in relation to the person who was accused.
I do not want to say anything more to take the edge off the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth. The figures concerning convictions, disqualifications and penalties were quoted by my noble friend Lord Chesham on Second Reading. We are all agreed that we wish to stress that they have, in general, been too low, but they have been rising since the Lord Chancellor made his exhortation to the magistrates in 1956, which he has continually repeated since then. Our statistics show that there has since that time been a perceptible and steady increase in the level of the average fines imposed for the more serious offences. Although we all agree that disqualification has not been used widely enough, the use of disqualification has noticeably increased. In 1959 (the last year for which we have figures), the number of convictions for disqualifiable offences increased by 25 per cent., as compared with 1958. The number of cases in which disqualification was ordered increased very much more: it increased by 55 per cent.
I do not want to say any more, because I do not want to remove the impression which both my noble friend and Lord Lucas of Chilworth have tried to emphasise: that those increases are not nearly enough, and that there is room for a great deal more improvement. But it does seem to me that, by increasing the financial penalties—the fines—as we are doing in this clause and the First Schedule, the common-sense expectation is that the average penalties inflicted are likely to rise. I could not help feeling that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, was assuming that when Parliament imposed a maximum fine it was intended that this maximum should be the average fine.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: No.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: If the average fine were anywhere near the maximum, I think we should all assume that the law was being administered much too severely. There would be a strong inference that the maximum which we had fixed was much too low. Though we agree that the monetary penalty is not always as effective as disqualification, I think it is reasonable to expect that raising the monetary penalty by a substantial amount, as we are doing here, will have the effect of raising the average penalty which is usually imposed by the court, having regard to the circumstances of the offence and also the circumstances of the offender.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I am grateful to the noble Earl, but he has answered a case I did not make. May I make just one correction? I did not say that I wanted the average to be the maximum; that would be an impossibility.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: That was the impression I got—the logical conclusion of what the noble Lord said. He said: What is the use of providing these maximum fines if they are not imposed?
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: What I said, or what I thought I said, was this: What is the good of increasing the maximum fine when, even to-day, the maximum fine at the old rate was reached only four times out of 7,077 offences of dangerous driving? Do I understand that the Government did not take into consideration the means of the individual, when they imposed these maximum fines? Surely the Government did not guess these figures.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: The Government do not do that. It is the magistrates who have to take into consideration the means of the offender when they impose the fine.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: The Government did not just bring these figures, representing a 100 per cent. increase, out of the air they must have taken into consideration the fact that these fines should be substantially increased. But the noble Earl's last words to me, in answer to my question as to why the Government want to

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increase the monetary penalty in this Bill 100 per cent. over the figure to-day, were that it might induce the magistrates of this country to be a little more severe in the future. If that is the only reason, I think it is a pretty poor one. However, perhaps the facts and figures I have given this afternoon may be taken into consideration by the Government when they are considering other matters that they have promised to look at.
On Question, Clause 6 agreed to.
Clause 7 agreed to.
Clause 8:
Speed Limits on Roads other than Restricted Roads
8.—(1)
(2) The authority having power to make an order under subsection (1) of this section—

(a) as respects any trunk road or any road in the London Traffic Area, shall be the appropriate Minister; and

(b) as respects any other road, shall be either the appropriate Minister or the local authority.

(3) No order under subsection (1) of this section shall be made by a local authority except with the consent of the appropriate Minister, and the appropriate Minister may, after giving the local authority notice of his intention to do so, by order vary or revoke any order made by them under that subsection.
LORD SOM̃ERS: I have been advised not to press this Amendment and have no intention of doing so, because I realise that it is imperfectly worded, but I would say, while I have the opportunity, that I feel it is essential that the power to impose traffic orders should be taken out of the hands of local authorities and put into the hands of the Minister of Transport and his National Traffic Advisory Committee. I am not saying, by any means, that all local authorities are incapable of doing this efficiently, but a large percentage of them are. Often they are composed of men of narrow experience, who have seldom been outside their own country towns, and I do not think they should be authorities to make road orders. However, this is something which should be discussed later. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 6, leave out from ("section") in line 5 to the end of line 26, and insert:
"shall be the Minister of Transport in consultation with a National Traffic Advisory
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Committee appointed by him, and consisting of not less than 20 members".—(Lord Somers.)
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I commend this Amendment. I do not suppose that the Minister wants to accept it now, but I want him to give it serious consideration. The noble Lord, Lord Somers, will remember that in the Road Traffic and Road Improvements Bill the Minister of Transport was compelled to take over the responsibilities of 128 local authorities in London, because it was the only way of bringing some sense and order into London's traffic. What obtains in London obtains in most of our big and medium-sized cities.
In the Bill, the Minister is taking more powers, and I am glad that he is, because the traffic problem is getting to such a state that, however much we may dislike the "gentlemen from Whitehall" and any semblance of dictatorship, the only way we are going to cure it in our big cities is by putting traffic control under the direction of a central authority. I ask your Lordships to look at the potential danger of the congestion caused in our big cities by indiscriminate loading and unloading of lorries parked along busy streets hour after hour, obstructing the vision of people who are crossing the roads, especially the elderly and the young, and causing people to dodge behind traffic, a potential danger every time they do so.
I hope that the Government will seriously consider taking this matter out of the hands of the local authorities. I hope that in all the main streets of our cities the clearway system will be installed and the streets used for the purpose for which they were intended, for traffic to pass along them, and not for shopkeepers to use them as garages for vehicles all day long. I support the noble Lord's Amendment. He does not want to press it and I am not going to press it for him, but I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, will give some encouragement to the noble Lord that the Government will keep this very much in mind.
LORD CHESHAM: If my noble friend had been pressing this Amendment I would have spent some time resisting it, on the ground of the Minister's position and because of his Committee of Twenty. But in view of the agreeable attitude he has taken, I can spare your Lordships and confine myself to one or two remarks. My

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noble friend talked of local interests and narrow experience, but his attempt to get away from that is a complete reversal of the trend of things over the last 30 years. The tendency has been to regard focal affairs as things which should be dealt with by local people.
The noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, spoke strongly on this point. But the Minister of Transport, while giving up various powers for traffic regulation has retained his present degree of control on speed limits, particularly in the interest of road safety. I do not think that there can be much doubt that in many cases speed limits are very much local affairs. The local people are best placed to know on what roads they should be applied. The noble Lord shakes his head, but if the local people do not know, it is much more difficult for the Minister to know. I think that the point I am trying to make goes some way to meeting the points that the noble Lords have made, without going too far—a matter which we may discuss on the next Amendment. In this Bill the Minister takes extra power, by the provision that he may impose a speed limit in addition to his existing powers to vary or revoke speed limits. This small extra power is intended to be used only in the interests of uniformity and road safety. I think that this extra power goes some way towards meeting my noble friend's point.
LORD SOM̃ERS: I think my noble Friend has slightly misunderstood me, because he says that local authorities are best qualified to know what is necessary in the way of speed limits. In that case, it is a surprising thing that they have imposed such an enormous percentage of entirely unnecessary limits. That is the reason why, as I said on Second Reading, the speed limits are more honoured in the breach than in the observance. But, as I say, this Amendment needs a good deal of looking into, and I do not intend to press it now. In view of what the noble Lord has said, I beg leave to withdraw it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
5.21 p.m.
THE EARL OF LUCAN THE EARL OF LUCAN moved, in subsection (2) (b), to leave out "either the appropriate Minister or". The noble Earl said: This Amendment is designed to raise a question of principle which
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perhaps should have been brought up on Second Reading. I shall quite understand if the noble Lord tells me that the Amendment does not have the effect I want it to, or, indeed, has quite the opposite effect, because that is the common experience of most of us on this side of the Committee. The point on which I should like some assurance is the rights of local communities as against the long-distance through-travellers. More and more conflicts between the two interests are occurring. The heavy traffic on the main trunk roads, and the congestion it causes, drives motorists off the main roads. No doubt noble Lords like to drive by the quarter-inch map, or even the one-inch map, in order to find ways of avoiding the known congested areas. But this means that more and more traffic is being driven through the villages and small towns, off the trunk roads and die Class 1 roads.
Obviously we must consider the interests of the national traffic flow and of the long-distance travellers who want a fast uninterrupted journey; but we must also remember the local communities through which these travellers pass. They want to be spared the dangers to their children, the old people and animals caused by through-traffic taking routes which were never designed to take that kind of traffic. The protection of the local communities seemed to me to be the power (a limited power, and subject to all sorts of consents and consultations) which they have to impose speed limits where, having in view the interests of the local people, they thought there was a particular need.
The principle of the speed limit in built-up areas has been recognised for a long time, and it is recognised that a restriction of speed is necessary in the interests of local inhabitants.
LORD SOM̃ERS: If I may interrupt the noble Earl, can be say how he defines a built-up area? Is it by houses or lamp-posts?
THE EARL OF LUCAN: I will not go into that point. I know that there are disagreements about it. but the fact remains that a great many of us quite contentedly observe a 30 m.p.h. speed limit when we come to a place where there are likely to be people other than motorists wanting to use the road. After

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all, the needs of the long-distance motorists are recognised by roads which are classified as trunk roads, Class 1, 2 and 3 roads and unclassified roads; and in regard to trunk roads which are designed for the motorist the Minister has powers to override any local interest and control the pattern of speed on these roads. Clearly, priority on the trunk roads should be given to the through-traffic, as it is; but as regards the non-trunk roads, hitherto local authorities have had the right to ask the Minister for leave to impose a speed limit where they thought one was necessary, The Minister had to give his consent; the chief of police had to be consulted; 'and the Minister had power subsequently to vary or revoke these orders.
The difference between the existing system and what this Bill proposes is twofold, First, instead of only the local authority being able to initiate changes in the speed limit, the Minister now takes to himself powers to initiate changes. Secondly, whereas before when the Minister decided to vary or revoke a speed limit he gave notice to the local authority, and the local authority was able to insist on a local inquiry being held (as I understand the Act of 1960, local authorities could insist on a local inquiry taking place), that power is now removed and the Minister is not compelled to grant a local inquiry; the Bill (it is in Clause 9, I think) says only that he "may".
The Minister mentioned the word "uniformity". It sends shudders down some of our backs when we think of trying to impose uniformity upon a diversity of country districts or small towns, each having its own problem. The Minister said quite plainly that speed limits are local matters in which local communities should have a voice. If the noble Lord tells us that these powers are being taken only to cope with quite exceptional circumstances, where perhaps two neighbouring local authorities fail to agree on the pattern of speed limit for the area, I would suggest that it could be done by putting a proviso in the Bill without redrafting the law so as to remove these powers which, as I have indicated, local authorities at present have. There is a certain sense of uneasiness about a number of the provisions in this Bill where the
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Minister appears to be taking to himself much wider powers than he has had, with a corresponding curtailing of the powers of lower local authorities. I hope to hear that the Minister would agree to be content with something less than the powers he is taking, and that the noble Lord will accept this Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 6, line 8, leave out ("either the appropriate Minister or")—(The Earl of Lucan.)
LORD CHESHAM: I thought for a moment, when the noble Earl, looking a little serious, as he did, began to talk of the rights of local communities against long-distance travellers, that he was going to raise some extremely deep issues; but as he went on I was relieved to find that he was confining himself largely to the speed-limit issue. He put it in that way, I think quite rightly, because he first asked about the priorities of traffic as between through traffic and local traffic. So far as the speed is concerned, which is what he had in mind, it is not a question of Priority, because priority seems to indicate a basic quarrel whereby the through-traveller thinks he ought to be allowed to go at 60 or 70 m.p.h. or whatever the road will take, and the inhabitants of the built-up area (no matter by what definition one describes the place where people live) think he ought to be restricted to 30 or, perhaps, 40 m.p.h. There is no question of settling any priorities between them: it is merely a question of assessing whether that road needs, and is suitable for, a speed limit of one kind or another. So that kind of assessment of priority does not arise. Whether the actual stretch of road should or should not have a speed limit is assessed on its suitability, having regard to the local dwellers, the traffic, width, lay-out construction and visibility.
The noble Earl, I think, was rather more concerned about the powers of the Minister under this Bill. I believe I can reassure him because, as he mentioned, there are only two changes of any consequence; that is the one I mentioned, that he may impose a speed limit, and the requirement about the local inquiry. That brings up the question of uniformity, which frightened the noble Earl, and I am glad to have this opportunity to say a little more about it,

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because it is not the intention to go about "rubber-stamping", if that is the right term. I intended to imply that naturally each road must be treated according to its characteristics and circumstances.
By "uniformity", I mean when the same road runs in rather similar circumstances through the areas of several local authorities. One finds such roads particularly in the North, where built-up areas tend to be more extended, and the same road goes from area to area. When I referred to the need for uniformity I was thinking of the present situation where you find a stretch of 30 m.p.h. limit followed by a de-restricted 'stretch for a while, because the next authority do not feel like imposing a limit, then go back to 30 m.p.h., then 40 m.p.h. again, and later back to 30 m.p.h. That kind of thing is muddling and confusing for the driver, and is not in the best interests of anybody. The noble Earl indicates that he does not think it is muddling. Well, he and I rather fall out about that. But, rather than argue it with him at length now, perhaps we may find some more agreeable moment to do it.
I will go on to say exactly what is intended by the powers that the Minister is to take. Under the proposals in the Bill it is intended that the Minister should have this very moderate power so that he can intervene positively, as well as negatively, in this question of speed limits only where there is a case for his doing so. I can definitely assure the noble Earl and the Committee that the Minister will use this power to intervene only where there is a good case for him to do so. I do not think he is likely to want to make any greater use of his power to impose a speed limit than he has made up to now of the power he already has—and that is not very great—to vary or revoke them. If the noble Earl is worried that the Minister can "cut loose" in the country and go on imposing speed limits over everything, or taking them off, I would point out that he can do that now, in certain circumstances. It is the imposition I am thinking of, and which the noble Earl may be thinking of. There are two safeguards, in that if the Minister proposes anything he must give notice to the local authority; and that, in practice, means consultation, as I think the noble Earl would agree. Secondly, he must specify every stretch of road
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about which he proposes to do something. He cannot, because of the physical difficulty of doing it, impose limits over large areas. Those, I think, are quite sufficient safeguards. I hope the noble Earl will think that that is reasonable, and that he will not press his Amendment.
LORD LINDGREN: May we take it that the reference to "local authority" in the Bill dealing with classified roads is the highway authority—that is, on Class 1, 2 and 3 roads the county council, and on unclassified roads the district council?
LORD CHESHAM: Yes, it can be taken that the local authority is the highway authority by definition under existing legislation.
THE EARL OF LUCAN: I wish I could say that I am entirely satisfied by the noble Lord's reply. To say that the Minister will use the power only where he thinks it necessary is something that surely need not be said. Does any Minister exercise powers except where he thinks they are necessary? This is the question of the Minister's judgment against that of the local inhabitants. What I was thinking of, of course, was not so much the imposition of restrictions, as the removal of restrictions where local authorities think it necessary and desirable, having in mind the characteristics of the road, as the noble Lord said. Among the characteristics of the road would be the amount of local pedestrian and other traffic which requires to use that road. Having all that in mind, under the existing Act the local authority has power to ask for a speed limit; and it seems to me that those powers are being weakened by this Bill. To say that the Minister gives notice is all very well, but what does he do if he gives notice and the local authorities say they do not like it? Hitherto, they were able to call for a local inquiry. Why is that power removed? That is one more factor which undermines the power of local communities to settle their own affairs on their own roads.
Let me ask the noble Lord another thing. We are constantly hearing various Ministers, and politicians of both Parties, lamenting the fact that local authorities are having their powers whittled away. Here is one more case, surely, where the county councils and highway authorities are seeing one more

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small power they had removed. The noble Lord shakes his head, and I hope he will show me where I am wrong. But that is the important thing which makes me anxious about this. The noble Lord explained what he meant by uniformity, and I quite see that in the case of street lighting—and we have discussed it before in this House—it is desirable. Standardisation of lighting over a length of road is, of course, a good thing for the motorist; it helps him. As to its being desirable that a speed limit should be uniform, I see no force in that. We are all well accustomed to driving along a road and coming on a speed limit sign, whether it be a 30 m.p.h. limit, a de-restriction sign or a 40 m.p.h. limit. In the normal course of motoring you are always seeing changes in the speed limit, and that is a well understood system. Here I should like to see the local authorities, to the extent that they have been in the past, able to impose such conditions on their own roads as make the lives of their own inhabitants pleasanter and safer.
LORD SOM̃ERS: Before the noble Lord replies, I wonder whether I could just apply the noble Earl's argument to the railways, which, after all, are not dissimilar from the roads nowadays. We have very much through traffic on both of them. What would he think of a railway where the local authority had the decision and the power to arrange that all through trains should stop at their station, however unimportant, or to vary the speed limit—because, after all, railways have their speed limits too—and perhaps to vary the type of signalling and other matters like that? I do not think we should have very efficient railways.
LORD MOLSON: In every previous intervention I have made in this Bill it has been to urge that a great deal more should be done to ensure the safety of pedestrians, but in this matter I would urge your Lordships to bear in mind the need for balancing the safety of local inhabitants and the need to keep traffic moving. When I was Parliamentary Secretary I had much experience of local authorities urging quite unreasonable speed limits, and it was extremely difficult for the Government to resist this pressure. On many occasions I suspect that the officials and councils did not
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really believe that those speed limits were necessary, but the pressure of their electors upon them was such that they felt bound to ask for it.
The noble Earl spoke about the trunk roads as being the roads that are used for through traffic, and other roads, classified roads, as being those where the interests of the local inhabitants should be considered predominant. There are relatively few trunk roads in this country. Classification of roads is based upon the amount of use made of them for through traffic. Class 1 roads are essential to the free movements of traffic about this country, and it is most important that there should not be unreasonable and undue restriction upon speeds. I hope that in dealing with this Bill we shall try to maintain a balance between those two requirements: between the need for road safety, upon which I have spoken several times, and the need to keep traffic moving. Nor, indeed, is it necessarily the case that to impose speed limits where they are not necessary will conduce to the safety of pedestrians. I believe that the Minister is the best person to maintain a balance of this kind, to take a general view and not be unduly under the pressure of local inhabitants. I believe this is a wise and reasonable provision in, the Bill, and hope the noble Earl will not press his objections to it.
LORD ELTON: On the whole, I agree much more than I should have expected to with what the noble Lord, Lord Molson, has said. I rise only to say that I hope the noble Lord, Lord Somers, will not go away with the feeling that he has convinced your Lordships that there is a real parallel between railways and roads. One difference is that over 300,000 people are killed or injured on the roads. Another is that mothers do not live with their children within five yards of the railways and have them running across, with express trains coming. There are a number of other differences with which I will not trouble your Lordships.
LORD LATHAM: I do not think anyone would dissent from the general proposition put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Molson, but it is the case that in this Bill as drafted, Clause 4, will very substantially extend the powers of the Minister to the reduction of the powers

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of the local authorities. The Minister would have an opportunity of coming to a decision with the obligation to do no more than give notice to the local authorities of his intention to make an order on the decision to which he has come without any consultation with the local authority. The representatives of the local authorities would be glad to have an assurance from the Minister that before making an order he will consult with the local authority. Surely that is a reasonable request; it would be a reasonable assurance for the Minister to give, and I hope the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, may feel that he is able to give that assurance.
LORD CHESHAM: I do not think I find much trouble about that, because I understand the matter to be as I have explained it to your Lordships already: that the local authorities have to be given due notice by the Minister before he can make an order. I think that is already dealt with.
LORD LATHAM: That is what I said. That is the intention. He has come to the decision, and it is only when he wishes to make the order that he has to give notice to the local authority of his intention to do it. There has been no prior consultation, at least under the provisions of the Bill.
LORD CHESHAM: I do not see that the position is very different from the present one, if he uses his power to revoke.
LORD LATHAM: If the noble Lord would be good enough to compare the provisions of subsection (4) with the provisions of Section 21 of the Act of 1960, he will see that there is a vast difference.
LORD CHESHAM: If the noble Lord is worried, I will certainly look at the matter and see how it appears when I look at it.
LORD LATHAM: Bit by bit the central Government is stealing the powers of local authorities.
LORD CHESHAM: That is absolutely wrong. The noble Lord has no justification for saying that, if I may say so. I do not see how he can say they are being stolen when they are not being removed. He would be quite justified, I think, in saying that if the Minister were replacing the local authority, but he is not;
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they are keeping the powers that they have now. The Minister's power is being extended, but not a very large extent. No power to make orders is taken away, so far as I know, from the local authority. It is extended to the Minister, which is a different thing from robbing them of their powers. I think that should be recognised.
LORD LATHAM: The noble Lord has given me my case. At the present time the local authority makes the order. It is true the local authority must get the consent of the Minister. Under the provisions of the Bill that is not the case. The Minister can, with co-ordinate authority and responsibility and powers, make the order without even consulting with the local authority. It is only when he intends actually to make the order that he need communicate at all with the local authority.
LORD CHESHAM: But then the local authority are still able to make orders; they are not at present deprived of the right to make an order if they want, with the Minister's consent.
LORD LATHAM: But the Minister is now making one, whereas before he could not.
LORD CHESHAM: But, so far as I can see, that does not rob the local authority of any power. They still have the same power as before. The Minister has a little more than he had before. This is certainly not being done at their expense. I really do not see the justification for saying otherwise. I was sorry that the noble Earl opposite did not think that changing limits in a built-up area was not dangerous. Every considered opinion that I have ever heard suggests that it would create a sudden and confusing situation to a motorist not to know whether he was in a 30 or 40 m.p.h. limit. I hope that when he thinks the matter over the noble Earl will be able to attach a little more value to my point.
The noble Lord, Lord Molson, mentioned a most important point. I will not repeat the argument because I know I shall have to come back to it on another Amendment. It is a matter that is greatly in your Lordships' minds—namely, that speed limits must be reasonable and acceptable, otherwise they are no good. That is the reason why the

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Minister wants this little extra power. Although this is called a Road Traffic Bill, it is a road safety Bill. It is intended to promote road safety, and therefore the Minister wants the power to make sure in regard to limits. That is why I use the phrase "using the powers only where they are necessary"; it is to make sure that that aspect of the matter is reasonably well-conducted in the interests of road safety.
VISCOUNT CROSS: I should like to say a few words in support of the noble Lord, Lord Somers, and in particular to say something about the parallel which he drew with the railways. One point about that is that the driver of a railway engine knows his track and he knows what to expect round the next bend. The driver on a main road in this country, if he is not familiar with that road, does not know what to expect. To take a few examples, the A.4, A.5 and A.6 vary throughout their length as regards the composition and the colour of the road surface, the kerbstones, the lighting and the speed limits. I should like the A roads to be completely standard from one end of the country to the other. It does not matter about the B roads; they are country roads and are not so important as the A roads. As regards the through trunk roads, I should like somebody to decide what is a safe road, to design a road to that standard, and then drivers, pedestrians, pedal cyclists and everybody will be much the safer.
THE EARL OF LUCAN: I think there is something in what the noble Lord says: that the classification system of roads might be carried a little further. It might even come into this question of speed limits. I think it would be quite reasonable that Class 1 roads should be brought, with trunk roads, under the Minister's control. I am sorry that noble Lords do not seem to agree with me that people living on a Class 2 or Class 3 unclassified road should have rights which are reasonable, and subject, of course, to the Minister's approval. That was always the case, so I do not see how unreasonable requests need have been granted by the Minister. That was the Minister's power precisely: to guard against unreasonable exercise of the power of local authorities to make orders. After all, we say that we
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must keep the traffic moving. Certainly, on the main traffic arteries we must keep it moving. We want to keep it moving forward. But how can you say that it will keep moving without giving freedom to anybody with a car capable of 100 m.p.h. to drive at that speed? That is the factor that I hope your Lordships have in mind, even if you do not agree with my Amendment to the Bill. I hope that we can understand from what the Minister says that the power he is taking is to be used only in exceptional circumstances.
LORD CHESHAM: Yes. I thought I had made that clear. The use of this power is intended to be very limited and only where it is needed. The noble Earl need not think that people who live on secondary roads and the back roads are deprived of some rights of protection that they might otherwise have. Their status is not changed. If there is a case for a speed limit they can still have one. I tell the noble Earl and the Committee that that is all this power is for. It is in the interests of road safety and uniformity.
THE EARL of LUCAN: I thank the noble Lord for that assurance and beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 8 agreed to.
5.57 p.m.
LORD HAWKE LORD HAWKE moved, after Clause 8 to insert the following new clause:
Speed limits of public service vehicles with pneumatic tyres
".Notwithstanding anything contained in section twenty-four (Speed limit for vehicles of different classes or descriptions), the maximum speed of thirty miles per hour specified in the First Schedule to the principal Act shall not apply in relation to a public service vehicle fitted with pneumatic tyres and not drawing a trailer and the Minister shall not have power under that section to vary the provisions of that Schedule so as to impose a maximum speed in relation to any such vehicle lower than the speed or the maximum speed at which vehicles of any other class may be driven."
The noble Lord said: The day before yesterday my noble Leader, in column 1220 of the OFFICIAL REPORT, said that.
"… soon there will be a statement from the Government in which speed limits will be modified in a realistic sense."
It is by no means clear whether he was speaking of road speed limits, or vehicle

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speed limits, or both. My Amendment is what one might call a token Amendment, to point out the intolerable injustice which would occur if the Bill passed in its present form and vehicle speed limits remained unchanged. As your Lordships know, all commercial vehicles have a speed limit. The vast bulk of them probably come into the 30 m.p.h. category. My Amendment deals with buses. Their limit is 30 m.p.h., but precisely the same anomalies occur with all the others, particularly the lighter forms of lorry, delivery vans and so on. I have put down only one Amendment, however, which concerns buses. In practice, for all these commercial vehicles the speed limit is rarely observed and too rarely enforced. If it were observed, if all the commercial vehicles in the country chose to work to rule to-morrow, the traffic of this country would get into a terrible mess.
At present, if there is a prosecution for speeding at 31 miles an hour upwards, the court can fit the punishment to the crime. As the Bill stands, speeding becomes one of the many offences, both trivial and grave, included in Part II of the First Schedule, any three of which, regardless of the gravity or triviality of any one of them, must lose the driver his licence; and being a professional driver, with the loss of his licence he loses his job and probably does not get it back again after his licence is restored. A bus driver will probably lose his livelihood as a bus driver for ever. I have not put a speed limit in my proposed clause. The operators of buses themselves claim that their vehicles are safer at speed than private cars, because all their drivers have to pass a much stiffer test than ordinary drivers.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: Is the noble Lord referring now to double-decker buses in London streets or to the coaches going all over the countryside? Does he distinguish between them?—because up to now he has mentioned only buses.
LORD HAWKE: The technical term is "public service vehicle". Those drivers pass a stiffer test, and that type of vehicle is the only large class of vehicles liable to regular inspection by Ministry of Transport officials. Therefore such vehicles are probably the best maintained
1414
of any vehicles in this country. Moreover, they have a very fine accident-free record. But I quite imagine that public opinion would not be willing to have them without some limit. It is not for me but for traffic engineers and mechanical experts to suggest any suitable limit.
I feel sure that Her Majesty's Government must meet this point. While the general public would wish to see drivers losing their licence for three offences which they (the general public) would consider likely to be dangerous offences, I do not think they would be prepared to see a licence lost on grounds which could consist of three trivialities. In the eyes of the general public—and indeed, apparently in the eyes of the police, too—exceeding the speed limit as at present constituted is generally not considered to be an offence of gravity. How can it be when every commercial vehicle on the road, as a matter of course, exceeds 30 m.p.h. whenever the road conditions permit? It would not be proper to hold over commercial drivers the threat of losing their livelihood for doing something which the country relies upon them to do to keep the vital traffic of this country moving: exceeding the speed limit. This is a démarche to draw attention to this particular anomaly in the Bill. I am certain that my proposed new clause is badly worded, and is probably unnecessary, since I expect the Minister has power to alter speed limits by order. But I hope that I have managed to call attention to what I believe will be an intolerable injustice if this Bill passes in its present form. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 8, insert the said new clause.—(Lord Hawke.)
LORD TEYNHAM: I should like to add my support for this new clause, and would draw attention to the fact that many public service vehicles are regularly running up and down the M.1 motorway without being restricted as to speed. I could suggest that there is no real necessity for speed limit on public service vehicles outside built-up areas. The drivers of such vehicles have to pass a special driving test; they are well equipped to handle a properly maintained vehicle on the road, and are able

1415
to judge the safe speed at which to proceed having regard to the relevant conditions. The continuance of a restrictive speed limit of 30 m.p.h. for a modern, well-maintained vehicle is quite unrealistic, and any figure which might be substituted for 30 could be only an arbitrary one. The removal of the speed limit on public service vehicles would in no way increase the danger to the public. On the contrary, it would, in many cases, lead to a more even flow of traffic outside built-up areas, and therefore increase road safety. For those reasons I support this Amendment.
VISCOUNT MASSEREENE AND FERRARD: I cannot agree with this Amendment, for it is perhaps elementary that a coach weighing 20 tons and travelling at 50 m.p.h. is a far more lethal weapon that a car doing 50 m.p.h., and especially does this apply if the coach happens to strike an icy patch and get out of control. I understood my noble friend Lord Hawke to say that it is the experience of coach operators that a coach going at high speed was a safer vehicle than a car travelling at the same speed. I really cannot subscribe to that argument, because a heavy vehicle, irrespective of how good its brakes are, is far harder to pull up, especially if it strikes ice.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: I believe the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, has raised a very important question; and as he himself has said, he has done it in a token manner. The speed limits of this country are just chaotic and archaic, and if the noble Lord has done nothing else he has now raised that whole question. I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Teynham, that there should be no speed limit on public service vehicles, and I believe that on second thoughts he would not really think so himself. But the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, has also illustrated the handicap under which we are suffering. The noble and learned Viscount the Leader of the House gave us the broadest of broad hints that, after giving careful consideration to this problem, Her Majesty's Government would come out and say what they intend to do in the future. Indeed, the very efficacy of this Bill depends upon their doing that, as the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, has said. I am hoping
1416
that the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, will be able to lift the curtain a little so that we can discuss this matter, not only now but on all other Amendments and stages of this Bill, with a little more intelligence than we can to-day.
I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, said in answer to the previous Amendment. This variation of speed limit in built-up areas is a curse and a nuisance and is not conducive to road safety. It is more honoured in the breach than in the observance; and to have to keep on watching for signs—and they are now legion—to see whether one is in a 30 m.p.h. or 40 m.p.h. zone is ridiculous. I do not know whether any of your Lordships travelling in an average motor car on a road within the 40 m.p.h. limit has ever tried to pass a double-decker bus that is doing 30 m.p.h. One cannot pass without exceeding the 40 m.p.h. limit.
I have always been an opponent of different speed limits for different vehicles in built-up areas. The whole secret of successful traffic engineering in congested areas is to move all the traffic at the same speed. That is a first principle, but it is disregarded, and the anomalies of the present time are absolutely ridiculous. A three-wheeled motor tricycle is a commercial vehicle if it carries some bread, and it is restricted, I think, to 30 miles an hour. The chief reason causing congestion in London is that there are so many vehicles which travel at different speeds. I hope that the noble Lord will give this matter attention. I feel certain that he will have to have a uniform speed limit, but I would ask him whether he could give it consideration. I do not know whether it has entered into the considerations of the Ministry up to date. If we want to have a 30 m.p.h. limit and a 40 m.p.h. limit and then an unlimited run, do not come back after the 40 m.p.h. limit to the 30; go on in a steady progression upwards and do not job backwards.
I do not think that the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, wants to do anything with this Amendment other than make it a token one. But I agree that the modern coach is a masterpiece of British engineering. It is one of the safest vehicles on the road. I do not know whether your Lordships have ever driven one; I have. As someone who has spent his life in the motor industry, I think that

1417
the British motor industry have every reason to be proud of their present large coaches. They are magnificent pieces of engineering, and I would rather drive one of those large coaches on the roads of this country than I would drive a railway engine on a restricted track. However, I give my support to the noble Lord. I plead with the Minister to try to give us some news in the future on the subject we are talking about.
EARL HOWE: I agree very much with what the noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, has just been saying. I think he has touched on a point that is of vital importance. Differential speed limits are a curse and they are no good. We have had a 30 m.p.h. limit and we have a 40 m.p.h. limit. What is the difference between the 30 m.p.h. and the 40 m.p.h. limits? How much better would it be if the Minister could say he was going to make the 40 m.p.h. limit universal and it was going to be enforced! I think that is the answer to a whole lot of things. I should like to give your Lordships the views of the national chairman of the Road Haulage Association. He said, the other day:
"Unlike private motorists, the public-service vehicle driver is restricted to the outdated and now ridiculous speed limit of 30 m.p.h. even outside built up areas. If this Bill becomes law it will mean that if a driver's sidelight goes out on Monday, his rear light goes out' on Tuesday, and he does over 30 m.p.h. on Wednesday, he must, in court, lose his livelihood for six months. Magistrates will be obliged to suspend a driver for not less than six months if three technical offences are committed within three years."
We all know that. But I feel it is important to get away from differential speed limits if we can, and to have in the built-up areas a limit of 40 m.p.h. everywhere and to enforce it.
LORD FORBES: There is another aspect of this question. If commercial vehicles are allowed to go faster, it will automatically reduce the cost of transportation to a certain extent, because there is nothing more expensive than driving a commercial vehicle at a very slow speed, with the driver changing gear the whole time.
6.14 p.m.
LORD CHESHAM: I must admit that I was very glad to hear from my noble friend Lord Hawke that he was putting forward this Amendment in a token
1418
manner, because I could not exactly agree that, as it stood, I should view it as greatly in the interests of road safety. But, at the same time, I readily agree with what has been said: the present 30 m.p.h. limit is hardly appropriate for public-service vehicles. I do not go all the way with my noble friend Lord Teynham, because the performance, and no doubt safe performance, on the M.1 is probably all right in those rather special circumstances, but I do not think I could accept it at all as an argument for a similar lack of restriction on other roads.
Of course, I know that the Committee agree with me in saying—it has been said and made perfectly clear—that if this new system of penalties and disqualifications is going to work, speed limits of all kinds, both on roads and vehicles, have to be realistic. That is the first point. The other point is the undertaking which my noble friend gave to sort the trivial from the grave. But the Committee know, I think, that my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport has been engaged on a comprehensive review of all vehicle speed limits; and I am glad to be able to tell your Lordships that he has now decided that the speed limit for buses and coaches outside the built-up areas should be raised from the present maximum of 30 m.p.h. to 40 m.p.h. I am sure your Lordships will regard that as evidence that my right honourable friend means what he says in this matter and is proceeding in a thoroughly practical way which will be of help to the operators and drivers.
EARL HOWE: May I ask one question? Does that mean that on the motorways the speed limit will be as now, unlimited?
LORD CHESHAM: It certainly does. I was saying that I think, apart from being reasonable, it will be of benefit for the operators and drivers. The necessary draft statutory instrument to achieve this change, which has to be approved by Resolutions in your Lordships' House and in another place, will be laid before your Lordships shortly.
The question of a possible increase in the maximum permitted speed for goods vehicles is rather more complex. Goods vehicles vary a lot in their construction, in their size, in their operation and in

1419
their maintenance. You cannot generalise in the same way, perhaps, as you can for public-service vehicles. Therefore, the whole question of the upper speed limit for goods vehicles is being referred now to the Departmental Committee on Road Safety for urgent consideration and report to my right honourable friend.
LORD WALERAN: May I just interrupt the noble Lord? Would he bring to the attention of this Committee the great difficulty of a coach travelling at 40 m.p.h. passing a heavy goods vehicle and a trailer laden with bricks travelling at 30 m.p.h.? The noble Lord, Lord Lucas of Chilworth, mentioned this point just now, but I am sure the noble Lord knows it as well as I do and I think he will admit there is a great difficulty in it. It can create a long period of waiting at traffic friction points.
LORD CHESHAM: That is perfectly true. I take the noble Lord's point. It is a thing that is not confined; it also frequently happens with commercial vehicles as it is, with the same speed limit. While the point applies here, it is a much wider one altogether; it does not stop at that case. Fortunately, I happen to be chairman of that Committee, so it will not be difficult to include it in the discussion.
While we are talking on the subject of reasonable limits, perhaps your Lordships will allow me a moment's latitude, in view of the concern you have expressed about speed limits, in the context of offences for disqualification being perhaps only technical or trivial, or whatever the word might be. I should also like to correct some misapprehensions which seem to have occurred and been expressed publicly here and there, arising from the undertaking that my noble friend the Leader of the House gave the day before yesterday about the attempt he would make to devise a means of sorting the grave offences from the trivial ones, in which he included the words, I think, "a review of the speed limits". I think he was forecasting what I was gong to say to-day. There has been some misunderstanding, because I have heard it said and seen it stated that we intend to introduce a large number of
1420
varying speed limits, all kinds of miles per hour, in all kinds of places all over the country. That is not so at all, because my right honourable friend recognises that, if it is important for vehicles, it is equally important for roads that the actual speed limits should be reasonable and should, in consequence, be fully respected by the majority of motorists.
Having said that, and with that in mind, my right honourable friend has already instituted a review of speed limits on all trunk roads throughout the country which are his direct responsibility, to ensure that they are realistic and based on common criteria all over. As a result of this review, it may prove possible to remove the speed limit altogether on some roads and to raise it from 30 to 40 m.p.h. on others, although it may, of course, be desirable to impose a 40 m.p.h. limit on roads that are at present unrestricted, rather like what has been done around London. I hope this review will be completed within twelve months. That is in respect of the roads for which the Minister has direct responsibility.
The responsibility for speed limits on other roads rests primarily with the local authorities, and it will be for them to carry out a review of the existing speed limits on their roads on the same basis. My right honourable friend will be writing shortly to local authorities, urging them to carry out the same kind of review for their roads as he has instituted for the trunk roads. In doing so, he proposes to draw their attention, in particular, to the importance, in view of the new provisions in the Bill, of ensuring that their speed limits are realistic, so that they will be both respected by the motorist and capable of being effectively enforced by the police. A circular on these lines to local authorities is already being prepared, and I hope that it will go out within the next few weeks. I am sorry I have rather digressed, but I hope your Lordships will be pleased that I have. In particular, in view of the announcement that I have made, I hope that my noble friend will withdraw his Amendment.
LORD TEYNHAM: I cannot help feeling that the arbitrary figure of 40 miles per hour suggested for the public service vehicle is too low. I should have

1421
thought that it should be at least 50, which would get over the passing difficulty which we have already heard about.
LORD HAWKE: I am glad that my Amendment has produced such an interesting and long statement from my noble friend the Parliamentary Secretary. I, too, am surprised that the Minister should plump for the figure 40, but I suppose he had engineering and technical calculations to support him. There is one point which has not been raised about this matter, I believe, during all these debates. When the Committee are looking into all these things, I wonder whether they can watch the question of different limits for the twin-track roads as against the other roads. I also hope that the Committee, of which my noble friend is apparently going to be the Chairman, will look from a more realistic point of view—from a road safety point of view rather than from a fiscal point of view—at the 30 miles an hour limit on what I believe is known as a dual-purpose vehicle. With those few remarks, I thank my noble friend and beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 9 agreed to.
Clause 10 [Temporary or experimental speed limits]:
6.25 p.m.
EARL HOWE: The purpose of this Amendment is that the Minister shall come back to the House when he proposes any alteration in legislation governing speed limits, and shall get a Resolution of both Houses of Parliament. I think it is obvious what we want. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 7, line 42, leave out ("after giving public notice of his intention to do so, by order") and insert ("by order made by statutory instrument which shall be subject to annulment in pursuance of a resolution of either House of Parliament").—(Earl Howe.)
LORD CHESHAM: I am grateful to my noble friend for being so brief in his introduction. I am bound to say, if he will forgive me, that his drafting contains an error, but I will not say anything about that until, at any rate, we know what happens to the Amendment. If that error were corrected, the Amendment, as the noble Earl pointed
1422
out, would require that, to impose any of these experimental temporary speed limits, my right honourable friend would have to come to Parliament for approval. If I may be straightforward and blunt, I would say that that would completely defeat the object of my right honourable friend in relation to experimental and temporary speed limits. I do not think I need again go right through what is their purpose. The 50 miles an hour experimental limits imposed last year, which are to be repeated on a considerably wider scale this year, are merely typical. We feel it is most necessary that my right !honourable friend should have this power in order to be able to act quickly, where circumstances seem to warrant it, in the interests of road safety only, and 'be able to get on with it and find something out.
So that it cannot be overdone in any way, and particularly so that there can be no question of my right honourable friend or anyone else in years to come slapping a speed limit indiscriminately over the whole country, there is the very powerful safeguard that nothing he can do under this Bill in relation to putting these speed limits on can last for more than four months. If he wants it to last for more than four months, then he does have to come to Parliament to get approval. He cannot even cheat by letting it off for one day and then putting it on again, because there is a minimum period of two months before it can be repeated. If may say so, I think that to accept this Amendment would be to stand somewhat in the way of progress in road safety; and I hope that, with the assurance that Parliamentary control comes in after a four-month period, my noble friend will not press his Amendment.
EARL HOWE: I thank the noble Lord very much for his explanation. I quite agree, and I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 10 agreed to.
Clause 11 agreed to.
Clause 12 [Head lamps]:
LORD TEYNHAM LORD TEYNHAM moved, in subsection (2), after the first "shall" to insert:
"be fitted with yellow bulbs or yellow screens and shall"

1423
The noble Lord said: I do suggest that the effect of this Amendment would be greatly to reduce the danger from dazzle on the roads at night in this country. In France, it is compulsory to have either a yellow bulb or yellow screen on your car lights. I am sure many of your Lordships have noticed on your return to England, after driving abroad where yellow bulbs are in force, how much stronger is the dazzle in this country, with the use of white bulbs for the usual form of lighting on our vehicles. I strongly urge that the Government accept this Amendment, which I feel will be yet another form of assistance in the reduction of accidents, especially at night. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 9, line 26, after ("shall") insert ("be fitted with yellow bulbs or yellow screens and shall")—(Lord Teynham.)
EARL HOWE: I am extremely anxious about this Amendment and I desire to support it in every way I can. I was one of a number of drivers who were asked by the Road Research Board to go down to London Airport and carry out trials with yellow lights as compared with white lights. There were eight of us altogether, and we carried out very carefully observed trials. Of those eight, seven were entirely in favour of yellow lights. We tried to be as impartial in the matter as we could, but seven were entirely in favour of yellow lights.
Yellow lights have other advantages besides lack of dazzle. They are not nearly so dazzling to other drivers in mist or fog. Yellow lights do not seem to be affected by droplets of water in the air, as are white lights, and I suggest that that is an additional advantage. On the subject of dazzle, there are no two ways about it. If you go abroad and visit France, you soon see which are the more dazzling and if you have white lights on your car, probably you will find all the French lorry drivers switching on their lights and going for you as hard as they can. I hope the Government will take a favourable view of this Amendment, and I desire to support it.
LORD CHESHAM: Before the noble Earl sits down, could he tell me when these trials in which he took part took place?
EARL HOWE: I cannot remember offhand, but it was about two years ago. I cannot be bound absolutely to that, but it was about two years ago. Experiments were carried out in conjunction with the Road Research Board, and all cars had their headlights tested before they went out on to the airfield to see that they were properly lined up.
LORD CHESHAM: Thank you.
LORD WALERAN: Before my noble friend the Joint Parliamentary Secretary replies, I should like to say that I am afraid I am not with my noble friends Lord Teynham and Lord Howe. I do not think the tests that he was referring to can really stand up. I am certain that the Road Research Laboratory will agree with me that the lamps that they were using were British lamps. The reflectors are differently constructed, and you are not comparing like with like when you compare British lamps with yellow lamps in French headlights. I know that the noble Lord will come back with a lot of answers, and I know that the Road Research Laboratory has done a lot of work, but there is really no difference between the kind of dazzle you get from a French lamp with a yellow bulb and a French lamp with a white bulb. It largely depends on the reflector around the bulb, and one can be misled by rather ad hoc tests.
EARL HOWE: We were seven to one in favour of yellow.
6.35 p.m.
LORD CHESHAM: I have been in the past, and occasionally I still am, very tempted to side with my noble friend Lord Teynham about this one, because, purely as a personal matter, I have a sneaking liking for yellow lamps on my own car as well as on everybody's else's. But I am afraid that that is only a question of personal taste and opinion, and I must pay some regard, I feel, to the report of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, which is in fact a pre-war one. That Report said the following, which I will quote, if I may:
"None of the claims made in favour of using a coloured, and in particular a yellow, headlight beam, rather than a white beam of no greater power, have been substantiated. The claim for a greater range of visibility in fog may be regarded as definitely disproved. On the other claims for less dazzle and greater facility of vision the evidence is inconclusive; but it is apparent from the information at present available that further work

1425
is unlikely to show that any considerable advantage can be secured by using coloured light."
That was from the Report of the D.S.I.R.
The Road Research Laboratory carried out some trials in 1954. I have not the results of the trials in which my noble friend took part; they must have been different ones, because I understand that many drivers took part in the trials in 1954, in fact rather more than the noble Lord described. The results given, as I have them, were that over 50 per cent.—it does not say how much over 50 per cent.—preferred white lights when they were meeting cars with white lights; 90 per cent. preferred white on a clear road: and 60 per cent. thought yellow was less glaring, but only slightly less. I am not trying to comment on those figures; I just state them. I know that we are always impressed when we go to France and see these yellow lights, and France is the only European country which requires them. It is very tempting to say that they are much less dazzling, but, as my noble friend Lord Waleran correctly hinted, the reason is that the average power of a French headlamp is about 20 per cent. less than that of the British headlamp, and that is what matters. It is the intensity which is important.
LORD MERRIVALE: Could the noble Lord tell us what is the maximum wattage employed in this country, because it is an important point? Could he make a categorical statement with regard to the wattage?
LORD CHESHAM: I have no idea what is the wattage of French lamps. The noble Lord can check me and put me right if he has the figures with him, but I understand and believe that the average power of French lamps, either due to the wattage or the design, or anything you like, is about 20 per cent. less; and that is the important part—that the lamps are less powerful. A more important matter than that is not so much the colour but the aiming, or the focus (if you like to call it), of lamps. There are anti-dazzle provisions on those lines contained in the Road Vehicles Lighting Regulations of 1959. The other thing I must say is that we keep in touch as much as we can with international developments on such matters,
1426
and we are actively doing so at the moment in discussions which are going on under the auspices of E.C.E. It is a European affair. The work involved is very complex and technically detailed, but it is interesting 'that the participants in it are working entirely on the basis of white lighting, not yellow.
Apart from anything else I have been talking about, if I were to accept this Amendment it would have the extra effect of putting us out of line with the work and thinking that other countries are doing. But despite that, I should like to help my noble friend Lord Teynham as much as I can, so I would draw his attention to the fact that Clause 13 already contains a provision which would enable my right honourable friend to prescribe the colour of headlamps; and if, in due course, it is proved that yellow is more suitable, he will be able to so prescribe.
LORD TEYNHAM: I appreciate the view put forward by the noble Lord who is replying for Her Majesty's Government, but it is a little difficult to accept it, in view of what has been said by my noble friend Lord Howe. Other countries, as well as this one, are now studying the matter and I hope that they will come to a more satisfactory conclusion. But the fact remains that one has only to meet a car coming directly against one, which has obviously been recently on the Continent and still is fitted with yellow bulbs, to see that the dazzle is far less. I certainly do not press my Amendment to-day, but I hope that the Minister will consider this in future under Clause 13, in which he has power to act, when we know a little more about the results of the investigations going on both in this and in other countries on this very matter. I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
On Question, whether Clause 12 shall stand part of the Bill?
LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEU: Before we pass on, I should like to raise a question, on which I have to declare an interest—namely, the operation of vintage vehicles on the road. I think that the noble Lord is aware that veteran vehicles rarely go on the road at night, but owners take great pride in the originality of their vehicles. I think it

1427
would be a great shame if regulations were made which would prevent these vehicles from going on the road if they did not carry modern headlamps. I have had many representations from owners on this point, and I should like to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they would look sympathetically at this question before making any regulations.
LORD CHESHAM: The answer is simply. Yes. My noble friend understands why this clause is included—for road safety purposes in areas of the poorest illumination. I think it is wide enough to permit attention to the point he has raised, and I will certainly see that it is kept in mind.
Clause 12 agreed to.
Clause 13 [Amendments of Road Transport Lighting Act, 1957]:
THE EARL OF LUCAN THE EARL OF LUCAN moved to insert, at the end of subsection (1)
"(b) for controlling the position, colour and power of flashing indicator-lamps."
The noble Earl said: This Amendment can be quickly explained, but perhaps I should apologise because the printing of this edition of the Bill is not easy; the line numbers do not coincide with the lines. The intention is to add a paragraph to subsection (1) of Clause 13, so that the subsection will then have two paragraphs, (a) and (b). I expect that your Lordships have noticed that a variety of turn indicator lamps are fitted on cars nowadays, and more and more variety seems to be creeping in. I have seen lamps showing at the rear red and yellow and white. I have seen square, oblong, triangular and round lamps and I have seen them on different places on cars.
The chief defect which calls for some control, which we advocate in this Amendment, is brightness. There is a difficulty here. Flashing lights have been brought in, I suppose, to cope with fast traffic on motor roads and I agree that, with traffic moving at a fast pace, a considerable warning time is needed before a car turns off. That is the advantage of the powerful indicator lamps. On the other hand, in urban traffic these flashing lamps add one more hazard to driving. When we get different coloured lights flashing against a background that may have half the colours in the rain-
1428
bow, flashing on shop signs, and advertisements all round, it gets very difficult. Moreover, the power of these rearward facing indicator lamps produces a dazzle, particularly by their reflection on wet roads. Unless the driver's windscreen is perfectly clear, it dazzles to quite a dangerous degree, when one is driving close behind in a stream of traffic and these lights go on. I think the Minister should take powers to standardise these lights, and I hope he will standardise them at a fairly low level of power. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 10, line 12, at end insert the said paragraph.—(The Earl of Lucan.)
LORD SOM̃ERS: I should like to support this Amendment very strongly. I have felt for a long time that the only ideal system of flashing traffic indicators is to have them amber, both in front and at the rear, and they should not be incorporated with the side or rear lamps—though, if they are that colour, they could not be. If they are amber, that will avoid any confusion with braking by drivers. I think that amber indicators would avoid a lot of confusion.
EARL HOWE: I should like to support this Amendment, too. It is frequently the experience that, when held up in traffic by a car ahead of you turning, many of these flashing lights are so powerful that they cause considerable dazzle.
LORD CHESHAM: I agree that there are problems associated with flashing indicators and with the semaphore type as well. I do not think there are many aspects that have been mentioned which have not been considered, but I would ask the noble Earl to withdraw his Amendment simply because it is unnecessary. The Minister already has the necessary powers for the purpose in Section 64 (1) of the 1960 Act. If I may, I would read out what it says:
"The Minister may make regulations generally as to the use of motor vehicles and trailers on roads, their construction and equipment and the conditions under which they may be so used, and in particular, but without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing provisions, may make regulations with respect to any of the following matters:—
(i) the appliances … for intimating any intended change of speed or direction of a motor vehicle, and the use of any such

1429
appliance, and for securing that they shall be efficient and kept in proper working order;"
I think that that covers the matter very well. Under these powers the Minister has already made regulations for both flashing and semaphore indicators. At present, they do not make the fitting of direct indicators compulsory, but power to do so exists, if it seems desirable. Where indicators are fitted, then they must comply with the requirements of the regulations. The regulations lay down the following details: if it is a flashing type, the rate of flash; the extent of the illuminated area of the indicator; the power of the bulb; the limits of height within which indicators must be fitted; the colour of every indicator; and requirements for "tell-tales" visible to the driver to indicate that an indicator is operating. All those are laid down and, therefore, as I say, the noble Earl's Amendment is not required.
In addition, I would say this, in view of what has been said. There are various difficulties, which are somewhat technical and which account for the variation in size, type and particularly colour, either white or amber, or at the back sometimes red. That is due, again, partly to the practice of various manufacturers in this country and in other countries. It is affected by the export problem; it is affected by the practice in other countries whose regulations are different from ours. It has been suggested that it should be amber here, whereas in Italy they insist on white, and so on. But, with the aid of the industry, we are making steady progress to what we believe to be the correct goal—namely, that they should all be amber, back and front. That is where we are going as best we may. I should like to say, finally, that on the subject of the intensity of the bulb some work with which we have been associated has been clone in America. They have not been able to find a single light which is bright enough to be seen on a sunny day without being dazzling at night. These problems are not as easy as they appear, but they are being attended to.
THE EARL OF LUCAN: I am grateful to the noble Lord for that statement and for the information, which I had overlooked, that the original Act makes pro-
1430
vision for this. I hope it will be enforced. If it is a question of conformity with requirements of other countries, here surely is a case for some international agreement, and I hope the Government will do their best to get that agreement. I hope the regulations will not allow the styling (as I think it is called) of motor cars to influence the shape or size and, therefore, the safety of the indicator lights. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
6.53 p.m.
EARL FERRERS EARL FERRERS moved to add to subsection (3):
"and shall provide that the rear light of any bicycle, tricycle or invalid carriage shall be of a diameter of not less than 2½ inches".
The noble Earl said: The object of this Amendment is quite simple: it is to ensure that bicyclists carry a more effective rear light than they normally do. The majority of bicycles, as your Lordships know, are totally inadequately lit from the rear, and when you are progressing along a road at night with a bicyclist in front of you, the moment an oncoming motorist appears with his headlights on, the bicyclist is frequently eclipsed. There are two ways in which you can control a light emitted from a torch: one is by the brilliance of the power, and the other by the diameter of the light. The brilliance of the power is difficult to control, but what you can do is to make the diameter of the light larger. I should like to see bicyclists carry a rear light of sufficient size so that they can adequately be seen and, therefore, protected. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 10, line 29, after ("ascertained") insert the said words.—(Earl Ferrers.)
LORD CHESHAM: While I have considerable sympathy with the object of this Amendment, I think I should point out to my noble friend exactly what it is he is proposing The present regulations call for a lamp of not less than 1½ inches, and therefore he is proposing an increase of one inch on the present prescribed size. But unfortunately it is not a question of the diameter of the lamp, as he mentioned, that matters but a question of the intensity of the light coming from the lamp. I feel that the way we are tackling this problem may

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perhaps commend itself rather more than my noble friend's suggestion.
There is a regulation which says that the tail lamps of all registered vehicles—motor cars and so one—after March 30, 1959, must be marked with a specification number of the British Standard for tail lights for vehicles. Those lamps are of a British standard, and they have to emit a light through certain horizontal and vertical angles; they have to be measured for a set test distance; and they have to have the minimum intensity laid down in the standard. My right honourable friend is proposing to make similar regulations under which pedal cycles and bicycles will, from a date which will be twelve months after the regulations are made, be required to carry rear lamps marked with the appropriate British Standard number. The effect will be that these rear lamps will meet the conditions for the minimum intensity set out in the standard. The standard itself, incidentally, is being improved a little in respect of cycle lamps.
The new lamps, therefore, will do a much better job, and I believe will probably do what my noble friend wants. After all, it is the intensity of the light that comes out which is vital, and not the size of the lamp. There is also the small objection that the Amendment presupposes that they all have to be circular, which they need not be; that has never been the requirement. The other thing that I might mention, in passing, is that we should then have prescribed a larger tail lamp for a bicycle than we do for a heavy lorry. I hope that my noble friend will feel that our way is the better way, and agree to withdraw his Amendment.
LORD SOM̃ERS: May I ask my noble friend whether it is an offence, or whether the Minister intends to make it an offence, to ride a bicycle with one's clothes obscuring the rear lamp?
LORD CHESHAM: I shall have to think about that, but I am almost certain that it is now an offence.
EARL FERRERS: I am grateful for that reply from my noble friend. Do I understand him to say that these new regulations will affect the new lights that are sold; or are they going to be regula-
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tions that affect the bicyclist? I am aware that at the moment the Ministry set a standard of 1½ inches for a rear light, but a great number of rear lights with a diameter of less than 1½ inches are carried. The other point the noble Lord made was that 2½ inches was in excess of a lorry rear light. I am perfectly aware of that but, of course, the operative thing in a rear light on a bicycle is the battery. The intensity of brilliance is important, and it may be that 1½ inches is adequate when the battery is new, but when it is half run down I would suggest that a diameter of 2½ inches is much better protection that one of 1½ inches. However, I do not propose to press this point and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clauses 13 and 14 agreed to.
[The Sitting was suspended from two minutes past seven o'clock until eight o'clock.]
Clause 15 [Approved driving instructors]:
LORD MOLSON LORD MOLSON moved to leave out Clause 15. The noble Lord said: I am not going to make heavy weather of this Amendment. This is a clause which I think nobody—not even the Government—would claim is going to achieve anything very substantial. It begins by saying:
"There shall be defrayed out of moneys provided by Parliament any expenses incurred by the Minister in connection with any arrangements made by him for compiling and maintaining a register of Persons approved by him as qualified to give instruction …."
There is no obligation on people who are giving instruction to satisfy the requirements of the Minister. There is no obligation on people who make charges and set themselves up as professional instructors to meet those requirements. This is one of those compromises between complete laissez faire and rigid control which in some circumstances may be wise, but which in this case, I think, is likely to be completely ineffectual. It says merely that the Minister may set up a machinery for laying down certain standards in schools of driving, and those who satisfy them may enjoy the use of a title, not yet decided upon, which the Minister may think out and without complying with a standard that the Minister

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may lay down. I could understand if it were thought this was a matter of such importance that the whole thing had to be taken completely under the control of the Government.
I believe I am right in saying that all schools in this country are subject to inspection by the Ministry of Education. I think there is a great deal to be said for leaving it (that is what I would recommend) to private enterprise. But that the Ministry should set up an organisation for approving driving teachers and not prevent people who do not satisfy those requirements from making charges for giving driving instruction, is, I think, the kind of compromise which is not likely to be effective from any point of view. I have no doubt that there are a number of driving instructors who are not really fit to instruct. The law is that a person may pass his driving test in the morning and begin instructing in the afternoon; and it may be—though I do not think so—desirable that a particular standard should be laid down, so that everybody who gives instruction should reach a certain standard. I believe this to be the kind of compromise between different views, which is "grandmotherly" legislation, and I do not think it is likely to achieve any useful purpose.
It is not, in my view, one of the duties of the Government to make certain that people who wish to have driving instruction should be able to go only to people who attain a certain standard. I think it would be far better for them to be allowed to seek instruction wherever they like to find it, whether from members of their own family—which of course is not precluded by this clause—from people who make a charge but may not be very efficient, or from those who make a charge and are efficient. This is just the kind of thing where I think that, in a free society, it is desirable that every kind of encouragement should be given to people to go to reputable bodies.
I have here regulations laid down by the Royal Automobile Club for the registration of driving instructors. That is exactly the kind of voluntary organisation which I believe to be in line with our general way of doing things in this country, and I believe it to be extremely effective. Sensible people will make inquiries about the qualities of a school before they go there to be taught. The
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Royal Automobile Club is one of the organisations which has laid down standards, which I think are almost generally accepted to be good. There are private schools of teaching (it would be invidious to mention them, but they are generally known) which give extremely good instruction; but on the other hand. I have no doubt that there are some which are very unsatisfactory. But the penalty of being an unsatisfactory school is that sooner or later it will be found out. I think it is desirable that people should be left to seek instruction where they like to find it.
The test is in the driving test, the standard of which is laid down by the Minister of Transport. If it were possible for all those concerned in teaching to get together and voluntarily to establish certain standards, and for the whole of that to be done by a voluntary organisation of schools of motoring it would, in collaboration with the Royal Automobile Club, I believe, be entirely satisfactory from everybody's point of view. That the Government should undertake some kind of responsibility for setting up an organisation for testing teachers and giving them a certificate and giving them a name which has not yet been decided upon, seems to me to be the kind of "grandmotherly" intervention which does not go far enough to be effective and which I think is likely to interfere with the general operation of teaching motoring in this country.
The important thing is the standard which is required by the Ministry of Transport before a person is passed as fit to hold a permanent driving licence. Anything that increases the scope of Government responsibility without there being a real need for it seems to me to be regrettable; and while I do not feel that this clause is going to do any very great harm I feel that it is the kind of rather muddle-headed thinking which your Lordships should excise from this Bill. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Leave out Clause 15.—(Lord Malson.)
LORD CONESFORD: This Amendment has been so admirably proposed by my noble friend that I propose to add only a very few words. The case against this clause is, in my opinion, that it is unnecessary, expensive and bureaucratic, and will effect no useful

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result. I am a strong general supporter of this Bill, and if I thought that this clause was going to promote public safety I should certainly not support this Amendment, but I do not think it will. I do not mind how severe the Government make the test before a person is entitled to drive a motor car upon the roads. I think that they are fully entitled to insist on a high degree of driving ability before a man is allowed to drive on the roads, but how a man acquires that ability is for him and not for the Government. Nor, indeed, do the Government lay down that he has to acquire his skill from one of the people on their register, if they do set up a register. A man or woman will still be entitled to acquire his skill in any way that he or she thinks fit.
My noble friend has said, quite truly, that the Royal Automobile Club, of which other Lords have far greater knowledge than I, has itself compiled a register of competent instructors. Any person wishing to find out who is a competent instructor can no doubt obtain the information from the R.A.C. or from any appropriate organisation. Nor would it be true that, if he fails to obtain such information and is given inadequate instruction by persons who claim the skill to teach without possessing it, a person so victimised would be without legal remedy at Common Law. He would have legal remedy at Common Law for breach of warranty of skill in teaching —I am using general terms. Why should the Government set up a register of persons qualified, when it will not be compulsory to use people on that register, when people not on that register can be quite as skilled as those on the register, and when every evil against which the Government are seeking to guard can be guarded against in other ways?
A severe test of efficiency in driving is the Government's remedy. Let them make the test of the person who seeks to hold a licence as severe a test as they like; but let the person submitting himself to that test be allowed to acquire his skill in whatever way he thinks fit. Do not set up a branch of a Government Department for which there is no need at all, in order to create a wholly unnecessary piece of bureaucracy, to provide for something which is unnecessary,
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and to guard against a danger for which there are existing remedies under the Common Law.
I hope that my noble friend who is to reply will not feel that just because this clause has been inserted in the Bill he is bound to defend it as necessary. I believe that it is quite unnecessary. I believe that the purpose which it seeks to achieve can be achieved by other methods. I would remind the Committee that my noble friend speaks with all the knowledge of a former Minister in the Ministry of Transport, and I beg to support him.
8.24 p.m.
LORD LINDGREN: Although this Amendment has been moved and seconded by the two noble Lords opposite in excellent fashion and with quite a cogent argument, from their point of view, I hope that the Government will not be influenced by it. May I say to both noble Lords that a whole series of legislation has been passed by successive Governments in our generation to protect the consumer in regard to services rendered to the public. We have a Weights and Measures Act and we have weights and measures inspectors. The average shopkeeper is a decent fellow who observes the weights and measures regulations, but the Government have had to protect the public against the unscrupulous person who would defraud people by giving short-weight. Those of us who have been connected with the trade unions have, over the generations, urged upon successive Governments to bring in Factories Act legislation. In his organisation of his factory the decent employer has always been 20 years ahead of any Government and the legislation passed by Governments. But the Government have had to place the Factories Acts on the Statute Book in order to protect workers against other employers who would never come up to the standard of the best individual employers.
Let us admit straight away that in this field of motoring instruction there are a number of most creditable organisations whose standard of instruction is on the highest level. The people who go to them for instruction receive as competent a degree of instruction as it is possible to give. But the two noble Lords who have spoken have ignored the fact (here

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I may be accused of speaking of some of my own colleagues) that all over the country there are people with a car who cannot really afford to run it, and who, in order to maintain it, give spare-time driving instruction. They advertise in the local paper in a rural area or small town, sometimes even on the outskirts of London. Perhaps it is one of the problems we have to deal with in regard to road safety that there are people who aspire to own a car and who undertake the obligation of running a car when they really cannot afford it. Particularly does the question of expense arise when a husband wants his wife to be instructed in driving. He is sensible enough to know that it is always unwise for a husband to start instructing his wife in regard to driving. Sometimes it is the easy road to the divorce court. Certainly it leads to a good many domestic disputes.
LORD LATHAM: And to hospital!
LORD LINDGREN: As my noble friend has said, perhaps to hospital. The owner is wise enough to realise that. But because of the difficulties of the family budget these people tend to go to the cheapest instructor they can obtain.
In order to obtain custom many small "mushroom", single-man concerns under-cut the larger-scale organisations with competent instructors, good premises and a well-run organisation. Therefore there is a tendency for people to go to spare-time instructors. Some of them may be good, but many are really doing it in order to meet hire-purchase commitments on a car which they ought not to have. I feel that the Government have a duty to protect ordinary individuals, most of whom are not members of excellent organisations like the R.A.C.and the A.A. Most of these people do not join these organisations until they come up against some trouble on the road. On these occasions, quite properly the representative of the R.A.C. or A.A. comes along to help and he says, "You are getting our service, but you are not a member. What about joining?" And they generally sign a form on the spot and become members. But these people are trying to do motoring "on the cheap".
I am certain both noble Lords whose names appear to this Amendment will agree with me that one of the protec-
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tions against accidents in future is the competence of instructors in driving. I am all in favour of making the tests as difficult as possible; but passing a driving test is very much like passing examinations. I will not say one can cram for the test to the same extent as some people can learn formulae and so on in order to pass an examination; but safety on the road largely arises from skill and anticipation, which are largely matters of instruction. I remember only two injunctions from my own period of driving instruction: first, never let your fuel tank go below half way, and second, drive always so as to be able to stop within your own vision—two very good instructions. But I believe the standard of instruction has a great effect upon the possibility of being able to deal with an emergency.
LORD MOLSON: I entirely agree with nearly everything the noble Lord has said, but this clause does not cut out the instructor who has no qualifications at all. It will still be legal for him to advertise and to make charges for giving instruction, even though he is not really qualified to do so.
LORD LINGREN: I would agree with the noble Lord, but it is an added protection, because one can advertise—and I hope the Ministry will do so—that it is unwise for a person to receive instruction from an instructor who is not approved. After all, if, as we motor through the country, we see a hotel which is marked as approved by the A.A. or R.A.C., we know we shall get reasonably good food and a clean bed.
A NOBLE LORD: We hope!
LORD LINDGREN: Well, if we do not we report the fact to those organisations, and I believe they will see that such a place is taken off their list. We cannot take measures to put everybody in cotton wool, but I believe the Government have the right to protect the individual as far as they can. After all, as I have said earlier, the Factories Acts do not mean that no employer will violate those Acts, but at least the worker is given the right to use the Ministry in order to protect himself if such violation takes place, Here a person employing someone to give him instruction for a driving test would be given the right reasonably to anticipate

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that that person had the required skill to give such instruction. In general terms, I support the Government in this clause and I hope they will not give way.
LORD CONESFORD: May I put one point to the noble Lord? Like my noble friend, I agree with much that he has said, but he gave the example of an R.A.C. or A.A. recommendation of an hotel. Of course, that recommendation is just as public to the person who is not a member of either of those organisations as to a person who is; and if the R.A.C. maintain a register of competent driving instructors, there would be nothing to stop such an instructor from advertising the fact that he was approved by the R.A.C.
LORD WALSTON: I should like to support what my noble friend Lord Lindgren has said. I will not go over his arguments, but I wish to take up one or two points made earlier by noble Lords who have spoken. The noble Lord, Lord Molson, spoke of "sensible people" and said they will obviously go to approved driving schools. He is probably right in that, but the trouble is that so many people are not sensible. If everyone were sensible there probably would be no need at all for the Bill we are discussing to-day. Surely we have to legislate for those who are not so sensible. My criticism of the Government's proposals in this case is that they do not go far enough; I am supporting them only because I hope they are a first step in the right direction. It seems fantastic to me that we should allow someone who has passed a test perhaps a day, a year or 25 years ago, but has no other qualifications for driving, to instruct other people. I myself never took a test at all, for I took out my licence before there was any need to do so. But in spite of that I, or others in the same position, can go out with somebody else in a car with L-plates and be considered suitable to teach others to drive. The noble Lord, Lord Conesford, says that does not matter because the examination will put all that right. But surely examinations do not do that. After all, we do not allow people to practise at the Bar—which is a less dangerous weapon than a motor car—simply by passing an examination.
A NOBLE LORD: Yes, we do.
LORD WALSTON: They have to be trained by those who are properly qualified at the Bar. We do not allow people to practise as doctors until they have qualified; and we do not allow doctors to qualify unless they have been trained for many years by those who have already qualified. But in fact scalpels, morphia and anæthetics are no more dangerous than motor cars.
LORD FRASER OF LONSDALE: I do not think there is any law which says that one must learn law or medicine only from lawyers or doctors.
LORD WALSTON: I do not know if there is a law on that point, but I do not think many people present themselves for examinations in either of those professions who have not been trained by people who have themselves qualified. And surely, the important thing is the practice rather than the actual letter of the law. At one short period of my career I had the job of training doctors in pathology and bacteriology. I am pretty certain that it would not have been too difficult to take people who were not extremely skilled, and who would not have made very good doctors, and yet in a short time cram into them sufficient to pass that examination. But that does not mean to say they would be good at their job, or safe to be entrusted with various responsibilities which they, as doctors, would have to exercise. I believe that the same applies to driving a motor car.
To-day there is an appalling mortality rate on the roads. We know that some of that is due to sheer carelessness, a certain amount to drunkenness and some to bad luck. But if we ask ourselves sincerely about this, we know also that a great deal of it is due to sheer incompetence, and to drivers not knowing how to control the vehicle at the steering wheel of which they are sitting. I believe that that can be put right, in the long run, only by making certain that the examination, which is the most important part, is not the only part, but that leading up to the examination there is a reasonable and sensible method of training and teaching. I am at the stage of having several children who have taken their driving test, or are hoping to do so. When this process began in my family I was horrified to

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find that some of them were going out, with an L-plate on the car, with friends of mine who, while they were jolly nice people, were people with whom I was rather nervous when I was driving. It came as quite a shock to find that they were legally entitled to teach my children to drive, and I stopped that as far as I was able.
I suggest to your Lordships that we must aim here at a state of affairs in which, sooner or later, the teaching of driving must be entrusted only to those people, not necessarily professional people, who have satisfied the proper examiners that they are capable of doing the job properly and that they themselves know how to drive. Therefore a support the Government in this respect; I believe their proposals in this Bill are a very short step to that, and I hope that they will be encouraged to take a much longer step before very long.
VISCOUNT CROSS: I should like to speak in favour of Clause 15, because I think it goes some way to ensure that driving instructors will at least be competent. But may I also take this opportunity of saying something about driving instruction itself? I am absolutely convinced that driving instruction—at any rate in the initial stages—should not take place on the public roads of this country. It should take place off the public road, on a disused aerodrome or any open space where other vehicles are not allowed. It should be on private ground. If the learner-driver can become competent in such conditions—and l think he very soon would do so and become expert—then, and only then, should he go on the public roads, among all the other traffic and the many hazards which exist. When he is expert he will then be able to cope with the problems of road sense and traffic and all the other factors which are involved. But I should like to support the Government on Clause 15. I think it is good, so far as it goes.
8.32 p.m.
LORD CHESHAM: If I may say so with the greatest respect to my noble friends who moved and supported this Amendment. I think that they overstated the case a little. I am saying this, in answer to their invitation, because I think it and not because it is
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written in the brief or anything like that. I really do believe what I am saying. I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Molson, who used the words "laissez faire" in connection with this; and, if I may again say so with respect, I do not think that is justified, because this is not just a desperate throw when we can think of nothing else to do.
During the last few years we have tried on several occasions to get the industry to put its own house in order, and to set up its own uniform standards and some kind of control system which would operate right across the whole field of the industry. Unfortunately, we were not able to persuade it to take action of that kind. Therefore, it is clear that something has to be done. My noble and learned friend Lord Conesford used the words "expensive; bureaucratic". I should have thought the scheme we have put forward is the least expensive and bureaucratic scheme that could be devised in the circumstances. A wider and stronger scheme would be more expensive and more bureaucratic and I thought it was probably right that one should endeavour to bring in any scheme of this kind in the simplest, cheapest and least bureaucratic manner.
It is true that there is nothing compulsory in what is proposed, and that an instructor, even if he is unqualified, or has not reached the required standard, is quite free to pursue his business—if he can get any business. But we believe that the public will welcome this move and that learner-drivers will seek out the instructors who have qualified and can draw the learner's attention to the fact. I think it is a perfectly normal commercial fact, rather on the lines indicated by the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren; that if you have the choice of two articles, one of an unknown quality, and the other backed by a guarantee by a good firm, and sold at the same price, you will chose that with the guarantee. I do not think I am taking his remark much out of context. My noble friend Lord Molson used these words on Second Reading [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 230 No. 64), col. 402]:
"People must learn to find the right kind of people from whom to obtain their instruction."
I think that is perfectly right.

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The purpose of our scheme is not in any way—or not primarily, at any rate, although it may have that effect—to protect the consumer or in any way to infringe the principle of caveat emptor, which my noble friend talked about. It is to secure better instruction in the interests of road safety. In that case, the public have not sufficient means of judging who are the right kind of people from whom to obtain their instruction, particularly if we are going to regard the "right kind of people" as being those instructors who will ensure that a candidate is thoroughly and properly taught what he needs to know. Incompetent firms and incompetent instructors who can afford to advertise can do so, and people may think that that is the way to find the right kind of people. In short, we think this scheme will work. The noble Lord has his doubts, and I would say to him, finally, that if experience shows that it does not work we will be prepared to think again whether it is necessary to go further. But I would ask now, if he decides not to press his Amendment, that we shall be given the chance to try to make it work.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: There is one aspect of this clause on which I should like to speak which I think has not yet been mentioned. I appreciate very much the protection of the public in general, which the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, has spoken of. But there is also the protection of the innocent qualified drivers, like myself, who are often bombarded by requests from learner-drivers that we should instruct them. It is sometimes very difficult for us to refuse these requests, and we, not being approved instructors within the meaning of this clause, will now have very good grounds for refusing. And that, I think, will be tremendous protection to a very small section of the public who might otherwise be put in a very embarrassing position. For that, we are most grateful.
EARL HOWE: There is nothing I know of to prevent an individual from passing his test for driving in the morning and setting up an establishment as a driving instructor in the afternoon. I cannot believe that the Government would really welcome that. I cannot believe that some of the noble Lords opposite who have
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spoken about it would agree with that. I wonder whether either of the noble Lords (I expect one has, because I know his car, but I refer particularly to the other noble Lord, Lord Lindgren) has tried driving along M.1. on a Sunday. If not, may I recommend as an experience that, if he has the time, he should drive along the M.1. on a Sunday and watch the standard of driving. People driving little cars, probably bought by hire purchase, are wandering about from one lane to another without looking to see what is coming from behind. What sort of instruction can they really have had? They would not do that if they had had really proper instruction. I was glad to hear what the noble Lord said just now in replying for the Government: that if the thing does not work on the present lines he will think again. But there may be a few casualties by then which might be saved if you would think out a really good scheme now.
LORD STONHAM: I think it extraordinary that the noble Earl should just have said that people who behave or drive badly on M.1. are people who have probably bought their cars on hire purchase. I do not know whether he thinks they are being worried about the instalments and are therefore driving from right to left because of that reason. But I think it was really an irrelevancy. I feel that the Government are wholly right in adhering to this clause. I think it is extremely necessary, and I hope we can very speedily come to a conclusion on this particular Amendment.
LORD MOLSON: My noble friend the Parliamentary Secretary has shown his dialectical skill in calling in aid against my noble friend and myself the speeches made from the opposite side of the House and also from here, which have urged that a compulsory standard should be generally applied. I could well understand the logic of that; but, of course, there is nothing in this clause that prevents completely incompetent people from continuing to give instruction, advertising themselves, and taking fees for doing so. But I am not going to make heavy weather of this matter. I have expressed my grave doubts about this clause, and my noble friend has said that if it does not work very satisfactorily the Government will consider what further steps to take. Having expressed my grave doubts about it, and believing that it

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really falls between two stools and is not likely to be effective for any purpose, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 15 agreed to.
Clause 16:
Minimum age for driving certain motor vehicles
16. At the end of section ninety-seven of the principal Act (which relates to the minimum age for driving motor vehicles on roads) there shall be added the following subsection—
(b) that the age under which a person may not drive on a road a tractor used primarily for work on land in connection with agriculture shall, if the tractor is of a description specified in the regulations and is driven in circumstances so specified, be sixteen instead of seventeen;
but a person shall not be prohibited by virtue of regulations under paragraph (a) of this subsection from driving a motor car of any description if at any time before the coming into force of the regulations he has held a licence, other than a provisional licence, authorising him to drive that description of motor car.
8.42 p.m.
LORD WISE LORD WISE moved, in the proposed new subsection (3), to omit paragraph (b). The noble Lord said: I beg to move the Amendment standing in my name and in that of my noble friends. Paragraphs (a) and (b) of subsection (3) of Clause 16 amend the principal Act as regards the ages mentioned in the two paragraphs. One goes up from 17 to 21, and the other goes down from 17 to 16. 11 am concerned with paragraph (b), which relates to tractors. The Bill seeks to reduce the age of drivers of tractors from 17 to 16. I am informed that since the Road Traffic Act, 1930, the minimum age of drivers of tractors driven in the course of internal farm operations has been stabilised at 17—and I may say that I take "internal farm operations" to cover crossing a road from field to field on a particular farm.
In the present clause there seems to be no restriction on where the farm tractors should be used, so long as they are used primarily for work on land in connection with agriculture. This leaves it quite open, so that they can be used, as is customary in agriculture, with or without trailers, to fetch and cart produce on the farm or to and from the villages or the towns. In fact, it leaves them free
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to be used for any agricultural job; and there are many agricultural jobs for which the farm tractor is used. In my view, it is a retrograde step to allow a youth of 16 to drive a heavy farm tractor on main or second-class roads.
It may be argued that there is not much difference between a youth of 16 and a youth of 17, but there is. At 16 he has only recently left school—or that should be the case; he has had little experience and no responsibility generally, he does not recognise danger: he is venturesome; he may take undue risks; he may lack stability and be liable to panic in a difficult and unlooked-for situation. The year between 16 and 17 may also provide the additional physique to enable him to operate a mechanical vehicle properly and safely.
In these days of fast-moving and increasing traffic, a farm tractor, with its present-day increased speed and rubber tyres, may be, in the hands of an untrained and inexperienced driver, a menace to other road users. The range of accidents which, even with great care, can happen to tractor drivers, is extensive. Without the exercise of due care they can cause accidents to other vehicles and their occupants. It is so easy to misjudge distances on the roads; to skid on slippery roads; to suffer from mechanical faults; to touch passing vehicles; to slide into ditches around road bends; to confuse gears, throttles and brakes, and to lose control down steep hills. Experience alone is a safeguard against these possible damages. I want to feel that the boys who drive tractors on roads have been trained, have become experienced; that they recognise their responsibilities to other road users and are accustomed to exercise care and good judgment.
Recent legislation has provided greater protection in many ways for those who work on the land and operate farm machinery. Several Acts and Regulations have been approved by this House in order that improvements may be made in safety facilities, and thus reduce accidents. I appeal to all noble Lords who are connected with agriculture to support my Amendment, which would leave the age at 17. It would be a tragic circumstances if a lad of 16, in one of our own villages should be involved in any fatal accident caused by the lowering

1447
of the age at which he may drive a farm tractor on a road. It would cause considerable remorse and no small disturbance of our consciences, as to whether we might be termed accessories, because we could have avoided it. This Amendment has received the wholehearted support of the National Union of Agricultural Workers, who are responsible for the safety of their members. They look to the Government to continue the age of 17, and I hope that I shall have due support in regard to this Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 12, line 18, leave out paragraph (b).—(Lord Wise.)
LORD WILLIAMS OF BARNBURGH: I rise to support this Amendment, and I hope that the noble Lord in charge of the Bill will not underestimate the strength of the opposition to this retrograde step, both inside and outside the House, even though the Benches are not overflowing at the moment. We are in a very curious situation. Here is a Bill ostensibly designed to reduce accidents, to protect life and limb and to provide appropriate punishment for offenders on the roads; and I am bound to confess that, over the two days during which this Bill has been in Committee, I have been greatly impressed at the unanimity there has been in all parts of the House over the original objects of this Bill.
The noble Lord, Lord Chesham, said this afternoon that he regarded this Bill as a road safety Bill. That is very curious, because in this very same Bill the Government apparently seem to have gone clean out of their way to reduce the protection for young persons driving tractors either on the farm or on the road. It is a fantastic contradiction in terms, that practically the whole of the measure should be devoted to safety purposes, and yet it is proposed to reduce the age of a boy who can drive a tractor, either on a farm or on a road, from 17 to 16 years, which is obviously going to place the younger person in great danger.
For a very long time protection of the individual, particularly on farms, was more or less disregarded in this country. But very recently Parliament. in its wisdom, has taken a more humane and
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realistic view, and in a variety of ways over the past few years statutory provisions have been introduced to safeguard life and limb on farms, as well as in factories. I am therefore astonished to learn that the National Farmers' Union, who raised this question in 1953 and again in 1955. are still pursuing this subject; and I am still more astonished to find that the Government have fallen for the N.F.U.'s ill-conceived and, as I think, very selfish proposal.
What does the Government Amendment in Clause 16 (b) really mean? Section 97 of the original Act states that
"A person shall not drive on a road a motor vehicle of a class or description specified in the first column of the following Table if he is under the age specified in relation thereto in the second column of that Table."
Paragraph 3 of the table reads:
"Tractor used primarily for work on land in connection with agriculture",
and the age limit is 17 years. Clause 16, paragraph (b), as my noble friend has said, enables regulations to be made to reduce the age limit from 17 to 16 years. Surely that is not going to increase protection; neither is it going to reduce accidents. It would have been much more sensible and humane to increase the age limit rather than reduce it. Certainly it would have been infinitely more consistent with the declared objects of the Bill.
Noble Lords will observe that there is no limitation on the load which may be hauled by a tractor driven by a boy of 16 years of age. A boy of 16 may drive a tractor and pull the load. Your Lordships are well aware of the wide variety of very heavy trailers which are used on our farms to-day. I know there has 'peen some talk about limiting loads, but it is all "airy-fairy" and utterly unconvincing, both to those who are responsible for caring for the welfare of agricultural workers and to those who have any desire to protect young persons from danger. In any case, there is nothing in the Bill about limiting the loads, requiring a driving test, or anything else; it merely reduces the age from 17 to 16. No wonder, then, that both the trade unions catering for the needs of agricultural workers have registered their strongest objections to any reduction in the age limit and I believe that the General Council of the Trades Union Congress have also generally opposed it

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for wider reasons, perhaps, than the mere reduction of the age limit. I think the noble Lord in charge of the Bill will know what those wider reasons really are.
I can imagine the noble Viscount the Leader of the House, who I am sorry to see is not in his place (although I can probably understand why), had he been sitting on these Benches in opposition, would not only have torn the Minister in charge to shreds and pieces for these alleged safety precautions and the insertion of Clause 16, paragraph (b); he would certainly have supported this Amendment in far less moderate language than mine. I am certain he would have supported this Amendment on those lines. On Tuesday the noble Viscount: said, on several occasions during the debate, that a motor car was a lethal weapon; and he was, of course, right. But so is a tractor, especially in the hands of a young person. As defending counsel, I have no means of telling what the noble Lord who is going to reply will say to-night, but I shall be very interested to hear his case.
Why do the Government treat this matter so lightly, as they appear to have done? Surely not because they are lacking in humanity—I would not accept that for one moment. Is there some great, impelling reason for this reduction in the age limit, something transcending our interest in the safety and welfare of young persons? If so, we should like to know what it is. When asked for any evidence the Minister has received from the National Farmers' Union of the numbers of farmers likely to be affected, the Government admitted they had no specific evidence of that nature. Are we, therefore, to take this backward step—for it is a backward step—merely because boys of 16 receive one or two shillings per week less than boys of 17? If that is the only excuse—for it could not be regarded as a reason—then surely it is not a good excuse to take this step.
I am sure that none of your Lordships would charge me with being ungenerous to farmers, but I readily confess to being very uncharitable towards this proposal. I should have thought that the overriding factor in these considerations, especially where young persons are concerned, would have been plain common sense and safety, not the saving of one or two shillings in wages per week. I can see
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no other reason for it. Instead of decreasing protection and increasing danger—as I am certain paragraph (b) of Clause 16 would do—we should be giving infinitely more thought to the skill and experience required, and the hazards to be faced, when driving tractors both on and off the farm.
Moreover, noble Lords will appreciate that any tendency to reduce the age limit for young tractor drivers is utterly contrary to legislation on agricultural safety over this past few years, where the emphasis has been put in protecting young persons from exposure, or from exposing them to the hazards of their own immaturity and inexperience. Many examples could be quoted from the Agriculture (Safety) Act, but I assume that noble Lords are well aware of them. There are many Factories Act provisions protecting the 18-year-old in factories against numerous industrial risks. Eighteen is now regarded as the minimum age for National Service. But under Clause 16 we are invited to retreat and to accept the principle that a young person of 16 is mature enough to resume the responsibility of an adult where tractors are concerned. It just cannot be so, and I think the noble Lord in charge of the Bill must feel that way himself.
I sincerely believe that this is a monstrous and dangerous suggestion that ought not to be permitted, and I hope noble Lords in all parts of the House will feel about this retrograde step as I do. In 1960 there were 53 fatal accidents involving tractors on farms in Great Britain. They were not all with young persons, but if tractors are such difficult machines to handle and manœuvre when in the hands of an adult, how much more difficult will they be for a boy of 16? We are not legislating here for the quick-witted boy, for the early-maturing 16-year-old. We are legislating for all at 16—the vigorous, the adventurous, and sometimes, perhaps, the thoughtless. And it is no answer to say that a youth of 16 can drive a motor-cycle on the highway. In 1959, when Britain experienced the worst record of road accidents—11·2 per cent. higher than in 1958—statistics showed that it was in the age group up to 20 years that fatal and serious accidents on the roads were highest. Those figures emphasise how much youthful inexperience and immaturity

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play a part in accidents on the road. Therefore I submit that, instead of turning backwards, as Clause 16 will have us do, and increasing the danger to young persons, we should devote more time to the proper training and supervision of prospective tractor drivers. I know that the Ministry of Agriculture are doing something with their leaflets and their films, but it is not nearly enough.
I hope that noble Lords are fully aware of the possible repercussions from other trade unions, if the law is amended in the fashion described here and a young person is allowed to handle high-powered machines. I do not know what the reactions of the Transport and General Workers' Union, who are responsible for hundreds of thousands of drivers of all kinds of vehicles in all parts of the country, are going to be, but they are likely to be very real. I hope that the noble Lord in charge of the Bill will take that into account when uttering his final sentences on this Amendment.
Finally, perhaps the noble Lord will tell us what was the attitude of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents to this new proposal. We shall all be interested to hear. I hope that this is by no means regarded as a Party question. It is a very human question. It is a question where young boys of 16, who have scarcely started to live, are placed in danger by statutory means. I feel that we ought not to permit it, and I hope that this Amendment will be carried by a fair majority.
LORD AIREDALE: I feel quite sure that neither the Government nor anyone else wishes to empower 16-year-olds to drive cumbersome tractors all over the country. What I feel it is sought to do by paragraph (b) is to enable a 16-yearold to drive a farm tractor along a road in the course of going from one part of a farm to another part of the same farm, which he may not be able to do without going across a road or along a road, probably a country lane. Paragraph (b) does not say precisely that, but I should not have thought it beyond the power of the draftsmen to redraft this paragraph so that it would say precisely that or very nearly that.
LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEU: I hope the Government will stand firm
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on this Amendment and resist it. Noble Lords opposite must go with the times. After all, to-day a boy of 16 probably knows more about tractors than his father did at the age of 30 and much more than his grandfather does now, if he is still alive. A farm boy does not simply start to drive a tractor at the age of 16; in many cases he has been brought up with it from the age of 10. It is no question of suddenly starting to drive at 16. What is the difference from the old days of horses and carts? Noble Lords Would not have said then that a 16-year-old boy should not drive a farm cart on his father's farm.
There is a very serious labour shortage on the land; and at harvest, when labour is extremely short, an enormous amount of inconvenience is caused by the fact that a 16-year-old, maybe the farmer's son, cannot be allowed to take in the harvest, because he cannot cross the road with a tractor. Noble Lords opposite talk about its being retrograde to accept this, but I feel that it is retrograde not to accept this Government measure. I think that this would also help to bring more labour on the land. One thing that attracts young farm labourers is the fact that they are able to have something to do with mechanical things. I strongly support the Government on this matter and I hope that they do not give way.
9.5 p.m.
LORD CHESHAM: I greatly enjoyed the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Barnburgh. I thought he made a very able debating speech, but perhaps the points he made with regard to the Amendment were more debating points than points of substance. He recalled that I said that this was a Bill to promote road safety and asked: why should it do the opposite? I will be perfectly honest about the matter and say that I cannot perhaps justifiably claim that this provision is a measure which greatly promotes road safety, but, as this Bill is a suitable place to put it, it does no harm to road safety and is therefore acceptable.
LORD LATHAM: Its qualities, therefore, are quite negative.
LORD CHESHAM: I should not have thought so, for reasons I shall come to in a moment. We are not going to be

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faced to-morrow morning or next month with an avalanche of untrained 16-yearolds with tractors on the roads. This paragraph enables the Minister to take powers, and that is all. The noble Lord, Lord Wise, said that he would call upon all Members of the House having to do with agriculture to support him, but I cannot.
Regulations made by the Ministry of Agriculture allow tractors to be driven on the farm, but not off it, by boys of 13, By the time prospective drivers reach the age of 16, they often have had a good deal of actual driving on the farm, and a tractor is not necessarily as difficult to drive technically as the noble Lord implied. As a large number of young men leave school at 15, by the time they are 16 they will have had a year's experience, which I think is a lot for driving a tractor. On my own farm I have a young man who came to work when he was 15, and although he is a thoroughly competent tractor driver, and has been for quite some time, he has to be escorted across roads and taken from field to field by older workers because he is riot allowed to cross a road. It is not the case that many completely inexperienced boys are going to be given charge of powerful machines. To delete this paragraph would be a definite inconvenience to farming, and I am sure that noble Lords opposite appreciate that, And I think it would be much to the detriment of the workers themselves—I may be wrong, and noble Lords may correct me if they wish. If a young man were able to take his full part as a tractor driver, he would be able to earn a little more.
I come to the conditions, which are an essential part of this provision. It is not just a question of reducing the age. My right honourable friend is definitely not going to do this arbitrarily, without due consideration and without imposing proper conditions under which these young boys may drive. I give the Committee a full assurance on that. The kind of conditions he has in mind would cover restrictions on both the type and dimensions of the tractor, and also on the type and dimensions of any trailer or load that it would tow. Therefore, the Fears of the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Barnburgh, that they would be able to drive monstrous machines
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beyond their capacity to control, would turn out to be groundless.
Then there would be another even more important overriding safeguard—namely, that no 16-year-old would be allowed to drive a tractor on the road until he had passed the Ministry's learner-driver test, with the exception only that he could drive while he was on the way to the test, or actually taking it.
LORD STONHAM: Can the noble Lord say whether that means that a 16-year old cannot drive the tractor on the road, with "L" plates, before he passes his test?
LORD CHESHAM: As a "snap" answer, I think it is only afterwards. He would have to take it first, because the consideration, in our view, is that the complications of driving a car in open traffic do not apply to a tractor; and if he has good control of his tractor, which he can learn on the farm, and a good knowledge of the Highway Code, it is not unreasonable to expect that he will not be a menace to road safety. If he passes his test, he can then go on driving; but, if he does not, as I understand it, he cannot. I think that the concession, if it is made (and I hope it will be) will encourage the chaps to become good tractor drivers and so benefit themselves and the industry in which they work.
A certain amount was said about the natural and proper interest of the unions concerned in this matter. Unfortunately, I was not directly engaged in the negotiations with the unions concerned, but I understand the position to be that both the Transport and General Workers' Union and the National Union of Agricultural Workers, as the noble Lord said, raised objections on road safety grounds. However, I think I am representing the position accurately when I say that they noted that there would be conditions to be attached to the proposal, and they reserved their position until they had seen what those conditions were to be. These conditions have not yet been worked out in detail, but an undertaking has been given to the unions concerned—and I am pleased to repeat it to your Lordships—that they will be consulted again before the regulations are made laying down the conditions and so on.

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The noble Lord asked what was the view of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents. He described the position as "airy-fairy", but on learning what were the proposed conditions, I am glad to say the Director of that organisation approved.
LORD WILLIAMS OF BARNBURGH: Before any other noble Lord intervenes, may I ask the noble Lord whether he is aware that in certain parts of the country, in fact almost all over the country, there are areas where, from the home farm itself to outlying fields which are associated with the home farm, the tractor would have to travel not a few hundred yards, or across the road, but literally miles? If I could have had with me a map of potential amalgamation schemes showing the home farms all round the perimeter, and an arrow pointing to fields one mile, one and a half miles or two miles away, he would realise from that map (we had it in the other place for quite a long time) that one could not see a field for arrows, which went from one side of the area, covering miles, to the other. The only other thing I would say to the noble Lord is this. It is true that these young persons may have had some training, but they are only 16; and those older men who unfortunately were killed last year (53 of them) must obviously have had a lot of training before they became tractor drivers on the farms. But they were killed, even though they were mature men, and possibly skilled agricultural workers. We are talking now about boys of 16, no matter how clever they may be.
LORD CHESHAM: I was not quite clear when the noble Lord spoke about this. Were the 53 unfortunate casualties on the roads or on farms?
LORD WILLIAMS OF BARNBURGH: On the farms, and all associated with tractors.
LORD CHESHAM: It is not a very telling figure, is it? Because boys of 16 —and even less; from 13 upwards—can drive tractors on the farms now, and, therefore, presumably, are already running almost as much risk of getting killed as the older men.
LORD WILLIAMS OF BARNBURGH: But there were 53 fatal accidents last
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year involving tractors. My only point is that if a tractor is such a difficult machine to handle and manœuvre, and if 53 adults were killed when dealing with tractors, what will happen to boys of 16, no matter how clever they may seem to be?
LORD CHESHAM: The point is that if that happened on the farm and not on the road, those boys could be driving tractors on the farm now. So that this provision we are discussing does not seem to me to make any difference to the risk to the chaps driving tractors on the farm and off the road.
LORD WILLIAMS OF BARNBURGH: But the noble Lord will be aware that for the first time it is opening up the way for a boy of 16 to drive on the roads; and, as I have just been stating, many farms have fields one mile, one and a half miles or two miles away from the home farm. So, apart from the danger on the farm itself, with its gradients, there will be another danger—that of a boy driving a tractor on the roads where all kinds of vehicles are coming and going.
LORD AIREDALE: Does the noble Lord, Lord Chesham, not agree that this paragraph, as it stands, would empower some 16-year-olds to drive a farm tractor along the Watford by-pass, straight through the middle of London and right down the Portsmouth Road? Is that what the Government intend? Surely, what this paragraph fails to include, which would seem vital, is emphasis upon the fact that the tractor being driven on the road by the boy must be in the course of being used for agricultural purposes on a farm. Speaking for myself, I should be quite happy about it if that were what it said, but I could not possibly vote in favour of this paragraph as it stands.
LORD CHESHAM: No one intends that it should cover such a case as the noble Lord has mentioned, and I do not suppose it was considered very likely to happen. But obviously there is something in the point about some farms being separated and the considerable road mileages, and also in what the noble Lord, Lord Airedale, has said. I think the best thing I can do is to convey the views of noble Lords to my right honourable friend for consideration when laying down the conditions under which this paragraph might operate.
9.20 p.m.
VICOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: I must say that I am disappointed with the result of this discussion. I have not been listening to all the debate, but obviously I know the case very well. I am afraid that I cannot accept it on the Committee stage like that and leave it at "sometimes", "somehow", to "some set of regulations" to try to meet this important condition. If you look at the ordinary work of a farm such as I have to work, surrounded by miles of roads—not very wide roads; B roads and C roads—you are often driving tractors which draw the discs or corn combine drills and things of that kind, which are much wider than the ordinary width of a motor vehicle commonly used on the road. It is very difficult to do. We have an increasing number of motor vehicles driving at pace on these roads now, and we think that to have a young lad in charge of a tractor of that kind is quite unreasonable. We are strongly supported by the National Union of Agricultural Workers, and if the Minister can make no further advance upon what he has said, there is only one thing to do, even at this late hour, and that is to divide.
LORD STRATHEDEN AND CAMPBELL: Is not the noble Viscount opposite aware that what is far more dangerous—or, at least, I am far more frightened—is to find on a tractor in front of one a grey-haired driver rather than a young man?
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: I used to drive a tractor a great deal when I had grey hair, and I would not submit to that for one moment.
LORD STRATHEDEN AND CAMPBELL: I never intended it to refer to the noble Viscount.
LORD MOLSON: Surely the wording of this is perfectly clear. Paragraph (a) says:
"that the age under which a person may not drive on a road a tractor used primarily for work on land in connection with agriculture shall, if the tractor is of a description specified in the regulations and is driven in circumstances so specified, be 16 instead of 17."
Surely noble Lords opposite are making very heavy weather indeed of this. The ordinary case which the Government have in mind seems to me to be quite
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plainly that, where a tractor driver who is entitled to drive at the present time at the age of 16, is able to drive from one field to another, a technicality of the law has prevented this from applying in the past. Under the regulations which the Minister can make, and which the Parliamentary Secretary has undertaken shall be discussed with the trade unions, surely that is going as far as can reasonably be expected.
With regard to the arguments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Barnburgh, of course the great majority of accidents with tractors take place when the tractor turns over. With his long experience of agriculture, the noble Lord will, I am sure, agree with me that the gradients on farms are generally worse than the gradients on roads.
THE EARL OF ALBEMARLE: There is nothing in the paragraph which mentions a farmer having received a contract, not for his farm, but for a farm down the road. That ought to be included. I have no more experience of farming the countryside than anybody else in this House, but I am not favourably impressed by this reduction of the age of 17 to 16. It all depends on the kind of regulations which will be made whether I shall be happy about it. There is one thing which noble Lords have not mentioned, and that is the vast variety of trailers. Even if you are driving your own car, with a weight in the back it is surprising what difficulty you may have on a greasy road. If a young chap who may not have driven the particular kind of trailer tacked on behind him has the bad luck to be driving on a bad day, he may have the fear of God put into him because the thing behind him is not behaving at all as he imagines it should.
As we know, so many of these accidents occur on vehicles turning to the right. On a greasy road, when you want to turn into a field on your right, the beastly thing behind you is making an awful noise and you do not realise there is following traffic. Then some of the vehicles have all sorts of fins which might obscure the boy's view. I do not feel at all sure that accidents would not happen because of those two things—turning right, and the weight of the tractor. I do not want to vote against this paragraph, but I shall not be happy

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unless these regulations are very carefully gone into.
LORD WISE: I have listened very attentively to the arguments provided by the Minister who has replied, but we are still convinced on this side of the
Resolved in the negative and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.
Clause 16 agreed to.
9.30 p.m.
LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEU LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEU moved, after Clause 16, to insert the following new clause—
Commencement of section 102 (4) of the principal Act
" . Subsection (4) of section one hundred and two of the principal Act shall come into operation on the first day of January, nineteen hundred and sixty-two."
The noble Lord said: I took the opportunity on Second Reading to mention my concern about the fact that somebody can hold a provisional licence year after year without making any attempt to pass the test. I pointed out then that I was particularly concerned with young motor cyclists who, without anybody being with them, can go on from year to year without a test and can possibly be a great danger on the roads. Since Second Reading I have discovered that in the principal Act there is in fact a section, Section 102, which was passed last year to make it possible for the licensing authorities to refuse a licence after a certain time, if no test has been taken. Under a later section, however, that section has not yet come into effect, so the object of my Amendment is to try to extract from the Government the date by which that section will come into operation.
House that it is retrograde step, and we cannot accept what the Minister has said.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents 11; Not-Contents, 23.

CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Lucan, E. [Teller.]

Williams of Barnburgh, L.

Alexander of Hillsborough, V.

Sinha, L.

Wise, L.

Amwell, L.

Stonham, L. [Teller.]

Wootton of Abinger, B.

Latham, L.

Walston, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Auckland, L.

Fraser of Lonsdale, L.

Newton, L. [Teller.]

Chesham, L.

Hailsham, V. (L. President.)

Raglan, L.

Colville of Culross, V.

Hastings, L.

St. Aldwyn, E. [Teller.]

Conesford, L.

Howe, E.

Stratheden and Campbell, L.

Crathorne, L.

Jellicoe, E.

Swaythling, L.

Cross, V.

Merthyr, L.

Terrington, L.

Devonshire, D.

Molson, L.

Teviot, L.

Dundee, E.

Montagu of Beaulieu, L.

I feel that this is an important point. So far as I understand the Act, the section as it stands now allows two years before somebody has to take a test. I do not see why after two years riding on the "L" licence one should not be able to take the test. No doubt what was in the Government's mind at the time was the fact that there was a great queue of people waiting for tests. It is an important point and one on which I hope the Government will make up their minds. I give a date, next January, purely arbitrarily, but I should be happy if the Government would consider perhaps even a later date. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 16, insert the said new clause.—(Lord Montagu of Beaulieu.)
LORD MOLSON: I should like in two words to support very strongly the plea made by my noble friend Lord Montagu of Beaulieu. The provisions of Clause 102 were specially included in the Road Transport Act, 1956, after careful thought, because of the great abuse by people who went on taking out provisional driving licences without ever having a driving test. This was not a serious problem in the case of motor cars, because it involved having somebody with the driver as long as he had the learner plate on his car, but in the case of motor bicycles it really enabled young men who wished to do so to defeat the whole purpose of the law. I

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confess that until this Bill came before your Lordships' House I had supposed that the provisions of Clause 102 were in operation. I am bound to say they went less far than I should have wished at that time. They are very moderate. There is absolutely no case where anyone genuinely wishing to take a test on a motor bicycle should not be able to do so within the provisions of Clause 102 of the Road Transport Act, 1960, which re-incorporates the section of the Act of 1956. I am sorry to know it has not yet been put into operation, and I very much hope the Government will take a step in that direction.
LORD STONHAM: I would support quite strongly the two speeches that have been made. I hope the Government will accept this Amendment. It is really most necessary, and I can see no possible objection to it.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: The reason why the subsection has not been brought into force yet is solely that the driving test organisation has never had sufficient capacity to cope with the additional tests which would be required if it were brought into force now. The Ministry of Transport has not got any close estimate of the number of additional tests which would arise if it were now put into force, but it is estimated that if it were applied to all classes of driver, and everybody covered by the section who wished to drive applied for the test, there might be an increase of about 100 per cent. in the number of tests required—that is to say, an additional 1,700,000 a year—and it would be quite impossible to meet this demand. There would be entirely unacceptable delays in obtaining tests by other candidates. My right honourable friend the Minister stated in the House of Commons:
"Section 102 (4) of the Act will be brought into force as soon as we are satisfied that the increase which it may well cause in the number of applications for a driving test will not lead to applicants for a test having to wait unreasonably long for an appointment."
And that is still my right honourable friend's policy. Although an extra 300 examiners have been trained in the last two or three years, the number of applicants has increased so fast that the examiners have hardly been able to keep up with them.
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My right honourable friend wants to bring in the section and apply it to everybody as soon as possible. What he is contemplating at present is to make an arrangement with the licensing authorities to do it gradually. Section 102 is, of course, permissive. Even if it is brought into operation, licensing authorities do not have to apply it universally. What my right honourable friend is contemplating at present is to agree with the licensing authorities on a gradual application of the section—that is to say, to start off with those who have had a large number of previous provisional licences. Responsibility for exercising this degree of discretion rests with the local authorities, not with the Ministry of Transport, but it would be possible for the Minister to circularise licensing authorities explaining (1) that it was proposed to bring the section into force; (2) that if licensing authorities used it in relation to all applications to which it could be applied, the resulting queue for the driving test would be quite impossible and would completely upset the machinery of the driving test organisation; (3) that it would be possible to apply this subsection progressively.
He could issue to licensing authorities advice as to how they should apply the subsection, and as soon as the driving test situation allows he would then invite licensing authorities progressively to implement the subsection more fully. I think that is the most the Minister can do in present circumstances, and I hope that your Lordships will not press for an early, definite date which would result in a completely impossible situation owing to the shortage of examiners in relation to the number of applicants at the present time.
LORD MOLSON: The reply from my noble friend Lord Dundee shows for the first time how extremely serious this problem is. Clause 102 was carefully drafted in order to deal only with those people who have habitually driven motor cycles for a long period of time without submitting themselves to a test. It had never occurred to me that there were 1,700,000 motor cyclists on the roads at present who had been motor cycling for a substantial period of time without even submitting themselves to a test. I think this is one of the most serious figures that has been disclosed

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It has a close bearing upon the number of accidents that occur on the roads at the present time.
I fully appreciate the difficulties with which the Minister of Transport is faced, and I have every sympathy with his difficulties, but, quite clearly, it is of the utmost importance that young men riding motor cycles should be obliged to take a test at a reasonably early time and not continue driving indefinitely without submitting themselves to a test. It is extremely desirable that some priority should be given to those cases over ordinary motor drivers. That priority, I need hardly say, is not extended in the interests of the motor cyclists, but because they are obviously responsible for a large proportion of the road accidents that take place at the present time.
I hope that my noble friend will withdraw his Amendment, because all we are concerned to do is to facilitate the task of the Minister of Transport, who is anxious to put these things right. But I think that public opinion will be startled to learn that 1,700,000 motor cyclists—I say "motor cyclists" because it does not apply generally in the case of drivers of motor cars, because of the burden of their having to be accompanied by a certificated driver at the time—should have brought themselves within the terms of Section 102 (4). I think that is a most serious matter, and I hope that the Government will deal with it.
9.45 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: In case the noble Lord, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, should be tempted to accept the advice of his noble friend to withdraw the Amendment, I should like to say, first of all, to the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, that the logical outcome of what he is suggesting is that Section 102 of the principal Act will never be implemented, for the simple reason that the number of motor-cyclists is increasing far more rapidly proportionately than the number of driving inspectors. Therefore, this thing will go on for ever. I could quite have understood it if, in his reply, he had said, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Montagu of Beaulieu envisaged, that this date that he has suggested, 1962, is not hard and fast. But surely more hope can be held out than this.
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That is the first thing that if we are to accept what the noble Earl says, then this clause will never be implemented.
Then, as a small piece of comfort the noble Earl said that he hopes his right honourable friend will be able to do this by stages, progressively, by advising local authorities, in due course, to draw out first of all those who have had a large number of provisional licences. A "large number of provisional licences" must surely cover several years. A person has had a lethal weapon in his or her possession for a number of years and has never passed a test, and is apparently not likely to do so. That is an extremely unsatisfactory position. I have been driving a motor vehicle for 41 years and therefore have had some experience. But I confess that I have not yet accustomed myself to the sight and sound of people on heavy motorcycles coming right by my ear, whether my car is stationary or moving, and then seeing them come within inches of my right hand and ear, swerve and, as they swerve, to see an L-plate at their back. Now I learn from the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, that such persons may have had an L-plate at their back for two, three, or more years.
Just now we were discussing whether boys of 16 should be allowed to drive farm tractors on the road, and some strong feeling was expressed about it. But those risks pale into insignificance beside the risks of continuing this sort of situation. It would be presumptuous on my part to add anything to the advice that the noble Lord, Lord Molson, has given to his noble friend, but if this Amendment is not withdrawn then I, for one, will go into the Division. Lobby in support of it.
LORD MONTAGU OF BEAULIEU: We have had quite an interesting debate. It is getting late and there are a number of other Amendments. However, I must say that I am extremely disappointed at the reply of Her Majesty's Government. What is the message that has gone out to-night but that any boy can go and get a motor-cycle, and then say "Well, to hell with this! I do not have to take a test for years and years and years"? I also think that it is a terrible blow, and most discouraging to those running the R.A.C.-A.C.U. Training Scheme, which the Government are

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backing financially, who have taken so much trouble and have done good work in training young motor-cyclists. What are their messages going to be now? I hope that before Report stage the Government will give some more thought and feeling to the point. I give warning that I will try other methods to raise this matter at six-monthly intervals until this point is decided. In the circumstances, I ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 17:
Test fees
17.—(1) Regulations made for the purposes of paragraph (b) of subsection (2) of section ninety-nine of the principal Act (which relates to the payment of fees in respect of tests of competence to drive) may require the fee to be paid upon application for an appointment for a test; and so much of that paragraph as limits the amount of the fee shall cease to have effect.
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES: I must apologise for the fact that there are two Amendments numbered 65. With the permission of the Committee, I propose to call them Amendments Nos. 65 (1) and 65 (2) respectively.
9.50 p.m.
LORD AIREDALE LORD AIREDALE moved, to add to subsection (1):
"provided that the total amount of all such fees shall not exceed the estimated total cost of conducting tests of competence to drive"
The noble Lord said: I put down this Amendment because I was rather concerned over the subsection which seeks to remove altogether the limit on the amount of the driving test fee. The present limit for that fee is £1 while the actual fee itself is £1. In particular, I hope that we shall not see happen in the case of the driving test fee, or anything like it, what happened recently in the case of driving licences. As your Lordships know, the validity of driving licences was recently increased from one year to three years. One would suppose that as licences have now to be renewed only once every three years, the cost of issuing a driving licence would, if anything, be less than the cost of issuing it once every year, and that one might have looked for a reduction, if anything, in the 5s. fee which used to obtain when driving licences were valid for one year only. However, far from being reduced from 5s.. the driving licence fee has been
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trebled. If that kind of thing were to happen with driving test fees, it would involve not shillings, which in my submission would be bad enough, but pounds.
I hope it will not be said that those people who seek to become drivers, because they can afford to own motor cars, can therefore afford to pay a few pounds to undergo a driving test. Surely, in many cases aspiring drivers are not potential car owners at all. They are people seeking to make themselves more useful in society, perhaps in order to take elderly relatives for drives on summer evenings. They may not be rich people at all. But they have to incur considerable expense in the course of learning to drive and obtaining a driving licence.
First, they have to pay a driving instructor to teach them how to drive. Noble Lords have already stressed this evening the desirability of that, and I will not go further into it. Having paid their driving test fee, these people then have to take the test—and probably will have to take it more than once. No-one, I think, can blame anyone who fails the driving test for the first time. That is quite common and it may be that the fee will have to be paid and the test taken two or three times before the test is passed. Then the 15s. driving licence has to be taken out. All this involves considerable expense. I suppose one cannot expect the Government to arrange for driving tests at less than the cost price. On the other hand, presumably they should not be made a profit-making matter; and the cost of conducting the driving tests should not be exceeded by the total amount of driving test fees which accrue.
Finally, I think it would be a shortsighted policy if we were to seek in any way to discourage people from undertaking the driving test, because for the rest of their lives drivers become, in one way and another, very substantial contributors to public funds; and it is never a good thing to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. For those reasons I beg to move this Amendment.
Amendment moved—
Page 12, line 35, at and insert the said words. —(Lord Airedale.)
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: It is the intention of the Government that the amount collected in fees shall not exceed the total cost of conducting tests. I

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understand that the noble Lord's Amendment, if it were accepted, would make it necessary for fees to be calculated over short periods to ensure that they do not exceed the cost of driving test. Our intention is that the cost of the test and the fees received shall balance over a period of time, though there may be six months or so during which they are a bit less, and another six months during which they are a bit more. It is not the Government's intention to make any profit from the fee or to use it as a means of collecting revenue. We intend to do exactly what the noble Lord wishes to achieve by his Amendment, and possibly would not be averse to the method of fixing some definite figure at a price considerably higher than £1 if that should be considered a preferable way of doing it. But I believe it would be better to leave things as they are in the Bill, on the assurance that the Government do not intend to collect more than is necessary to cover the cost of these tests. I believe that that is a sensible course to pursue and I do not think anybody would wish to follow any other principle.
LORD LATHAM: Surely the Government can fix a unit cost independently of whether it is the first half of the year, or the second. They can arrive at a unit cost if they spread the costs.
LORD AIREDALE: In view of the assurance given by the noble Earl, which I find very satisfactory, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 17 agreed to.
EARL ST. ALDWYN: Perhaps this might be a convenient moment at which to adjourn this part of the Committee stage, and we might continue it on Tuesday evening after the Business already on the Order Paper.
House resumed.

SAINT BENET SHEREHOG CHURCHYARD BILL [H.L.] SAINT PANCRAS, PANCRAS LANE CHURCHYARD BILL [H.L.]
Reported, with Amendments.
  THE FREEDOM FROM HUNGER CAMPAIGN
  THE FREEDOM FROM HUNGER CAMPAIGN