Sitting of 15 May 1961

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS
  GREAT OUSE WATER BILL
  As amended, to be considered upon Tuesday, 30th May at Seven o'clock.
  BERKSHIRE AND BUCKINGHAMSHIRE COUNTY COUNCILS (WINDSOR-ETON BRIDGE &C.) BILL [Lords]
    MANCHESTER CORPORATION BILL
      MIDDLESEX COUNTY COUNCIL BILL
      As amended considered; to be read the Third time.
  SUTTON COLDFIELD CORPORATION BILL [Lords]
  Read a Second time and committed.
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  MINISTRY OF POWER

    Fuel and Power Industries (Output Targets)
    Mr. Nealasked the Minister of Power what general directions he has given to the fuel and power industries relating to output targets for the current year.
    The Minister of Power (Mr. Richard Wood): None, Sir.
    Mr. Neal: How does the Minister expect these industries to plan ahead without having a fixed target underwritten by his Ministry? Has he observed that the Chairman of the National Coal Board is planning a target of around 200 million tons, and that the Conservative Political Centre is advocating a target of 120 million tons?
    Mr. Wood: I think that the hon. Gentleman, if he has paid attention, as I know he has, to the recent debates in
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    the House, will be quite well aware of the objections to fixing targets, and will also be aware that in the last debate I gave my view that the Chairman of the National Coal Board was right in planing for a capacity of about 200 million tons a year.

    Liquid Methane
    Mr. Nealasked the Minister of Power what proposals he has received from the Gas Council regarding the importation of liquid methane.
    Mr. Wood: None, Sir.
    Mr. Neal: I am surprised to hear that Answer. Will the Minister guarantee, in view of the heavy blow that these proposals are likely to inflict on the coal industry, that before any irrevocable step is taken we shall have the opportunity of debating the proposals in this House?
    Mr. Wood: No, Sir. I should like to make the position quite clear. I have said before that the position of the coal industry would obviously be one of the most important factors that I would take into consideration. I intend, when I receive the proposals, which I have not yet done, to consider them and to reach a decision, and, in view of the interest which the House has taken in this matter, I have given an undertaking that I will make a statement in order to acquaint the House before the decision is actually announced. It is my decision; I must reach it myself.
    Mr. Kershaw: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind the paramount importance to British industry of having the cheapest possible supply of power which is available?
    Mr. Wood: I will remember that.
    Mr. Gunter: In view of the fact that the Minister told us on Monday last that it would be only a few days before he had the report of the Gas Council, how much longer does he think he will have to wait?
    Mr. Wood: I think another few days.

    Steel Industry (Prices)
    Mr. Nabarroasked the Minister of Power, having regard to the increase in fuel oil duty proposed in Clause 2 of the Finance Bill, and the increased

    897
    annual costs of steel making of approximately £5 million and of approximately £10 million for electricity generation, what general directions he will give to the Central Electricity Generating Board, and what steps he is taking to initiate conversations with the British Iron and Steel Federation, with a view to circumventing increases in prices, respectively, for electricity supplies and steel and negativing any possible inflation of power and steel prices; and whether he will make a statement.
    Mr. Wood: None, Sir. Under the relevant Statutes, any variation of the electricity bulk supply tariff and of the maximum prices of iron and steel products to take account of any increase in fuel oil costs resulting from the imposition of the duty are matters for the Central Electricity Generating Board and the Iron and Steel Board, respectively.
    Mr. Nabarro: Has not my right hon. Friend perceived the ominous signs in the last few days arising from the imposition of the fuel oil duty; namely, an increase in electricity prices of up to 20 per cent.—as manifested by the Eastern Electricity Board's announcement last week—and the possibility of increases in the price of steel of up to 30s. a ton? How could these price increases be consonant with the policy of Her Majesty's Government which so far has been to increase the competitiveness of British industry in the interest of national exports, not to reduce it?
    Mr. Wood: I think that a great many of my hon. Friend's prognostications depend on the price at which oil is available to those two large consumers. I have not been able, in fact, to make any estimate of the effect of the oil tax on the cost of electricity generation because I do not know how much oil will be used with the changed cost which, in turn, will depend on the price at which oil is available. I therefore think that it is impossible to be dogmatic about it until we know the cost to the consumers of the tax on oil.
    Mr. Callaghan: In considering steel prices, will the Minister look at the price-fixing arrangements in this section of industry and inquire why there are fixed prices for delivery in any part of the country no matter what cost may be in-
    898
    volved? Will he also look at the prospects of reducing steel prices? I know that they are still lower than those of a great many other countries, but in view of the fantastically high profits which the large steel companies have been making for the last few years, is there not a case for reducing the level of these prices?
    Mr. Wood: As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Iron and Steel Board has a statutory responsibility, and I see no reason—certainly not hypothetically for the future—for interfering with the responsibility that has been placed on that Board by Statute.

    Nuclear Power Station, Trawsfynydd
    Mr. Russellasked the Minister of Power what will be the total cost of erection of the nuclear power station at Trawsfynydd, Merioneth.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Power (Mr. John George): The total cost of the station, including the nuclear fuel charge, is expected to be about £75 million.
    Mr. Russell: I should like to ask, not in a critical spirit but merely for information, whether work on this project is going on all round the clock? If so, what is the extra cost of doing the work all round the clock as compared with doing it in normal hours?
    Mr. George: As far as my right hon. Friend is aware, tenders have been submitted and one tender has been accepted, and the work goes on according to the contractor's desire.

  COAL

    Imports
    Mr. Nabarroasked the Minister of Power having regard to the application made by the Steel Company of Wales for a licence to import Virginian coals from the United States of America, paid for in dollars and hauled largely in American freight ships to South Wales ports of foreign coal into Great Britain, ports, and his policy of obviating all im-for balance of payments and other reasons, whether he will initiate urgent conversations with the British Iron and Steel Federation and other interested

    899
    bodies with a view to substituting British coal in appropriate grades and prices for the proposed American imports; and whether he will make a statement concerning present policy on coal imports.
    Mr. M. Footasked the Minister of Power whether he will make a statement about the policy of his Department on the private import of coal.
    Mr. Gunterasked the Minister of Power if he will make a statement concerning the Government's present policy on coal imports.
    Mr. Finchasked the Minister of Power what consultations he has had with the President of the Board of Trade about the effect on collieries in the South Wales coalfield of the import of coal from the United States of America.
    Mr. Wyattasked the Minister of Power if he will make a statement about the Government's intentions on the import of coal.
    Mr. Wood: Because of the importance of the issues involved, I do not expect to make an early statement about the Government's policy on coal imports. This is being considered in consultation with the appropriate authorities. My right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade tells me that he intends to defer his decision on the application by the Steel Company of Wales until this examination has been completed.
    Mr. Nabarro: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that any refusal to allow steel manufacturing companies in Britain to import coal from sources which show an economy in price compared with the price of British coal would be inconsistent with the continuous exhortations of Her Majesty's Ministers to British manufacturers to increase their competitiveness abroad and to reduce their prices? Would he make it clear to Mr. Alfred Robens, Chairman of the National Coal Board, that the fault in this matter really lies with the unwieldy and out-of-date price structure of his Board?
    Mr. Wood: My hon. Friend, with his usual sagacity, has put his finger on two of the important issues I shall be considering.
    Mr. Gunter: I do not know about sagacity, but would the Minister, when
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    considering this matter and advising his friends on it, bear in mind that it would be very unfortunate if the slowly mounting confidence in the coal mining industry were to receive another blow—
    Mr. Nabarro: No, no.
    Mr. Gunter: Yes, yes—and if that confidence should again be diminished the Minister will have to bear in mind that the large number of vacancies that exist, particularly in the South Wales coalfields, will be very difficult to fill. Further, does not the Minister think that the National Coal Board should at least be given an opportunity of proving its faith in mechanisation and greater production before it receives this further blow?
    If I may turn for a moment to sagacity, may I ask the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro)— —
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member cannot ask questions of persons other than Ministers.
    Mr. Gunter: Then may I ask whether the Minister will take steps to initiate conversations between the Coal Board, himself and other interested parties to see if we can arrive at a satisfactory solution to this problem, which may be only temporary?
    Mr. Wood: That is precisely the course I have in mind; to hold this kind of consultation with the appropriate interests. As to issues, I think that the main issues are the whole question of the competitiveness of the steel industry abroad, and also the competitiveness of the coal industry at home.
    Mr. Eden: If my right hon. Friend and his right hon. Friends are unable to give a categorical statement at this stage about Her Majesty's Government's policy on coal imports, can we assume that this is an assertion that Her Majesty's Government are nothing like ready to announce some progress towards Britain joining the Common Market? Secondly, can my right hon. Friend say to what extent the American coal producers are subsidised by the American Government?
    Mr. Wood: I think that my hon. Friend ought to put his question about the Common Market to my right hon. Friend the Lord Privy Seal. As to subsidisation of the coal industry in the

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    United States, I understand that the chief difference between the pithead price of American coal and the pithead price of coal here is caused by the very different geological nature of the coal seams.
    Mr. Mason: Would the Minister say at this stage whether he has consulted the National Union of Mineworkers about this problem? Further, has his Department made an assessment of all the adverse factors involved in a deal like this, and does he think that it would be in the national interest for deals of this nature—importing American coal cheap into the Welsh coalfields—to be made?
    Mr. Wood: I have noticed certain views expressed by the National Union of Mineworkers on this question, and, certainly, if anybody has views to put forward, the Government would consider them in reaching a decision.
    Mr. Wyatt: If it is eventually decided that this one company may import coal from abroad, will the Minister make it clear that any other company may do the same; and that the National Coal Board may also import steel from outside countries not affected by the 10 per cent. tariff which protects steel now?
    Mr. Wood: There is another Question on the Order Paper about steel purchasing by the Coal Board, but I may say that there is nothing to prevent the Board, if it so chooses, from importing steel from abroad.
    Mr. J. Griffiths: Reverting to the Minister's reply to the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro), may I take it that the right hon. Gentleman agreed with the suggestion that the price structure of the Board should be reviewed? If so, does that include the realising by the Minister that the Coal Board's prices are fixed compared with imported prices? Is it not true that ever since the Board was established its prices have been subject to Ministerial approval?
    Mr. Wood: In answer to the latter part of the right hon. Gentleman's supplementary question, I said that I thought that one of the main issues here was the question of the competitiveness of the coal industry at home. That is an issue that I think we shall have to consider now, and I shall consider it with the Chairman of the Board. It is a most relevant issue.
    Mr. Griffiths: But would not the Minister agree that the Board's prices are not fixed without the Minister's approval?
    Mr. Wood: There has certainly always been consultation with the Minister, and before that arrangement was changed a great deal of discussion would have to take place.
    Mr. Shinwell: Before any decision is taken, will the Government ensure that coal exported from the United States is not being sold below the cost of production; otherwise, it would surely come within the ambit of our anti-dumping legislation?
    Mr. Wood: I am informed that that is not the case.
    Mr. Wainwrightasked the Minister of Power (1) what was the difference between the cost of the imported coal from the United States of America, and the price it was sold on the home market, for each of the years 1947 to 1956;
    (2) if he will state the amount of coal in tons per year which was imported into this country from the United States of America for the period 1947 to 1957.
    Mr. J. Griffithsasked the Minister of Power what was the total tonnage of coal imported from the United States of America during the period of coal shortage; what was the loss sustained by the National Coal Board in the sale of this imported coal in the home market; what proportion of this coal was sold to the steel industry; and what was the loss sustained on this by the National Coal Board.
    Mr. Wood: I will circulate in the OFFICIAL REPORT a table showing for each year from 1947 to 1957 the tonnage and cost of coal imported from the United States, the cost of imports from all sources and the loss per ton on imported coal. I am afraid I cannot state the loss on American coal alone or the quantities of this coal sold to the steel industry.
    Mr. Wainwright: I appreciate the difficulty that the Minister may have in giving information on the amount of loss resulting from the cost of the importation of American coal, but could he impress on the Steel Company of Wales

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    that as it received subsidised coal during a shortage of fuel energy, it is now being very audacious in asking for the importation of American coal because freight charges are rather low?
    Mr. Wood: I think that is also contained in the important issues that I shall be considering with the other topic we have discussed, and I should like to leave it at that.
    Mr. Griffiths: While we shall, of course, have to study the figures that the Minister is to supply, is it not true that the supply of coal for a period to other industries at less than the cost to the Coal Board means that the coal industry was subsidising other industries? Secondly, since the Minister is not able

    —

    Coal imports from U.S.A.

    Average c.i.f. cost per ton of coal imports

    Average loss per ton on imported coal

    from U.S.A.

    from all sources

    Thousand tons

    £

    £

    £

    1947

    …

    …

    599

    4·93

    4·88

    2·20

    1948

    …

    …

    9

    4·86

    5·08

    Not known

    1949

    …

    …

    —

    —

    3·59

    Not known

    1950

    …

    …

    4

    5·73

    5·37

    Not known

    1951

    …

    …

    1,185

    7·16

    7·19

    4·70

    1952

    …

    …

    230

    8·33

    8·60

    3·70

    1953

    …

    …

    —

    —

    6·28

    2·10

    1954

    …

    …

    478

    5·76

    5·72

    1·70

    1955

    …

    …

    5,301

    7·02

    6·51

    2·45

    1956

    …

    …

    3,120

    8·00

    7·91

    3·15

    1957

    …

    …

    2,014

    9·19

    8·95

    4·05

    Accidents, Northumberland and Cumberland
    Mr. Owenasked the Minister of Power if he has received the report of the Inspector of Mines and Quarries for Northumberland and Cumberland concerning the accident rate; and what action he proposes to take in the matter.
    Mr. George: My right hon. Friend has read this report. While noting the points raised, he does not think it calls for any special action on his part.
    Mr. Owen: Does not the Parliamentary Secretary recognise that the increase in the accident rate, both underground and on the surface, is causing considerable disquiet in this section of the mining industry? Will he not also agree that at present, with the intensive mechanisation of the industry which is now going on, there is a need for a reassessment of the
    to give us the specific figures about the amount lost by way of subsidy on coal, will he please ask the Iron and Steel Board to provide those figures so that the House may be fully aware of all the issues involved in considering the matter?
    Mr. Wood: I should like to make two things clear. Very little, if any, of this imported coal went to the steel industry, and I must point out, in order to keep the perspective right, that the losses which the Coal Board made at that time were, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman knows, more than balanced by the premium on the coal they exported from this country.
    Following is the table:
    safety measures that may be taken? In this connection, would the Parliamentary Secretary consider the introduction of a more intensive educational drive among both employers and employees regarding this problem?
    Mr. George: Neither the Ministry nor the National Coal Board is indifferent to any rise in the accident rate, but the rise shown in this case is not significant. In fact, the accident rate in this area is just about the national average. Accident rates fluctuate up and down in mining year by year, but in this case we do not consider that there is any real cause for concern. In reply to the hon. Gentleman's second point, a review is going on all the time into the needs of mechanisation with regard to safety. Exemptions are given for new appliances and the conduct of the industry under these exemptions is carefully watched and,

    905
    when full experience is achieved, new regulations are introduced. With regard to educational courses, these courses for safety are going on all the time. The National Association of Colliery Managers and the Institution of Mining Engineers and various other bodies are constantly discussing and publicising papers on the safety aspect of coal mining.

    Pneumoconiosis
    Mr. Ellis Smithasked the Minister of Power what reports he has received from his inspectors of recent action taken, or intended to be taken, in coal mines to improve the working conditions of those who suffer from pneumoconiosis and, in particular, those who suffer from other respiratory weaknesses which are worsened by different degrees of pneumoconiosis; if he is satisfied with the arrangements for medical examinations and assessments in North Staffordshire and within the city of Stoke-on-Trent; and if he will order his inspectors to make a special inquiry into these matters in that area, and to recommend what action should be taken to improve conditions.
    Mr. George: Adequate arrangements for providing suitable working conditions for miners suffering from pneumoconiosis already exist, and no change is contemplated. The arrangements under the Industrial Injuries Act for medical examination and assessment in North Staffordshire and in Stoke-on-Trent are the responsibility of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance, who considers they are adequate. My right hon. Friend sees no reason for ordering a special inquiry by his inspectors.
    Mr. Ellis Smith: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that when the legislation was being put through this House an undertaking was given to hon. Members that where there was a doubt in the matter of industrial diseases the man would be given the benefit of the doubt? Would the Parliamentary Secretary consider this large number of letters I have received proving that this is not being done? Is he aware that the Ministry of National Insurance is now considering, together with the Trades Union Congress, the whole question of assessments and diag-
    906
    noses, and will he instruct the Coal Board officers in this area to give evidence to the Minister of National Insurance?
    Mr. George: As I said in my reply, the matters which the hon. Gentleman raises are matters for my right hon. Friend the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance, and any assistance he desires from that Ministry will, I am sure, be readily given.

    National Coal Board (Steel Purchases)
    Mr. Fitchasked the Minister of Power how much steel, in money terms, was bought by the National Coal Board in 1960.
    Mr. Wood: £35 million worth.
    Mr. Fitch: The figure the Minister has given represents money spent in the United Kingdom, since the Coal Board imported no steel during 1960. Will the Minister bring that fact to the attention of the President of the Board of Trade?
    Mr. Wood: I am sure my right hon. Friend, the President of the Board of Trade, is already aware of that. The Coal Board, as the hon. Gentleman knows, is free to buy steel from the market which it considers the best, and it happens that in 1960 it chose to buy at home.

    Miners
    Mr. Fitchasked the Minister of Power what general direction he has given to the National Coal Board about the shortage of miners.
    Mr. George: None, Sir. My right hon. Friend has frequent consultations with the Chairman on this subject, as well as on the Board's plans for increasing productivity to combat the shortage.
    Mr. Finch: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware of the shortage of mine workers in Lancashire, and will he give an assurance that no pits will be closed because of this shortage?
    Mr. George: We are well aware that a shortage exists in various districts. We have no reason to think that the shortage of miners will cause any closures in any district.
    Mr. J. Griffiths: Does that reply mean that the Ministry is not concerned about the shortage of miners? Might I direct

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    the Parliamentary Secretary's attention to one area I have in mind in South Wales where there is a shortage?
    Mr. George: I gave no such impression. It is impossible to deny that some anxiety exists about the rate at which men are leaving the industry, but the urgent task facing the Board is to offset the effects of lower manpower by higher productivity. The Chairman of the Coal Board has initiated what he has described as the greatest mechanisation drive in the history of the industry, and its success is vital to the industry.

    Mines (Improvements)
    Mr. Ellis Smithasked the Minister of Power if, in view of improved results following his modernisation and mechanisation policy for the coal industry, including the level of productivity and output per man shift, he will give a general direction to the National Coal Board to increase their expenditure on matters affecting the conditions of work of miners, especially cleaning and brightening coalmines, improving welfare arrangements, stopping the emission of fumes from coal tips, and improving the appearance of coal-tips by covering them with grass and shrubs.
    Mr. George: No, Sir. The Board is aware of the importance of these matters and substantial improvement have already been made. It is for the Board to decide how much shall be spent on them.
    Mr. Ellis Smith: In view of the remarkable results that have been obtained nationally, and in this area particularly, in regard to output and productivity, has not the time arrived when the Minister should give the Coal Board directions that it should introduce some reciprocity in regard to improving the locality in which miners and their relatives live?
    Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that a dark black shadow has been cast over Fenton and Longton, which should have been removed long ago, and will the Parliamentary Secretary give an undertaking that the suggestions made in this Question will receive the consideration of the Ministry and of the Coal Board?
    Mr. George: I am unable to discuss a specific local question such as the one raised by the hon. Gentleman, but I think
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    all hon. Members will agree that the National Coal Board has nothing to be ashamed of in its record in caring for the social welfare of its employees as far as financial resources allow—and I urge the hon. Gentleman to look at the industry as a whole. Far from having extra money to spend, the Coal Board will show a substantial deficit for last year. The Coal Board is always looking after the social interests of its workers.

  MINISTRY OF AVIATION

    Satellite Launchers
    Mr. Masonasked the Minister of Aviation if he will state in greater detail the proposals which have been made to the French Government jointly to develop satellite launchers, including the use of the Blue Streak rocket.
    The Minister of Aviation (Mr. Peter Thorneycroft): The proposals, which are joint Anglo-French proposals, have been made by these two countries to the other countries in Western Europe. They are set out in detail in HANSARD of 6th February last.
    Mr. Mason: Can the Minister say to what extent this programme might be jeopardised by the recent American suggestion to Europe that they could have rockets at cut prices? Is the Minister aware of the urgency of more positive thinking in this rocket field because of the danger of losing our valuable and trained scientists and technologists?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: I do not anticipate any such danger arising out of the American offer, which is in a different field. We are contemplating an offer of manufacturing jointly rockets which can be used for commercial as well as for scientific purposes and of manufacturing them inside Europe. This is quite different from the American offer.
    Mr. Chetwynd: Will the right hon. Gentleman make it clear to the German Government that we are not prepared to go on waiting for ever for their decision, and that unless we get a satisfactory answer soon we shall be prepared to go ahead with the French ourselves?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: I believe there is another Question on this subject.
    Mr. Donnelly: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that Blue Streak is more or less sitting there waiting for somebody to put a match to it, and could he show me how I could put a match to the Government?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: We put a match to it last week when it had its third static firing.
    Mr. Peartasked the Minister of Aviation if it is the Government's intention to accept the United States Government's offer of launchers for space research.
    Mr. Thorneycroft: We have already accepted a United States offer to make launchers available to put satellites into orbit containing experiments and instrumentation designed by us. We hope to continue to use United States launchers as well as European launchers in the future.
    Mr. Peart: In spite of the Minister's statement about American collaboration, is it not a fact that Dean Rusk's offer is something different? Will the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that it will not interfere with the Commonwealth co-operative effort with Europe on, say, Blue Streak, despite what he said earlier?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: I do not think that Mr. Rusk's offer is different. A year ago there were few friends for the Blue Streak project. Almost every notice that we had was critical. Today we have many friends and a good chance of European co-operation, and I am bound to say it is rather refreshing to be pressed to go it alone. I think this is progress.
    Mr. Peart: What people are worried about in connection with the Government's policy is whether the Government are prepared to make a decision. There has been so much complacency and dithering that we are rather worried. We are anxious to strengthen the Minister to do something.
    Mr. Thorneycroft: I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for the keen support that he is showing for this project which I regard as technologically most important.
    Mr. Wyatt: Will the Minister remember that in the Blue Streak debate I
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    deplored even the military abandonment of the programme? As I am now urging the Government to go it alone even if the French and Germans will not co-operate, will he remember, when the Government do it, that I advocated it, as he has come round to my view on the first point?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: I will put the hon. Gentleman into a very special position of his own. He will be the first man we put up.

    Woomera Range
    Mr. Masonasked the Minister of Aviation to what extent full co-operation is assured from the Australian Government to launch rockets from Woomera based on an agreement between the United Kingdom and French Governments.
    Mr. Thorneycroft: Full co-operation is assured.
    Mr. Mason: As this is a European project operating from a Commonwealth base, could the right hon. Gentleman say to what extent we own and control Woomera range and whether we are free to go ahead with any space programme from Woomera range without any interference from the Australian Government?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: Woomera range is used for a much wider range of operations than that of launching the satellite venture. I have always felt that the closest co-operation with the Australians is necessary, and before any approach was made to Europe at all I made a point of going along and having a discussion with the Australians on this matter.

    Blue Steel
    Mr. Chetwyndasked the Minister of Aviation what progress is being made with the development and production of the Blue Steel missile.
    Mr. Thorneycroft: I have nothing to add to the reply given to the hon. Member for Rochester and Chatham (Mr. Critchley) on 10th May.
    Mr. Chetwynd: Can the Minister say whether the production plans for this missile are up to time and whether the cost of the missile is now skyrocketing? Can he also say whether production is being held up by the

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    American intervention in N.A.T.O. which is depriving us of a market for these missiles?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: I do not know of anything that is preventing a market for these missiles. On projects of this kind which are very important from the military point of view, I do not think it is helpful to make periodic statements on exactly how they are going. Such statements can only be helpful to a potential enemy and can be of no assistance to anybody else. Therefore, beyond saying that production is proceeding normally, I would not propose to answer further.
    Mr. Chetwynd: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the original plans were based upon finding an extra market for these weapons in N.A.T.O. and that this is now being frustrated, and is this not bound to have a serious effect upon home production?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: Almost everything is based upon the hope of finding a future market somewhere. But this is a very important weapon. It is not just a commercial proposition; it is a military proposition.

    Blue Streak
    Mr. Wyattasked the Minister of Aviation if he will make a statement on the future of Blue Streak.
    Mr. Thorneycroft: The technical development of Blue Streak as the first stage of a statellite launcher has been proceeding satisfactorily. Other countries in Europe have been studying the Anglo-French proposals for a combined effort in this field, and in particular the Federal German Government have been conducting a detailed technical evaluation of them. We hope to receive their conclusions shortly.
    Mr. Wyatt: Does the Minister realise that no worth-while technical advance has been made with Blue Streak for over a year and that the teams concerned are being dissipated and demoralised? Does the right hon. Gentleman remember that he once resigned from the Government because they were trying to spend too much money? Will he now promise to resign if they do not
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    spend enough money to launch an independent space programme?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: The hon. Gentleman's first two assertions are based on the wrong information. It is not true to say that we have made no technical progress. We have done very well up at Spadeadam and we are making excellent technical progress. There is no question of anybody feeling upset or dispirited there. If the hon. Gentleman would like to go up there at any time I would be very happy to make arrangements for him to do so.
    Mr. Chetwynd: May I put again the supplementary question that I asked on an earlier Question, namely, whether the Minister will let the German Government know that we are not prepared to wait for ever for them and that if they are not prepared to come in with us soon we shall go ahead with the French ourselves?
    Mr. Thorneycroft: I do not think there is any need to let the German Government know that. I am sure they intend to report to us shortly on their technical evaluation.

    Abbotsinch Airport
    Mr. Rankinasked the Minister of Aviation if he will state approximately the sum he intends spending on the development and facilities of Abbotsinch Airport.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Aviation (Mr. Geoffrey Rippon): It is expected that the initial expenditure will be about £1¾ million.
    Mr. Rankin: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that that is very much below the sum I anticipated, which was nearer £3 million? Can he assure me that within that sum he will be able to provide sufficient for dealing with any strengthening of the runways which may be found to be necessary; and secondly, will he also be able to provide terminal facilities which are of a character in design, with space and comfort, worthy of the increasing traffic at Renfrew Airport and also worthy of the twentieth century?
    Mr. Rippon: We are very economic and we shall be able to provide all the facilities which are necessary.

  MINISTRY OF HEALTH

    Death Certificates
    Mr. W. Clarkasked the Minister of Health whether he will introduce legislation to make it compulsory for doctors to see the body of a patient after death, before issuing a death certificate.
    The Minister of Health (Mr. Enoch Powell): I am not satisfied that sufficient grounds for legislation exist, but shall be glad to consider with my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary any information bearing on this matter which my hon. Friend may wish to bring forward.
    Mr. Clark: While thanking my right hon. Friend for that reply, may I ask whether he is aware that at least one body out of four which is buried in this country is not inspected by a medical practitioner? Is this not an unfair burden, particularly in view of our ageing population, to place on the survivor of two elderly persons the responsibility for informing a medical practitioner that death has occurred? Surely this anomaly in the law should be eradicated. There should be no hardship on medical practitioners throughout the country inspecting bodies before a death certificate is issued.
    Mr. Powell: In the great majority of the 25 per cent. of cases which my hon. Friend mentioned, death takes place in a hospital. A change in legislation here would be a substantial addition to the duties imposed on doctors, and my right hon. Friend and I am not satisfied on the present information available that this would be justified.

    Poliomyelitis
    Mr. Hollandasked the Minister of Health what percentage of the population of the United Kingdom has now been inoculated against poliomyelitis since the introduction of the vaccine.
    Mr. Powell: About a third.
    Mr. Holland: Is it not regrettable that such a large number of mature adults should willingly run the risk of contracting paralytic poliomyelitis when preventive medicine is available at no cost and at very little personal inconvenience? Is my right hon. Friend satisfied that the publicity on the effectiveness of this vaccine is wholly adequate?
    Mr. Powell: Of course, it is the priority classes for whom immunisation is particularly important, and there the proportions are much better. For example, of those up to 18 years of age nearly 80 per cent. have obtained immunity. I would certainly not overlook any opportunity of stressing the importance to those at risk of obtaining immunity if they have not already got it.
    Mr. Dugdale: Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that the overwhelming majority of those persons who contract poliomyelitis are those who have not been inoculated?
    Mr. Powell: Yes, Sir.
    Mr. K. Robinson: Can the right hon. Gentleman say what proportion of the total population is at present eligible for immunisation?
    Mr. Powell: Not without notice.
    Mr. Edelmanasked the Minister of Health what information he has received from the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics concerning the value of oral vaccine against poliomyelitis.
    Mr. Powell: I understand that oral vaccine has only been used experimentally in the United States of America but has been widely used in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. All information available about experience in these countries was taken into consideration by the Joint Committee on Poliomyelitis Vaccine in its recent advice to me.
    Mr. Edelman: Is it not a fact that the Sabin vaccine used in the United States has been administered in hundreds of thousands of cases and has given complete immunity, and that in the Soviet Union a Sabin-type vaccine has been used in millions of cases and has given complete immunity? Will he not make a special study of this vaccine, for which it is claimed at any rate that a single oral dose will give complete immunity?
    Mr. Powell: The Joint Committee to which I referred has this in mind, of course, and is studying it. It will, no doubt, advise me further, but its present advice to me, by which I must be guided, is that the vaccination programme should continue to be based on the killed vaccine.
    Mr. Edelmanasked the Minister of Health what loss would accrue to his Department if oral vaccine against poliomyelitis were used in substitution for the existing methods of vaccination.
    Mr. Powell: My present advice is that oral vaccine is not a substitute for the existing methods.
    Mr. Edelman: Will the right hon. Gentleman define more closely what he meant by "immunisation" in reply to a Question from the hon. Member for Acton (Mr. Holland)? Is it not a fact that it is now considered that four inoculations have to be given before immunisation is complete? In the circumstances, will not he give very urgent attention to the question of substituting the oral vaccine which, it is claimed at any rate, gives complete protection after a single dose? Further will he give an absolute assurance that commercial considerations of any kind will not be permitted to stand in the way of the introduction of the oral vaccine if it can be established that the oral vaccine gives speedier and better protection?
    Mr. Powell: The answer to the last part of the hon. Gentleman's question is an unqualified "Yes". He referred to "immunisation" as I had used the word in a former reply. His right hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich (Mr. Dugdale) pointed out that the vast majority of cases of polio occur where there has not been vacination by the existing methods. My present advice, by which I must be guided, is that those existing methods are the best available for securing the highest possible personal immunity.

    Prescription Charges
    Dr. Kingasked the Minister of Health what reply he has sent to the resolution on prescription charges unanimously adopted by the Health Executive Council for Southampton on 21st March, 1961, which has been sent to him.
    Mr. Powell: I am sending the hon. Member a copy.
    Dr. King: Is the Minister aware that this executive council, which comprises voluntary and professional workers of all political parties experienced in and devoted to the Health Service, has expressed its alarm at the damage which
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    might be done to the Health Service by the new prescription charges? Is he aware that the bulk of the voluntary and professional workers in the great Health Service which he leads will welcome the day when he sees the light and brings the Health Service back into the state in which it was?
    Mr. Powell: I am to see a deputation from the Executive Councils' Association later this week. I shall, of course, direct my mind to anything that it has to say to me.
    Mr. K. Robinson: How many communications has the Minister had from executive councils in Great Britain protesting against these prescription charges?
    Mr. Powell: I cannot say without notice, but I have no doubt that what the Executive Councils' Association has to say to me later this week will be broadly in line with those communications.
    Mr. Milneasked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that, since the increase in prescription charges, an increasing number of people are unable to afford prescribed items from chemists immediately; and what information he has received from chemists dispensing under the National Health Service as to the extent of this delay between presentation of prescriptions and the collection of medicines.
    Mr. Powell: I have had no evidence or information of this kind.
    Mr. Milne: Is the Minister aware that in certain areas this is causing grave concern and also is causing a great deal of trouble to chemists? If I send him the necessary information, will he take due note of it?
    Mr. Powell: Yes. It is only on the basis of concrete cases that any appreciation can be gained.

    Coronary Heart Disease
    Sir B. Jannerasked the Minister of Health if he will give information about the tests with cod liver oil being officially made for the relief of coronary heart disease.
    Mr. Powell: There are no such tests being made under the National Health Service.
    Sir B. Janner: Why not? Is the Minister aware that cod liver oil is our richest indigenous source of unsaturated oils, that it is a valuable by-product of the British fishing industry, and that the American Heart Council has stated quite categorically that it is effective in this type of disease? In the circumstances, should not tests be undertaken?
    Mr. Powell: It is not for me or for my Department to indicate what medical investigations should take place.
    Sir B. Janner: Is not the Minister making a quite unreliable statement? Is it not his duty to see to it that the best provision is made to deal with various diseases? Why on earth does he not take note of the very many indications given that tests of this kind should be undertaken at once?
    Mr. Powell: It is my responsibility to secure that there is provision for whatever treatment the medical profession thinks right and wise, but it is not my responsibility to indicate the most promising lines of medical research.
    Sir G. Nicholson: Is there not a gap in medical provision in this country if there is no central body which can be authorised and instructed to investigate certain lines of treatment and recommend them to the medical profession?
    Mr. Powell: "Authorised" and "instructed" are two different things. As to "authorised", the answer is "Yes". As to "instructed" by a member of the Government, the answer is "No".
    Sir G. Nicholson: Why not?
    Sir B. Janner: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the wholly unsatisfactory reply which the Minister has given, I beg to give notice that I shall raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest opportunity.

    Mental Nursing Homes (Inspection)
    Mr. K. Robinsonasked the Minister of Health what instructions he has issued to local health authorities regarding the inspection of mental nursing homes in accordance with S.I. 1960, No. 1272; and whether he will require local authorities to employ suitably qualified persons to report upon the treatment provided for patients in such nursing homes.
    Mr. Powell: I expect registration authorities to ensure that the persons inspecting are suitably qualified. This and other points are dealt with in Circular 18/60, of which I am sending the hon. Member a copy.
    Mr. Robinson: Does not the Minister agree that private nursing homes are unique in having a direct financial interest in retaining patients as long as possible? Does not this factor make it all the more necessary for inspection to be thorough and searching, and will the Minister agree that this can hardly be done unless a trained psychiatrist is employed by the local health authority when carrying out inspections? Further, is it not a fact that many of these homes give patients little or no treatment, and ought not this to be looked into?
    Mr. Powell: Undoubtedly, inspection is a very important safeguard here. That is why it has to take place every six months. As I said, inspection cannot serve its purpose unless it is carried out by suitably qualified persons, and I have emphasised this to the authorities concerned.

    Drugs (Purchase)
    Mr. John Hallasked the Minister of Health what the saving would be if, based on the total usage for the last 12 months, supplies of chlorothiazide, tetracycline and chloramphenicol at £5, £37 5s. and £27 per 1,000 tablets, respectively, were bought from continental instead of British manufacturers.
    Mr. Powell: About £350,000 on the estimated usage in the hospital service.
    Mr. Hall: Is my right hon. Friend aware of any reason for this considerable difference in the prices charged by continental and British manufacturers? Does he think that it would act as an incentive to British manufacturers to reduce their prices if we purchased more from the Continent?
    Mr. Powell: My hon. Friend's Question asks what the saving would be, on certain assumptions. The purchase of these articles from abroad involves several issues, including that of royalty payments.
    Mr. K. Robinson: Can the Minister say when supplies officers may expect clear instructions from his Department about the purchase of drugs from the Continent?
    Mr. Powell: I am considering what guidance I can give to authorities on this.

    Doctors and Dentists
    Mr. Liptonasked the Minister of Health whether he will publish the names of doctors and dentists who are fined by local health executive councils.
    Mr. Powell: No, Sir.
    Mr. Lipton: Even if this is about the only official secret which the Government are able to keep, is it not nevertheless a public scandal that doctors and dentists who are paid out of public funds and who let the public down, should be covered by this conspiracy of silence? Is he not aware that public opinion is very strongly in favour of these guilty persons being named?
    Mr. Powell: Where it is held by the National Health Service tribunal that, in the public interest, a practitioner should not continue to practise under the Health Service, then the name is published. But in the cases where the name is withheld, which the hon. Gentleman has in mind, what has happened is that there has been established a breach of contract between the practitioner concerned and the executive council. In a case of that kind it is not the practice that names should be disclosed. Any remedy, either civil or criminal, against the practitioner is unaffected.
    Mr. K. Robinson: Does not the Minister appreciate that to the public at large it is rather mysterious why a doctor's moral lapses should nearly always obtain the widest publicity whereas professional shortcomings, which may well affect the life or health of a doctor's, or dentist's patients, are shrouded in anonimity? Does not he think that the situation might be looked at again?
    Mr. Powell: When matters are brought to light in the course of these disciplinary cases which should be investigated by the General Medical Council or the
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    General Dental Council, they are brought to the attention of these bodies, which are the appropriate ones for that purpose.
    Mr. Denis Howell: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is considerable concern about this matter, particularly among the public who want to have the option of going to reputable dentists? Does not he agree that the vast majority of reputable dentists, particularly in Birmingham where we have had a very bad case recently, very much resent the fact that suspicion is put on everybody? How can the public be protected? Where do they come in in the Minister's estimation?
    Mr. Powell: If the professions concerned wish to represent to me that names should be published, I will take account of their point of view.
    Mr. W. Hamilton: Would the right hon. Gentleman consider the desirability of publishing the names of people who commit a second offence and of making it clear that they are in breach of contract so that, although it is not a criminal offence, the public will be in a position to judge the worth of their work?
    Mr. Powell: That is met by my earlier answers, in which I pointed out that, when it is undesirable that a person should continue to provide services in the National Health Service, the name of the practitioner concerned is published and he is taken off the list. Secondly, where it appears prima facie that there are matters which ought to be brought to the attention of the General Medical Council or the General Dental Council they are brought to their attention.
    Mr. G. Brown: The right hon. Gentleman said that if the professions represent to him that the policy should be changed he would take account of that representation. Does not he consider that the public, the patients, have an interest in this matter? My hon. Friends are representing the public interest. Will he take that into account?
    Mr. Powell: The hon. Member for Birmingham, Small Heath (Mr. Denis Howell) said that the profession in Birmingham——
    Mr. Brown: My hon. Friend was referring to the public.
    Mr. Powell: I was answering that part of his question. I have been dealing with the concern of the public in all the answers which I have given. The hon. Gentleman drew attention to what he said was the point of view of the profession. I replied that if the profession believed that the names ought to be published, naturally I would pay attention to that view.
    Mr. Lipton: On a point of order. In view of the completely unsatisfactory nature of the Minister's reply, I hope to raise the matter on the Adjournment as soon as possible.

    Motor Tricycles
    Mr. Chetwyndasked the Minister of Health whether it is possible to convert single-seater all-weather propelled tricycles, other than petrol-powered tricycles, to enable an additional person to be carried.
    Mr. Powell: No.
    Mr. Chetwynd: As it is quite impossible to convert these invalid carriages, will the right hon. Gentleman undertake to give disabled people who are not war-disabled the same kind of car which is given to war-disabled people to enable them to have company when they go out on journeys on their vehicles?
    Mr. Powell: That is a very different matter and one which was fully debated on 30th June last. I have nothing to add to what my predecessor then said.
    Mr. Mellish: The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that the trade union movement has requested this and that he has been asked to receive a deputation. I hope that his mind is not made up on this matter and that he will receive the deputation with an open mind and will listen to a very sound argument.
    Mr. Powell

  HOSPITALS

    New Hospital, Wexham
    Mr. Brockwayasked the Minister of Health if he has now authorised the construction of the new hospital at Wexham, Buckinghamshire; and when work is proposed to start on the building.
    Mr. Powell: Yes, Sir, as soon as a contractor is selected.
    Mr. Brockway: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when that is likely to be? Is he aware of the needs of the expanding population in the neighbourhood of Slough, on the Langley London County Council estate, the Britwell London County Council estate and the Wexham estate, which make the need for this hospital urgent?
    Mr. Powell: Yes, I am aware of those matters, and that is why I have authorised the hospital authority to go to tender. I dare say that a start will be made as soon as tenders are in and a contractor has been selected.

    Three Counties Mental Hospital, Arlesey
    Mr. Hastingsasked the Minister of Health when the London Chest Hospital, Country Branch, Arlesey, will be vacating accommodation it at present occupies at the Three Counties Mental Hospital, Arlesey.
    Mr. Powell: I am consulting the board of governors and will communicate with my hon. Friend.
    Mr. Hastings: In his investigation, will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that, although the work of the London Chest Hospital is much appreciated locally, the Three Counties Hospital is badly understaffed at the moment; both men and women recruits to the staff have had to be turned away solely because of lack of accommodation?
    Mr. Powell: Yes, Sir, but the future development of the London Chest Hospital is a factor which, in part at any rate, determines the rate at which the site in question can be relinquished.

    Hammersmith Hospital (Appointment)
    Mrs. Butlerasked the Minister of Health what decision he has made with regard to an inquiry into the appointment of a new secretary to the Board of Governors of the Hammersmith Post-Graduate Teaching Hospital Group.
    Mr. Powell: I cannot yet add to the reply I gave the hon. Member on 1st May.
    Mrs. Butler: That was a fortnight ago, and the Minister said he would look into the matter as soon as possible. In view of the widespread concern both inside and outside the hospital service about this appointment, and his own duty in the matter, will the Minister deal with it more expeditiously and come to a decision very soon?
    Mr. Powell: I recognise the urgency of a decision.

    Drugs (Purchases)
    Mr. Frank Allaunasked the Minister of Health what is the approximate purchase price to hospitals of such average prescriptions to outpatients as 25 tablets aspirin 5 grain, 2 ounces liquid extract of malt, and 25 ascorbic acid 50 mg.
    Mr. Powell: The approximate cost of the ingredients is 1¼d., 5d. and 1½d.
    Mr. Allaun: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that it is utterly unfair that hospitals are expected to charge poor people 2s. for these typical prescriptions of which he has just given the price? In view of this, will he reconsider his prescription charges?
    Mr. Powell: The figures which I gave in reply to the hon. Member's Question represent the costs of the ingredients. They are not the cost of dispensing prescriptions in these amounts, which, I am advised, would have been substantially over 2s. in each case.

    St Andrew's Hospital, Billericay (Discharged Patient)
    Mr. Dribergasked the Minister of Health if he will inquire into the case of Mrs. H. Salmons, Shaw Avenue, Barking, Essex, who was seriously injured in the Pitsea railway accident on 18th April, 1961, in which her husband was killed, and who was discharged from St. Andrew's Hospital, Billericay, 11 days later, still suffering considerable pain, with an intimation that, unless her relatives could arrange for her transport, she might have to travel home by train, as it was too far for an ambulance to go; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Powell: I have had a report from the hospital management committee. I am told that, with Mrs. Salmons agreement, arrangements were made for her
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    to go home in her son-in-law's car and she was considered fit to do so. There was no question of a train journey being the only alternative, and I am sorry that the misapprehension could arise.
    Mr. Driberg: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware how this misapprehension arose? Is he aware that a spokesman of the hospital has given an interview about this in the local Press—in itself a rather unusual procedure when a Question in this House is pending—in which it was admitted that a relative of this lady was told that it would be better to have a car for her, since an ambulance might not be able to take her all the way home, and that otherwise she might be sent by train—still suffering from serious injuries sustained in a train crash, ten days before, in which her husband was killed?
    Mr. Powell: I have written to the hon. Member today in detail. He was good enough to give me details of this case, and I inquired into it. I am satisfied that there was no question of a train journey being the alternative to her being taken home by private car.
    Mr. Driberg: Would an ambulance in fact have been able to take her all the way from Billericay to Barking, which is not very far? If so, why was it ever suggested, even faintly, that she might have to go by train?
    Mr. Powell: Not in all cases is ambulance the method by which patients on discharge return home. It appears to be the case, as the hon. Member says, that a train journey was mentioned among other alternatives on an occasion when this was discussed. There was no question that it was with that as the only alternative that she went home in a private car.
    Mr. K. Robinson: For the sake of the record, will the Minister make it clear that ambulances can, and frequently do, travel distances considerably in excess of this in the London area?
    Mr. Powell: Yes, of course.

    Calderstones Hospital (Discharged Patients)
    Mr. Frank Allaunasked the Minister of Health how many of the 551 patients discharged from compulsory powers at Calderstones Hospital

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    during the six months to 1st May, 1961, have asked to be released; and how many have now left.
    Mr. Powell: Patients not subject to detention do not have to ask for their discharge; 53 were already on leave of absence; 11 others have left.
    Mr. Allaun: Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that 551 is an extremely high number and that the numbers he has given form a very small proportion of the total? Is he aware of the feeling in Lancashire that many people have been wrongly detained in Calderstones Hospital in the past and that special measures should be taken to discharge them?
    Mr. Powell: These patients or their relatives can secure their discharge from hospital without formality, but, as the hon. Member realises, in fact they are in need of the treatment and care which they receive at the hospital. No doubt that is the reason why the great majority of the informal patients remain there.
    With regard to the high number 551, as I said to the hon. Member last week, this reflects the change both in the law and in outlook which was enshrined in the Mental Health Act, 1959.

H.M.S. "LEOPARD" (VISIT TO ANGOLA)
Mr. Paget(by Private Notice) asked the Civil Lord of the Admiralty whether he will make a statement about the good will visit of H.M.S. "Leopard" to Angola.
The Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. C. Ian Orr-Ewing): H.M.S. "Leopard" was one of three of Her Majesty's ships which visited Freetown during the Sierra Leone independence celebrations. Since then her sister ship, the "Lynx", has been visiting the newly independent former French Colonial Territories, and H.M.S. "Leopard", while returning to Simonstown, has visited Ghana and Nigeria and arrived this morning at Luanda.
As my noble Friend showed in his Explanatory Statement which accompanied the Navy Estimates for 1961, visits by the Royal Navy are not confined to countries whose policies are
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identical with our own: for example, the map annexed to the Statement showed that Dubrovnik and Leningrad were visited last year.
I welcome the opportunity to emphasise that this visit, which was planned last February, is not connected with colonial policy. To cancel it at this time would have been an insult to a friendly nation and a N.A.T.O. ally.
Mr. Paget: Does the hon. Member realise that we are quite well aware that this visit is not concerned with colonial policy? It seems to run straight across it. Does the Admiralty live in a self-sealing container, insulated from the rest of Government policy? Is the hon. Member aware, for instance, that at the United Nations a resolution was passed by an overwhelming majority condemning the Portuguese behaviour in Angola and that we explained our abstention on the ground that, while we agreed with the resolution, we did not agree with, the right to pass it?
Has the hon. Member consulted his right hon. and hon. Friends at the Colonial Office or the Commonwealth Relations Office? Has it occurred to him that while this may appear to be a good will visit to the Portuguese Government, it appears to be an exceedingly ill-willed visit to every African in Africa? Will not he give instructions to H.M.S. "Leopard" should immediately up-anchor and proceed to some other urgent duty which has been discovered for her?
Mr. Orr-Ewing: Perhaps I may try to deal with some of those seven supplementary questions. The visit was cleared with the Foreign Office beforehand. It is not generally appreciated that the term "good will" is used by the Admiralty to cover all overseas visits. I make that point because over 800 separate overseas visits of this type have been paid by the Royal Navy in the present calendar year. It has never been the Government's policy to cancel arrangements for such visits as an automatic reaction to local political difficulties.
Commander Kerans: Does not my hon. Friend agree that the value of these visits is not only showing the flag, but also helping our trade? Portugal is our oldest ally. Surely we have a right to make these visits.
Mr. Shinwell: When this visit was cleared with the Foreign Office, was the Foreign Office aware that a revolution was in progress there, or was it completely in the dark? The hon. Member refers to a visit to Leningrad. Was this made on the assumption that the revolution of 1917 was still in progress?
Mr. Orr-Ewing: I made the point—not in connection with the Leningrad visit—that we have a planned series of visits in very large numbers. We keep in touch with the Foreign Office and obtain its views, as we did in this case. Last year, we visited Korea during the spring riots and also visited Japan. We do not take account of the changing political situation, although on this visit we consulted the Foreign Office at every stage.
Mr. G. R. Howard: Can my hon. Friend say whether the ships of any other nations have visited this country since the emergency? Secondly, is it the job of the House of Commons to tell the Navy where its ships may go on social visits? Thirdly, would it not be a good thing to weigh one's words carefully and not to use them with the levity with which they are used by hon. Members opposite?
Mr. Orr-Ewing: I believe that United States warships have paid a visit to this port quite recently. I have been urged by the Opposition that none of Her Majesty's warships should visit South Africa either. I think that it would be a very sad day for the Royal Navy if we were to decide never to visit any of those ports on the West Coast of Africa or South Africa. On the whole, the Royal Navy is a welcome visitor and is deeply respected wherever it goes.
Mr. Dugdale: When did another warship last visit Angola or Luanda? Is the hon. Member not aware that it is repugnant to a very large number of people that this visit should take place during the revolution? It is not just that it is taking place to a country with whom we may not always agree; it is that the visit is being made during a revolution in which, from such information as we can get, which is singularly little, it appears that the Portuguese Government are shooting down men, women and children.
Mr. Orr-Ewing: That is a matter which probably comes within Foreign Office purview. That is why we consulted the Foreign Office at all stages about this visit.
Mr. Emrys Hughes: Is it possible for the Government to make H.M.S. "Leopard" change her spots and to send her on a good will visit to Havana?
Mr. Orr-Ewing: The "Leopard" could change her spots, but the hon. Member never will.
Mr. Brockway: The hon. Member says that this is a normal visit. Is he not aware that there is a very abnormal situation in Angola? Weighing one's words, does not the evidence suggest that in the last few weeks, in Angola, the Portuguese have killed more African people than at any other time during this century?
Mr. Orr-Ewing: I am aware of the serious position in Angola. That is why we considered this matter. The Opposition should bear in mind whether the cancellation of the visit would have done more harm than the continuation of the visit.
Mr. Paget: Will not the hon. Member reconsider the position at this point? Is he not aware that about 20,000 people have been killed in Angola and that it appears to Africans that this visit—even if 800 visits are made—is of the nature of intervention on our part at this stage? Is he not aware that this is the deepest embarrassment to the new African Governments, particularly in Kenya, which we are trying to get going? Will not he consult his right hon. and hon. Friends in the Colonial Office as to whether this ship ought to be immediately withdrawn?
Mr. Orr-Ewing: I hope that the hon. and learned Member weighs his words carefully. I do not honestly believe that there is any evidence that 20,000 people have been killed in Angola. This is not a matter which should be thrust across the Table unless there is firm evidence, and I certainly do not know of it. I agree that this is a matter more directly for the Foreign Office.
On the second matter, we have gone there after very careful consultation. The ship is there now. She arrived at

929
0.800 hours this morning British Summer Time. It is a visit of two or three days—quite a short visit—and I do not think that there is any point in our letting down an old N.A.T.O. ally by withdrawing her at this stage.
Mr. G. Brown: Whether 20,000 have been killed or not, was it not clear to the Admiralty, at the moment that the ship was moving in, that there was a civil war going on there? Whatever clearance it had from the Foreign Office before, did the Admiralty then consider whether it should have changed its mind, since appearing there at that moment is clear intervention? At what stage does the Admiralty consider the situation at the moment that it is moving in?
Mr. Orr-Ewing: That is precisely why we keep in touch with the Foreign Office until the last moment. This was a matter which had to be considered and the Royal Navy, as other Services, must always be in touch with the Foreign Office and the appropriate Departments. Having done that, we were assured that it was right to continue and that is why we went in.
Mr. Paget: On a point of order. I beg to ask leave to move the Adjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9 to consider a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely,
"the refusal of Her Majesty's Government to issue orders to H.M.S. 'Leopard' to leave Angola forthwith."
Mr. Speaker: The hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) asks leave to move the Arjournment of the House under Standing Order No. 9 to consider a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely,
"the refusal of Her Majesty's Government to issue orders to H.M.S. 'Leopard' to leave Angola forthwith."
I do not believe that I could say that was within the Standing Orders, having regard to existing opportunities this week, and, accordingly, I do not feel able to accept the hon. and learned Member's application.
Mr. Paget: Further to that point of order. When you say that there are opportunities this week, Mr. Speaker, I presume that you are referring to the foreign affairs debate, but the Civil Lord
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of the Admiralty stated that the ship was on only a three-day visit. The ship will probably have left by then. The importance in this, as we see it, is that this gesture, which would appear to so many people in Africa as Her Majesty's Government taking sides in the dreadful events in Angola, must be cancelled and it would then be too late to cancel it. The visit would have come to an end in the natural course of events.
Mr. Speaker: I appreciate what the hon. and learned Member puts to me. I would ask him and the House to believe that all these considerations were in my mind when I ruled. Nevertheless, I desire to adhere to my decision, because I believe it to be right, and I hope that the House, on reflection, will take that from me.
Mr. G. Brown: Further to that point of order. Of course, we accept your Ruling with deference, Mr. Speaker, but may I ask you to go a little further? Standing Orders require in these cases that there should be a definite matter. This is clearly definite. The ship is there. The rules require that it should be a matter of urgent public importance. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) has sought to submit to you that it is urgent, since the ship is there for only two or three days, and it is of public importance in terms of our intervention in what appears to be a civil war. I would have thought that all this could not be controverted.
You said, Mr. Speaker, that there would be opportunities later, but, with respect, I see nothing in the Standing Order which introduces the suggestion that if we can debate it later, and provided that it is not too late, it should not arise now. All the issues which the Standing Order requires to be matched up to are matched here. The matter is definite, it is clearly urgent, and clearly of public importance, and the fact that we might have a requiem on it afterwards is not part of the Standing Order.
Mr. Speaker: I understand the points that the right hon. Gentleman puts to me. I quite understand that he finds it difficult to understand the principle. I can, if necessary, give a detailed explanation, but I thought that the House preferred, in

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the general interest, that the Chair should not give reasons for its Railings on these occasions because experience shows that it inevitably results in argument. I am only the servant of the House. If I decide something wrongly the House can deal with me, but I would infinitely prefer, in the common interest, not to argue the matter now and I would ask the House to accept my Ruling.
Mr. Gordon Walker: Whereas I think that everyone agrees that in many of these cases the House thinks it wise that you should not give reasons, Mr. Speaker, where, in the view of large numbers of hon. Members, there is a strong case for a Motion being put, I think that there is a case for your giving a reason, because we surely must have some guidance in these matters. This seems to us a strong case, on the face of it, and I put it to you that in these circumstances—though it might not always be so—it would be helpful to the whole House if you gave reasons.
Mr. Speaker: I will oblige. The kind of principle which I follow is set out in page 371 of the current edition of Erskine May, where it is stated, under (c):
"the motion has been refused when an ordinary parliamentary opportunity will occur shortly or in time…"
I quite follow that the visit of the vessel may be past by Wednesday, but the opportunity to debate will not and my concept of the proper use of Parliamentary debating time is to bring the Government to book, if the House likes, in respect of a decision taken for which the Government bear responsibility to all of us. I conceive Wednesday as an early enough opportunity for me rightly to say that the debate should not take precedence over the current business of the House when there is an opportunity as early as that.
Mr. G. Brown Mr. G. Brown rose—
Mr. Driberg: What about the backbenchers getting in?
Mr. S. Silverman Mr. S. Silverman rose—
Mr. Brown: I do not think that we need fight about it. Maybe we can supplement each other. We do not need to quarrel about it.
932
The entry on page 371 of Erskine May, Mr. Speaker, offers two alternatives. If a debate may occur shortly for the purpose of bringing the Government to book, that I would understand, but here we are still rather at the point when the Government may be brought not to book but to do—as a large part of the House thinks—the right thing, which is to take the ship away. To debate that, we must debate it, according to Erskine May, in time. If you rule out to-day, Mr. Speaker, you rule us out of a debate in time. You may leave us then with the opportunity to criticise Her Majesty's Government, and that you cannot deny us, but, with respect, what you are, in fact, denying us is the opportunity to take the feeling of the House in time to be able still to remove this ship.
I submit with great respect that on your own Ruling, on the basis of page 371 of Erskine May, to be in time we should be able to debate it this week and to debate "shortly" is not, in fact, counting out a debate "in time", but is an alternative that might apply in other circumstances. In these circumstances, what matters is the time. Today is in time and today the House could be of effect in terms of policy. I beg you, therefore, to reconsider.
Mr. Speaker: This sort of point is very much in my mind. We should be making a mistake if we were to think of the House in any sense as the executive body. That is the difficulty about this. The executive decision to remove or not remove the vessel is, I understand, the responsibility of the Executive of the day, for which this House can make it answerable.
My responsibility is to decide whether, within the principles governing the operation of the Standing Order, we should give precedence to debating that executive decision over the current business of the day. I do not believe that this is a case of that kind. No one has submitted to me yet anything that I have not had much in mind and have not considered with anxiety. It is important to keep that principle in mind, because otherwise we shall have many instances when we shall disorganise the business in a way that we would not wish to do.
Mr. Gaitskell: You appear to assume, from what you have said, Mr. Speaker,

933
that the House of Commons is here to wait until the Government have acted and then pass judgment. That seems to me to suggest that we are not here to influence policy at all. I am sure that you did not mean that. The whole of the argument of my right hon. Friend the Member for Belper (Mr. G. Brown) was that we were here to attempt to influence the Government's decision and that it would be possible to do this if we had a debate today but impossible to do it in this particular instance if we waited until the end of the week, which, I think, you had in mind.
With great respect, I cannot accept, and I am sure that you would not wish me to accept, the idea that we have no right to influence Government policy, apart from passing judgment on it at a later stage.
Mr. Speaker: I do not for a moment say that no one has to pay attention to the views of this House, or that the views of this House may not be taken into account by the Government, but the Government of the day have to bear responsibility for a decision of this kind, and can be brought to book by debate at an early opportunity for any decision which they take which is wrong; and, no doubt, views expressed in that debate may do something to contribute towards public acceptance of the erroneous character of the Government's executive decision, if that be the view put forward by others in debate.
Mr. Paget: With respect, Mr. Speaker, is there not a misunderstanding between us? I could have asked leave to move a Motion in the form of asking the House to pass judgment on the decision of the Government to send H.M.S. "Leopard". I deliberately did not do that. I sought leave to put the Motion in the form of asking the Government to reverse that decision, to condemn the Government for refusing to issue orders for her to come back again and to leave Angola and to cancel this gesture. It does seem to me that while the first, that is, passing judgment, is a matter which we could have dealt with in the foreign affairs debate, the influencing of their policy—that is the form in which I have put my Motion—would be wholly irrelevant in the foreign affairs debate, for it would have ceased to apply.
Mr. Speaker: I have not actually in my hand the Motion for Wednesday. I must say that the last time I read it that was not my impression. I read it with this kind of aspect of the hon. and learned Member's Private Notice Question in mind. I did not mistake the character of the hon. and learned Member's Motion. I realised the form in which it would be put, if this application were to be made. I fail, rather dismally, to carry the House with me at the moment.
I wish, none the less, to press the view that it is right that the Government of the day must bear responsibility for the ordinary executive decisions which they have to carry out, such as the moving of vessels on courtesy visits or their removal, always subject to debate and to being vigorously criticised by this House when there is a proper opportunity. I think that Wednesday does provide the proper opportunity. It is on that basis that I desire to adhere to my Ruling.
Mr. Gaitskell: I am sorry to have to pursue this matter, Mr. Speaker, but I really am seriously concerned with the general implications of what you have just said, Sir. Surely it is part of the function of this House, not merely to pass judgment on the Executive when they do take action or fail to take some action, but to attempt to influence the decisions of the Executive, and I would have supposed that the word "urgent" in the Standing Order referred precisely to this kind of thing.
Although I have not, I must confess, had time to think of various precedents, I believe I am right in saying that on no less an occasion than the Suez crisis the Government did announce their intention to deliver an ultimatum to Egypt and we did have a debate on the Adjournment to try to stop them doing so.
Of course, I do not pretend that this, in importance, is comparable with that, but it is similar in that what we want to do is to get them to change their existing decision. I must say that I really am surprised that you should interpret the Standing Order in a way which appears to bar the Opposition and the House generally from exercising influence on the Government at the time, instead of waiting till after the event has taken place.
Mr. Speaker: I follow what the right hon. Gentleman is putting to me, and I appreciate the courteous way in which he presses this matter upon me. May I go back to the familiar first principles about the application of this Standing Order? There must be, as I understand it, a sudden emergency in home or foreign affairs. I do not believe that this moving of this vessel and the failure to withdraw it upon request from the Opposition bear any resemblance to that kind of thing.
That is really why I do not think that this is the sort of case for a sudden intervention, when debate is required as an emergency matter in order to deal with a sudden emergency arising. I do not think that this is in that class. It is that and the early opportunity arising of debating what the Government have done which precludes me from being able to say that this is within the Standing Order. I am sorry if I cannot carry the right hon. Member with me. That is my own conclusion, right or wrong, and it is unlikely that I shall be shifted from it by further representation.
Mr. Driberg: Mr. Speaker, what you have just said seems to me, with all respect, to make the situation even more disquieting, because, as you have rightly been good enough to explain, you are guided, or should be guided, only by considerations of urgency, definiteness, and public importance; but in your last observations it seemed that you were moving your ground slightly to considering the merits of the content of the Motion.
To some of us Angola is at this moment an extremely important subject. It is one of the greatest crises, one of the greatest danger-spots, in Africa, and intervention, or apparent intervention, by a British warship at this time can have very grave consequences. [Interruption.] I am only putting this point on the merits. Mr. Speaker, with the greatest respect, because it seems to me that you have moved towards discussing the merits in your last observations.
May I put a second point to you which is quite different from those which have already been put? Although passing references have been made today to the Foreign Office, this is primarily an Admiralty matter. Wednesday's and Thursday's debate is a general debate on
936
foreign affairs. Will it be in order for an Admiralty spokesman to intervene at length in that debate and discuss a purely Admiralty matter?
Mr. Speaker: There are two points. On the first one, if I gave any impression of being concerned with the merits beyond my duty I did so in error. My predecessors have always left the matter of importance to the House, and so do I. I never had any doubt about that.
On the second point, I thought that the burthen of this story was that certain arguments presented carried a world peace and Foreign Office implication, and, that being so, I would have thought, subject to looking at the terms of the Motion, which are very wide indeed, there would have been no irregularity in discussing them on that Motion.
Mr. G. Brown: I rise again with the greatest reluctance, Mr. Speaker, but it really did seem to us that you had shifted your ground in the last Ruling from the Standing Order to your own estimate of the degree of importance. I am relieved that you have just now said that the question of importance has always been left by your predecessors to the House. That is the reason why it is sought to find out whether 40 Members will rise, the point being whether a sufficient proportion of the House think that this to be a matter of importance.
On the ground of definiteness, which is within your purview, I gather you do not dispute that it is so. On the ground of being of public importance as distinct from being a private matter, I gather that you do not dispute this. As to the question of emergency, that is clearly covered by the fact that the ship will have left before any ordinary opportunity arises for discussion, and if we do not get the chance today there is no chance of discussing it while the matter is still urgent. I submit to you, Mr. Speaker, with the utmost respect, that on your own Rulings, since the issue of the degree of importance has been left with the House by your predecessors over a long time, the Standing Order, in every other respect, clearly has been met by my hon. and learned Friend's Motion.
I therefore beg you, in the light of what is now emerging, and the degree to which you yourself are seeing the extent

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to which we are being asked, by implication—if we accept your Ruling—to ex tend the Standing Order, to reconsider what you have said and allow us to raise today a matter which is clearly urgent, which is clearly definite, which is clearly important, and on which the degree of importance can be assessed if you will offer it to the House.
Mr. Speaker: The whole question of the importance of the matter has been in my mind. I have always followed the principle of leaving that to the House We are really, I think, with respect to the right hon. Gentleman, going round in circles. Clearly, I cannot carry the right hon. Gentleman with me; I wish that I could. The basis of my decision is, in these circumstances, the absence of urgency in relation to debate. That is what I have to consider. I do not believe that I depart from precedent at all about this. I am not forgetting the point that the vessel may be gone by Wednesday. None the less, I conceive that the application of the Standing Order would be rightly applied if we discussed the matter on Wednesday.
Mr. Dugdale: With great respect, Mr. Speaker, may I mention two points? First, on the matter of urgency, what disturbs some of us is that there is a revolution in progress and there may be an incident during that time when British lives may be in danger. On the point, with great respect, about executive action, there was a case two or three years ago, which I myself brought before the House, when an Adjournment was granted. It was the case of a Spaniard—an individual case and of executive decision—and I would have thought that this would certainly come under that Ruling if not any other.
Mr. Speaker: There have been cases, particularly in which the individual liberty of a subject might or might not be involved. None the less, I do not think that this is a case of that kind.
Mr. S. Silverman: I think that we are all very grateful to you, Mr. Speaker, for allowing us to put the points. But some of us feel very strongly about this. Since the only point that you, as Mr. Speaker, have to decide is whether or not the Motion falls within the terms of the Standing Order, and not any question of
938
desirability or other point, may I put to you that there are a great many of us in the House, not confined, I think, to one side, who think that the presence of this ship, at this time, will be regarded as a gesture of support or sympathy with the Portuguese Government in the matters that are now going on in Angola, and that that would be a total misrepresentation of the feelings of this House or of this country?
Mr. Ronald Bell: No.
Mr. Silverman: Unless something can be done now, as a matter of urgency, to stop it now, before the harm is done, then the public repute of this country in the councils of the world will suffer serious damage.
This must be urgent, and this must be the moment. If the House were limited only to passing judgment ex post facto there would be no need for Standing Order No. 9, which would then have become a dead letter. Standing Order No. 9 has to be used, if it is used at all, precisely to prevent the Executive, at an urgent moment, from doing what it is, in fact, doing. If that is what we wish to debate, can there be any doubt that the Motion is well within the Standing Order?
Mr. Speaker: I do not think that that is quite right, according to the precedents that I have in mind. It is really, I would submit to the House, not quite reasonable to suppose that what it is being invited to deal with here is a sudden emergency. I do not think that there is a sudden emergency resulting from a refusal to remove the vessel. I do not think that there is anything like it.
Mr. G. Brown: With great respect, Mr. Speaker, the Standing Order does not ask us to justify a sudden emergency. It asks us to justify urgency. The urgency is that the vessel arrived this morning and sailors may go ashore and be killed in the course of civil war. [HON. MEMBERS: "Nonsense."] Of course.
I ask you, Mr. Speaker, not to allow us to widen the words in the course of this exchange. That it is urgent, I submit, is clear. It is urgent because it has only just arisen. It is urgent because if we wait a couple of days the visit will have ended and in the course

939
of those couple of days grave difficulties may have arisen.
I repeat that a ship does not go into port without sailors going ashore and in the course of disturbances a danger to British lives can arise. I ask you, Mr. Speaker, again to reconsider this simply within the purview of the words in the Standing Order and not some other words.
Mr. Speaker: I cannot do that because the Standing Order has been operating for ages. The Select Committee on Procedure, as far as I remember, suggested that we might get rid of the precedents and start again, but that has not been done.
I cannot help remembering that it was quite soon after the Standing Order was made that my predecessor, Mr. Speaker Peel, made his statement about what it means:
"What, I think, was contemplated was the occurrence of some sudden emergency either in home or foreign affairs."
I do not think that this refusal complained about is a sudden emergency of that kind. I appreciate greatly the courtesy and firmness with which right hon. Gentlemen have put this to me and I regret that I did not succeed, apparently, in carrying them with me. I can only assure them that I have given the greatest weight and consideration to what they have been putting to me, but I must adhere to my Ruling because I think that it is right.
Sir A. V. Harvey: With great respect, Mr. Speaker, there are two points which I would make. The visit of this vessel to Angola could have some benefit to a large number of non-Portuguese subjects who are living there.
Mr. Speaker: Order. One thing which I cannot do is to concern myself with judgment of the merits.
Sir A. V. Harvey: My second point is that as we are unable to debate this matter until Wednesday, cannot the visit of the vessel be extended for 24 hours?
Mr. Paget: I am extremely sorry, Mr. Speaker, to worry you again. This is important from the point of view of
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precedent. Surely, when Mr. Speaker Peel gave that Ruling, he was using the word "emergency" as something that emerges. He was saying, quite simply, that what was contemplated by this Standing Order was something which suddenly emerges. If he had gone further than that and used "emergency" in the sense which I think it has only recently acquired in our language, as something of tremendous importance, as something which is a vital danger, he would have surely given a Ruling which was plainly at variance with the words which he was interpreting.
Mr. Speaker: Whatever the word "emergency" meant to my predecessor, Mr. Speaker Peel—and I am sure that it was not concerned with emergency legislation or the meaning of "emergency" in that context—that Ruling has been considerably interpreted, as the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) and others will remember, in a sense which would qualify it as meaning something much more like an emergency in a sudden overtaking of events creating a new situation. I do not like trying to define words "off-the-cuff", on my feet, or I may give a bad verbal definition for the future. I am sorry. I have listened with great attention. I must bear responsibility for this Ruling, but I am bound to rule in accordance with what I think is right, and I do not think that further representation would cause me to change my mind.
Mr. G. Brown: Will you permit me, Mr. Speaker, on behalf of all of us who feel strongly about this matter, to say how much we appreciate your willingness, on this occasion, to allow a Ruling of yours to be the subject of examination here? It has helped us very much.
Perhaps I might ask the Civil Lord of the Admiralty, since he now has the sense of a large part of the House, whether he would not now like to order the withdrawal of the ship?
Mr. Speaker: I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for what he has said. In these difficult circumstances, I appreciate the courteous way in which he has presented the matter to me.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  FINANCE BILL
  Considered in Committee.
  [Sir GORDON TOUCHE in the Chair]
  4.12 p.m.
  The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd): I beg to move,
  That the Bill be considered in the following order: Clause 1, Schedule 1, Clauses 2 to 5, Schedule 2, Clauses 6 to 8, Schedule 4, Clauses 9 to 26, Schedule 3, Schedule 5, Clauses 27 to 33, New Clauses, Schedule 6, New Schedules.
  I think that it will be for the convenience of the Committee if we proceed with our consideration of the Bill as suggested in the Motion.
  Mr. Harold Wilson: I am sure that the Committee will find it convenient to proceed in this way. In past years, when a Motion of this kind has not been tabled, there has been a certain amount of duplication of debate. It was for that reason that we suggested to the right hon. and learned Gentleman that he should table this Motion on this occasion. I am sure that the Committee will approve of it.
  Question put and agreed to.

  FINANCE BILL

    Clause 1.—(TELEVISION ADVERTISEMENT DUTY.)
    Mr. I. J. Pitman: I beg to move, in page 1, line 17, after "Britain", to insert:
    "for a period of one year".
    The Chairman: For the convenience of hon. Members I have had put in the "No" Lobby a provisional list of the Amendments which have been selected.
    I suggest that it will be for the convenience of the Committee to discuss with this Amendment the one in line 18, after "sixty-one" to insert:
    "and before the end of August, nineteen hundred and sixty-two",
    in the name of the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page).
    Mr. Pitman: I have absolutely no interest in the matter to which my Amendment refers. I have not a television share of any kind, and from the point of view of being an advertiser or taking advertisements in any business with
    942
    which I am connected, it is too small really to matter. I thought it well to make that point to begin with.
    I think that there are three aspects to this matter: first, the question whether the duty is a tax on advertising; secondly, whether it is a tax on television company profits; thirdly, how much money my right hon. and learned Friend is likely to get out of it.
    Dealing with the last point first, I would point out that with the rate of Income Tax and Profits Tax on companies together working out at considerably over 50 per cent., my right hon. and learned Friend will be receiving less than half of what he announced. It may, however, be that perhaps my right hon. and learned Friend included the tax on the tax in his calculation; I should like to know whether he has. If not the yield of the tax will be considerably less than half of what he has supposed. That point should be borne in mind.
    In respect of a tax on advertising, I think that the general opinion of the House, which was clearly shown on both sides in 1947, was that a tax on advertising itself was something bad. At any rate, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in 1947, the former right hon. Member for Bishop Auckland, now Lord Dalton, brought in such a tax, and it was then decided that it was a bad tax and something which ought not to be done because it was taxation on information and the passing of information was the very essence of civilisation.
    If hon. Members opposite really think that advertising and the passing of information is something to be deprecated, then they had better get after some of the nationalised bodies, such as the gas industry, the electricity industry and the transport industry, which are, rightly and essentially, passing on to customers all the information which they think their customers ought to have. Anyhow, that proposal was made in 1947, and it was dropped on the ground that it was a bad thing to tax the passing of information by a tax of that kind. I think we should all agree that anything which slows up the passage of information in a free economy which is based on freedom of choice is bound of itself to be a bad thing, and, therefore, anything which, per contra, improves information is good and ought to be encouraged.

    943
    4.15 p.m.
    When we come to the question of whether it is a tax on T.V. advertising, we ought to recollect what is called Giffin's law, in respect of which it has been discovered that if the price of bread goes up more bread is actually sold, because the more expensive foods such as meat are so much more expensive that people do not buy meat, but buy more bread to make up for the meat which they cannot afford. In that sense, if one has a particularly good advertising medium and there is a big margin of effectiveness in its utilisation, then, if the cost of it goes up, it is conceivable that one actually has a bigger demand for it and that the economies which have to take place do so at the expense not of the most effective and economical, cost what they may, but of the marginal media right down at the bottom of cost-effectiveness.
    I think it is perfectly clear from the facts of this case that this would not be a tax on the television companies, but would be a tax upon local newspapers and other marginal sellers of advertising from whom would be deducted the advertising expenditure which would be diverted from them to expenditure on television advertising. Anyhow, we have already seen that the imposition of this tax has not in any way reduced the waiting list of those who wish to advertise on T.V., which brings out the point that in terms of efficacy per £ expenditure these T.V. advertisements are extremely good value for money, and that it is no secret that it is the other media at the bottom which have suffered by the imposition of this tax.
    I hope that my right hon. Friend will recognize the strength of these three points and agree to limit the life of this new tax.
    Mr. Graham Page: I am grateful to you, Sir Gordon, for saying that my Amendment may be discussed with that in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr. Pitman). Both Amendments have the same purpose—to limit the tax to one year so that it may be considered again and its effect may be considered when we deal with the next Finance Bill. I must at once declare an interest as the director of an advertising agency.
    944
    In the rubric to Clause 1 this duty is described as "Television advertisement duty". In fact, it is clear, both from the wording of the Clause and from notices which have already been issued from Customs and Excise, that this is a tax which will not fall on the programme companies, but will be passed on to the advertisers. I do not think that anyone on either side of the Committee, or even my right hon. and learned Friend, knows exactly what effect the tax will have or how it will operate. It is indeed a new tax. Its effect may be that an advertiser may cut his time on television by 10 per cent. I should think that doubtful having regard to the demand for time on television. Therefore, I do not think that the programme companies will in any way be the losers through a cutting of advertisement time. Any cutting which an advertiser may do will be quickly taken up by another.
    As an alternative, the advertiser may pass the tax on to the consumer, Indeed, in this Clause, he is, as it were, directed to do so. But he can only do that if his product is of sufficient price. It is difficult to pass on fractional amounts on a product like a box of matches or a cotton reel.
    The third alternative for the advertiser may be to cut some other expenditure to make up for the 10 per cent. in tax which he will pay on television advertising. If he does so, it is likely to be a cut in the same sector—distribution and sales promotion—probably in advertising. Therefore, one would assume that the advertiser who has to cut advertising expenditure because he has to pay this new tax will cut on the smaller types of advertising, the magazines or provincial newspapers.
    At any rate, this is a new tax. No one knows how it will operate—whether as a Profits Tax on the programme companies, or whether it will be passed down the line and become a consumer tax. For that reason, let it be experimental. Let it be placed only for one year, and let us consider it again next year.
    There are further reasons for this limitation. Either this is a revenue tax, or it is what one might call a policy tax. If it is intended merely to raise revenue which is easy to collect, one cannot complain about it. It is easy to collect from the very few taxpayers—the

    945
    programme companies. If it is a policy tax, then it is presumably intended as a curb on television advertising in particular or on advertising in general.
    If it is a revenue tax, it may still have effects on the economy which should be considered in a year's time. If it is a policy tax, then one wants to know whether it will be a curb on television advertising. My view is that it will not curb television advertising and that there will still be as much of it because of the demand for an efficient form of sales distribution.
    It may perhaps be intended as a curb on advertising in general, however, as it would have been had it been put forward by Members opposite. If it operates in this way, then it will cause the advertisers to shift their expenditure on sales distribution—for example, from advertising to the travelling salesman—with a consequent effect on manpower and the economy. That is something at which we should look again in a year's time. For these reasons, I ask my right hon. and learned Friend to consider the Amendments carefully. Naturally, I think that mine is more the practicable, but I do not mind which of the two he accepts.
    Mr. F. P. Bishop: I Wish to support the Amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr. Pitman), but I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) that it is a matter of detail, of the two we are discussing, which is preferred by my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
    Perhaps the Amendment in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for Crosby is more practical in giving a slightly longer time, but the principle is that we are asking my right hon. and learned Friend to agree that this tax is experimental. It is designed to meet a special situation which, in its nature, we all know to be temporary, and we hope that he will agree to allow time for the effect of the tax to be seen in practice over a limited period before the idea of what is, in effect, a general tax on advertising is accepted as part of the permanent tax structure.
    I do not want to repeat what my hon. Friends have said. It is true that the
    946
    tax as it has emerged in Clause 1 is rather different in its character and effect from what many people had expected after the Budget statement. At first, it was—quite mistakenly to anyone who had read the statement carefully—taken to mean that there was to be an extra and special tax on the profits of the television programme companies. It was in that sense that it was welcomed by a great many people, including a large section of the Press which did not, I think, take time to consider what the implications of this tax might be upon itself.
    I call this an extra tax on the profits of the programme companies, because, in talking about these profits—which everyone knows have been very large in the last few years—it should not be forgotten that already more than half of the net profits of the programme companies are taken by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in Income Tax and Profits Tax. The profits made are very large, and a few people may have made fortunes, but the fact remains that the principal shareholder in commercial television today is the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who, as trustee for the British taxpayer, takes more than half of the net profits.
    Of course, the Chancellor is a very privileged type of shareholder, because, while he takes so much of the profits, he has no share in the risks and losses of the business which, as we know, were very considerable in the early days and may be very considerable again, for no one can foresee what may happen when the licences come up for renewal, and I suppose that most hon. Members hope for a greater degree of competition to be brought into television.
    That is one of the reasons why I support the Amendment, hoping that my right hon. and learned Friend will limit this new and experimental tax to an experimental period, which will give this Committee time to see how it works in practice. Another reason is that I do not think that, in effect, this is a tax on the profits of programme companies. In spite of appearances, I do not think that it will work out as a specific tax on television advertising as such. I believe that it will work out as a general tax on advertising which has to be collected for the Chancellor by the television programme companies. What I am told is already happening is that

    947
    the programme companies are passing the tax on, as they must.
    Mr. Donald Chapman: Why?
    Mr. Bishop: They must. It is a tax on their gross revenues, not on their profits. It must be passed on.
    The advertiser will, in many cases, decide to trim his budget accordingly, and it does not by any means follow that it is television advertising that will have to take the cut. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby that it is likely to be the marginal advertising media which will, in the end, bear the burden of this tax, not television advertising, because it is very successful and very much in demand, not the great mass circulation newspapers—the Daily Express and the Daily Mirror—but those which are more in the marginal struggling class, for example, almost certainly the Daily Herald and almost certainly some of the weaker provincial newspapers and the specialised magazines about which hon. Members have been so rightly concerned in recent months.
    4.30 p.m.
    It is as a general tax on advertising that the Committee ought to view this matter and to consider whether such a tax ought not to have a period of probation, as it were, when we can see whether our fears will be realised and when we can judge whether a tax on advertising is a sound feature in our financial system. I realise that there are many hon. Members whose minds on this matter are made up and who will say that such a tax is desirable.
    Mr. Gerald Nabarro: Hear, hear.
    Mr. Bishop: I am sorry to hear my hon. Friend agree. There are those, like the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson), for example, who appear to be rather in alliance with my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro).
    Mr. Nabarro: Will my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, Central (Mr. Bishop) at once give examples of when I have been identified in any way with the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. Wilson), who is anathema to me politically?
    Mr. Bishop: I am speaking from recent observation, but if I am wrong, I will gladly withdraw, although I think that I am right.
    Mr. H. Wilson: The only point on which I agree with the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) is in disagreeing with the hon. Member for Harrow, Central (Mr. Bishop) about the monstrous allegation which he has just made. He must not think that the hon. Member for Kidderminster and I are in agreement merely because we go into the Division Lobby in support of speeches made by the hon. Member for Kidderminster, although the hon. Member for Kidderminster does not always join us there.
    Mr. Nabarro: The fact is that, realising the wisdom of my words, the right hon. Gentleman unfailingly gets "fell in" behind me and joins me in the Division Lobby.
    Mr. Bishop: I am not sure whether my remark has revealed the differences or the agreements between the right hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend. I apologise to either or both of them, whoever feels himself to be most offended.
    I was about to say that hon. Members who hold the view that all advertising, or nearly all advertising, is a drain on our national resources, will welcome the tax, although, like the right hon. Member for Huyton, they might think that it ought to be larger.
    However, I do not believe that many people hold such extreme and exaggerated views in these days. If there are some other hon. Members who share such views, I commend to them the recent Fabian pamphlet, A Tax on Advertising? by Mr. Max Corden, which I have recently read with great interest. I do not think that I have ever before found myself in the position of advertising a Fabian pamphlet, especially without a fee. However, it is a serious responsible examination of what advertising does as a feature in our economy, and the possibilities and difficulties of taxing it. Mr. Corden agrees that advertising is an essential element in the process of distribution and points out that when regarded in that way it is a very small element in the overall

    949
    cost of the distribution of goods and services.
    Apparently, there are no figures in this country, but, according to his statement, just before the war it was found in America, where advertising is on a much greater scale than it is here, that the total cost of advertising amounted to no more than 7 per cent. of the total cost of distribution. Costs of distribution have to be met and to that extent the use of advertising reduces other distribution costs and is not then a drain on the economy, but a net economy and a saving to the consumer.
    I do not want to pursue that line beyond emphasising that this question of a tax on advertising is a matter of very great importance which deserve serious study and which ought not to be established as part of our tax system by a sort of side wind, as is happening in this case when it was brought in as a means of draining off some of the profits of the television programme companies.
    There are other objections to such a tax. It is discriminatory. To a large extent, advertising is an alternative method of selling and distributing goods. Why should a firm, which spends largely on advertising for that purpose, be subject to a special tax burden to which a competitor in the same industry, but relying rather on teams of salesmen, is not subject? I do not propose to say anything more about the discriminatory nature of the tax as between one method of advertising and another because, as I have said, I do not think that in present circumstances the burden of this tax will fall upon television advertising. I think that it will fall elsewhere, but it must be wrong in principle to put a discriminatory tax on one kind of advertising which does not apply to others.
    We all recognise the special circumstances which have induced my right hon. and learned Friend to bring forward this tax at this time, and from that point of view I raise no objection. What I am urging is that in their nature the special circumstances are exceptional and temporary. Nobody can say what the circumstances will be in two or three years' time. I am asking my right hon. and learned Friend to agree that a special tax applied to meet special temporary circumstances ought itself to be a special
    950
    temporary tax limited in such a way that it will have to come up for review year by year.
    Of course, a tax can be put on or taken off at any time, but, as we all know, the danger is that the Chancellor's need of money is so great in these days that once he has found a new tax which brings in a sum such as that which my right hon. and learned Friend hopes from this tax—£8 million or £8½ million—it becomes extremely difficult to take it off for that very reason. I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will be able to agree to limit the tax either to that time proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Bath, or to the rather extended time proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby. Which is accepted is a matter of detail, but, at any rate, there should be a limit.
    Mr. Chapman: One of the reasons given by the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) for the Amendment is the confusion surrounding the intention of the tax. Both he and other hon. Members opposite have said that the Chancellor introduced the tax intending it to be a tax on the profits of television contractors. The hon. Member for Harrow, Central (Mr. Bishop) called it draining off some of the profits of the television companies, but the whole of his speech, and the greater part of that of the hon. Member for Crosby, were devoted to discussing the effect on people who advertise. They said that the net result of the tax would be that it would be passed on to the advertiser.
    This caused me to look again at what the Chancellor said when he introduced his Budget. I do not want to anticipate a later debate on the way in which this tax will fall, but I think that at this stage we are entitled to hear from the Chancellor what he intended in his Budget speech.
    I have re-read that passage of the Chancellor's speech where he mixed his metaphor and made quite a good joke. He said:
    "If I may mix up my metaphor, I am sure that those concerned with the payment of the duty will not mind too much being bitten by the hand which originally fed them."
    The people who were fed by the right hon. and learned Gentleman's hand were not the advertisers, but the programme

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    contractors. From reading that passage in the Chancellor's speech, I was led to believe, and have since consistently believed, that the right hon. and learned Gentleman—to quote the words of the hon. Member for Harrow, Central—meant to drain off some of the profits being made by the programme contractors. It is indefensible that we are now debating what has, in effect, become a tax on advertisers.
    I know that the Chancellor can get away with it if he calls attention to an earlier passage, when he said:
    "…I propose to look at expenditure on television advertising for a modest contribution to the Exchequer."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th April, 1961; Vol. 638, c. 817.]
    What did the right hon. and learned Gentleman mean by "expenditure on television advertising"? We are entitled to know. Did he mean what he said in the passage I quoted first, or did he mean what he said in the second quotation? Or what did he mean? We are confused about the intention of this tax, and to that extent I support the hon. Member for Harrow, Central that we ought to put a limitation to the term of this tax to see what happens, and to see whether the Chancellor's intentions are carried out
    My feeling is that neither of those explanations represents the truth. The hon. Gentleman referred to it as something brought in by a side wind. I refer to it as something that came in half-baked. It was not known what would happen with the tax. It was thought that this was a good field for tax. The proposal has been made, and we are left to discover where the burden will fall. That is not the way to help the Committee. During my ten years in the House I do not recall a single occasion when, on the first Amendment to the Finance Bill, we have had to try to find out what the Chancellor meant when he introduced a tax.
    For those reasons, it would be a good thing if the Chancellor "came clean" and said what he intended by the tax, and whether he proposed to reconsider it in the light of the fact that most of it will be passed on to the advertisers.
    Mr. R. P. Hornby: I support the view put forward by my hon. Friends and by the hon. Member for
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    Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. Chapman). In doing so, perhaps I should declare an interest. I work for an advertising agency, and to that extent I am an interested party in this subject.
    We are entitled to an explanation of what the Chancellor meant when he imposed this tax. As I understood it, when my right hon. and learned Friend referred to the "hand that fed them" he was intending a tax on the television companies. Certainly, that is an attractive source of revenue at a time when my right hon. and learned Friend is, quite rightly, looking for extra revenue.
    During the Second Reading debate, my right hon. and learned Friend appeared to be thinking along different lines. He said.
    "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."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th May, 1961; Vol. 639, c. 1623.]
    That puts a totally different complexion on the tax, and we would like to know what my right hon. and learned Friend has in mind.
    4.45 p.m.
    There are two points which I would ask my right hon. and learned Friend to consider. The first is a matter of principle, and the second is a matter of timing. As all hon. Members who have spoken have said, this is a selective tax. Many taxes are selective, but this is a selective tax on the distributive system of industry and trade. It is selective in that it is selecting a particular form of salesmanship, namely, advertising, and it is selective in that it is putting an impost on a particular form of advertising, namely, television advertising.
    I make only one comment on that. It seems to me that my right hon. and learned Friend is doing a job which is not his in that respect.
    The Temporary Chairman (Mr. H. Hynd): Order. I know that some of the discussion has been along the lines now being pursued by the hon. Member, but the Amendment is to limit the duration of the proposed tax for one year. It is, therefore, not in order to discuss the principle of the tax. That should be done on the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill".
    Mr. Hornby: I am obliged, Mr. Hynd.
    There is a good case for having an experimental period of one year. Because of the principle involved, and because of the doubts which have been expressed about how this tax will work, and whether it will work in the way intended by my right hon. and learned Friend, there should be this trial period.
    My second point is on the question of timing. There are two matters which are directly relevant to this impost. The first concerns television in particular, and the other the Press, which may also be affected by this Clause.
    The Pilkington Committee is now studing the question of television, and it is possible that its report will be issued in about twelve months. It would, therefore, be wise for my right hon. and learned Friend to look at this proposal again in twelve months, when this report might be available.
    Lord Shawcross and his colleagues are examining the finances of the Press and other advertising media, which may be affected directly or indirectly by this impost, and again my right hon. and learned Friend would be wise to look at this matter again in twelve months to see whether it has fulfilled the purposes he has in mind
    With those remarks. I support the Amendments.
    Mr. Scholefield Allen: I support what has been said, particularly by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. Chapman), but I carry it a little further. My hon. Friend stopped short when he said that this tax would be paid not by the programme companies, but by the advertisers. However much is passed on to the advertisers, they will pass on to the consumers as much as they possibly can, and we are interested in the consumers.
    The programme companies and those who are behind them have made good fortunes, thanks to the minority report of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who gave them their first impetus. We were all rather innocent, and may have made a bad mistake some years ago which led to the degeneration of television, but we were cheered when we thought that the right hon. and learned Gentleman was
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    trying to "come clean" and put something on the backs of the great profits which are being made by the programme companies.
    However, it is now being freely said by hon. Gentlemen opposite, who are experts in this matter and are part and parcel of the advertising companies and agencies, that this tax will be passed on by the programme companies to the advertisers.
    One hon. Member pointed out that if it were passed on to the advertiser it would not be possible for him to pass it on to the consumer, because it would be such a small proportion of the price, say, of a box of matches. It has never been my experience that that principle operates. If an extra ¼d. is imposed by means of taxation the lowest amount which can be put on to the price of the article is ½d., and ½d. is put on—or 1s., as the case may be. The result of this taxation is that the article costs a great deal more to purchase, the profits of the manufacturer are enlarged and, instead of the tax hitting the people we presume the Chancellor to be getting at—the programme companies—it will be the consumer who is hit.
    That is why I urge the Chancellor to limit the operation of this provision to a period of twelve months, so that we can see its effect. Let us see whether he has really managed to get at the programme companies, or whether these halfpennies or shillings are coming out of the pockets of the consumers.
    Mr. Nabarro: Unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge (Mr. Hornby), I have no personal interest to declare in advertising.
    Mr. Scholefield Allen: Marvellous.
    Mr. Nabarro: This provision represents the application of Purchase Tax to advertising in a limited field, and in my judgment it is long overdue. Because of the by-product advantages which can be derived in the future, I hope that no limitation will be placed upon the length of time during which this provision will operate.
    I believe, unashamedly and wholeheartedly, in the application of an appropriate level of Purchase Tax to the whole field of advertising—and permanently. This is a Purchase Tax on a limited field

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    of advertising, as is shown in a document which I received this morning from the Advertising Association. I believe that all hon. Members have seen this document. The second paragraph contains these words:
    "The Association is particularly concerned that what seemed initially to be a levy on the profits of the programme companies has become a direct tax on advertising. This is evident from a study of Notice No. 330 issued by H.M. Customs and Excise."
    Customs and Excise is the appropriate branch of the Treasury to collect a tax of this kind, as it collects Purchase Tax on behalf of the Treasury. I hope not only that the new tax will be permanent, but that it will represent a precursor to the application in future years, of Purchase Tax on the whole field of advertising which, on account of the large additional revenue available, would have the effect of reducing the already onerous level of Purchase Tax on manufactured goods which, in the opinion of many hon. Members, directly affects the nation's export trade.
    Home trade consumer advertising on the television screen, of the kind to be taxed by this provision, cannot have any influence or impact at all upon the nation's export trade, but if the revenue derived from a large-scale general tax on advertising were applied to the relief of Purchase Tax on those manufactured articles which very dangerously affect the nation's export trade I would think it was a good thing.
    Mr. Scholefield Allen: Is not the hon. Gentleman straying rather a long way from the terms of the Amendment?
    The Temporary Chairman: I understand that the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) is arguing against the Amendment which is now before the Committee.
    Mr. John Hall: As I understand it, my hon. Friend's argument is that the tax on advertising, which he describes as Purchase Tax, will enable Her Majesty's Government to relieve other forms of Purchase Tax, for the benefit of consumers generally in this country.
    Mr. Nabarro: No—not for the benefit of consumers in this country so much as to assist the nation's export trade by reducing the onerous level of Purchase
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    Tax on many manufactured goods, as witness the 50 per cent. rate of Purchase Tax on motor cars, cosmetics, radio and television sets.
    Mr. John Hall: The manufacture of cosmetics does not affect our export trade, except to the extent that extra tax may reduce the quantity manufactured in this country and to that extent may limit demand. But advertising tends to stimulate demand, and to that extent must make it possible for manufacturers to produce their goods at a lower cost. In the end, will not the manufacturers pass on to consumers any additional tax on advertising?
    Mr. Nabarro: No. It would be more appropriate if I argued these general issues on the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill." As for the influence of Purchase Tax on the nation's exports, I would commend to my hon. Friend the speech that I delivered when we were discussing the Finance Bill in Committee on 22nd June, 1960, when I went into the Lobby warmly supported by a number of Members on both sides of the Committee, notably the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. Chapman).
    Mr. John Hall: Will my hon. Friend refer me to any authority on this matter?
    Mr. Nabarro: That is an understandable remark from one of my hon. Friends who sits for a town like Wycombe, which is primarily concerned with the production of furniture, on which the Purchase Tax is only 5 per cent. If he sat for the constituency of Birmingham, Northfield, which principally produces motor cars, which are taxed at a rate of 50 per cent., he would understand the economics of Purchase Tax.
    I now return to the arguments relating to the Amendment. I will deal with the broader issues, if I am fortunate enough to catch the eye of the Chair, on the Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill." The issue in regard to the permanency or otherwise of this levy is that it applies at present only to approximately £72 million of advertising expenditure annually on the television screens.
    Mr. Christopher Mayhew: It is £80 million.
    Mr. Nabarro: My information is that it is £72 million.
    Mr. Mayhew: The hon. Member may be referring to the calendar year. I believe that the figures are £80·7 million gross and £68 million net for the year ending 31st March.
    Mr. Nabarro: The figure that I have is for 1960, and it is authoritative in that it has been produced by Dr. Mark Abrams, of the London Press Exchange, and is reproduced in the Economist of 21st March, 1961. It gives the figure as £72 million, and I accept that as authoritative.
    My right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor has said that the yield on the present year, at a rate of 10 per cent., will be approximately £7 million, and that in a full year it will be £8½ million, The £72 million expended annually in advertising on television screens has to be compared with the total national expenditure on advertising, which is at present £455 million. If my calculations are correct, television screen advertising represents only 16 per cent. of the total amount of advertising.
    It is to the remaining 84 per cent. that I shall be asking my right hon. and learned Friend to apply himself during the next twelve months, when we debate the Question "That the Clause stand part of the Bill". It is unfair that this tax should be applied only to a small part of general advertising, and only to one of the many media of advertising. If there is to be an advertising tax——
    The Temporary Chairman: I would remind the hon. Member of his promise to return to the terms of the Amendment.
    Mr. Nabarro: If a tax is applied to television advertising it is discriminatory in character, and I hope that it will act as a precursor to a general advertising tax, and that my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor will resist the Amendment, which seeks to limit the period for which the television tax is applicable. When we debate the Question "That the Clause stand part of the Bill", I shall recommend a substantial enlargement of the tax during the years ahead, as part of a general and non-discriminatory overall uniform rate of Purchase Tax.
    5.0 p.m.
    Mr. Nigel Fisher: Like my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro), I have no interest to declare. But I wonder whether this is a wise innovation. As yet, it has not found a friend on either side of the Committee, except the hon. Member for Kidderminster—a very unusual ally for a Chancellor of the Exchequer. However, he is the only friend of the Chancellor on this occasion.
    This establishes a new tax. It is not necessarily the worse for that, but it is a new principle. It is, in fact, a tax on advertising, long advocated by hon. Member opposite, though never implemented by them. It is a strange tax for a Conservative Chancellor to introduce. Had it been a tax on the programme companies, I think that it would have been much more acceptable to the Committee. The profits of these companies are very large and they were described in one newspaper as a "sitting duck" for taxation of that kind.
    Mr. Nabarro: Of course, their profits are very large, but surely my hon. Friend would be fair enough to recognise that 53¾ per cent. of their profits is recovered by the Chancellor in Income Tax and Profits Tax and it should not be higher than that——
    The Temporary Chairman: Order. I am trying to confine this discussion to the Amendment and I wish to call the attention of the Committee to that fact.
    Mr. Nabarro: It is a good argument for all that.
    Mr. Fisher: I recognise the point my hon. Friend has made. I wish to get back to the main question. I do not think that the Chancellor's "hand that fed you bit you" observation was at all relevant to this tax as an introduction to it in the Budget speech. It is not a tax on the programme companies, as has been revealed again and again in speeches from both sides of the Committee today and as was admitted by my right hon. and learned Friend in an Answer to a Question from me last week.
    This is a tax on advertising. I wonder what is the object, other than revenue-producing? If it is to damp down the demand and thus reduce I.T.V. revenue, I think it unlikely that it will achieve that

    959
    objective, because there is plenty of custom for I.T.V. advertising and, broadly, the programme companies will not be affected by this tax at all. It is a tax on a particular form of advertising. It is discriminatory and, therefore, it will become anomalous. It may well be extended next year over other fields of advertising on the basis that this is out on a limb by itself.
    If such a tax is introduced from this side of the Committee, I should consider it an open invitation to hon. Members opposite—if it so occurs that they are ever in office again—to take advantage of it. I could not blame them for doing so. It would be a precedent introduced from this side of the Committee and the party opposite might say, "We will accept this and extend it over a wide field of advertising generally". I think it dangerous for my right hon. and learned Friend to present this opportunity to hon. Members opposite who take a different view on these matters. Therefore I urge that, if this tax is to be imposed at all, it should be done experimentally and only for one year.
    Mr. Mayhew: I had better begin by disclaiming any interest in the outcome of this debate. May I say how grateful we are to the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) and to the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Pitman) for their disavowals of any personal interest in this debate, thereby distinguishing themselves from quite a large number of their hon. Friends, some of whom have already taken part in this discussion.
    This Amendment is a specific one. I shall not deal with the very broad issues which have been raised by hon. Members opposite. They can be discussed when we deal with later Amendments and on the Question "That the Clause stands part of the Bill". Such issues include whether advertising increases prices, whether the advertiser should pay or whether the programme company should pay and which the Chancellor meant. We shall have plenty of opportunity later to explain that both present good targets for revenue purposes. On the whole, our view is that the programme contractor should pay.
    There are a number of other issues which, I think, we may deal with later but about one thing—which all hon.
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    Members have raised, except the hon. Member for Kidderminster—I think it would be appropriate for me to say a word. They all stated that one effect of this tax may well be that, because it raises the cost of television advertising, it may actually draw off advertising revenue from weaker recipients; from magazines, newspapers—the Daily Herald was courteously mentioned by one hon. Member—periodicals and productions of that kind. Because more money is sucked into commercial television, the money spent on advertising through these sources will come to an end.
    That is a very interesting argument for hon. Members opposite. It has been put forward by the advertising industry. It has an interesting corollary. What would be the effect of having another television service carrying advertising? If we had another commercial television system, it would achieve what hon. Members opposite maintain. It would be a blow to the provincial Press, to periodicals, to the weaker brethren.
    At present, the advertising industry is saying two things at the same time. It is pleading for and shedding crocodile tears over the poor periodicals, the poor provincial newspapers and the wretched weaker brethren among the programme contractors. At the same time, it is calling for another television channel with more advertising to sustain it. The industry must make up its mind which it wants, because, plainly, it cannot advocate both.
    We shall not oppose this provision in the Clause. We agree with what was said by the hon. Member for Surbiton (Mr. Fisher). It opens up a favourable prospect. It may be a small and thin end of the wedge, but we do not propose to oppose it. We see no advantage in stopping the tax at the end of the year, certainly not for any of the reasons advanced by hon. Members opposite. We shall have much more to say about this at a later stage, but at the moment I hope that my right hon. and hon. Friends will oppose the Amendment.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Certain questions have been put to me the answers to which may enable hon. Members to decide whether or not to limit this tax to one year. The first question was from my hon. Friend the Member for Bath (Mr. Pitman), who asked whether this

    961
    was a policy tax or had it some kind of social purpose. The answer is that it has no more social purpose than for example, the petrol tax. I think that advertising fulfils a social purpose and by this tax I am not attempting to influence social development. I shall not go into the wider issues raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro). We are all pleased to see my hon. Friend present again in the Chamber and hope that he has fully recovered from his illness.
    The purpose of this tax is to raise money. That is why I imposed it. It is one of the troubles of a Chancellor that no one is in favour of increased taxation and everyone is for increased expenditure. Whenever a Chancellor puts forward proposals to raise money he is told that he is discriminating, and ought to have a sense of guilt, and so on. But the plain answer is that I wanted this year to get the £7 million which will be the yield from this tax.
    I am told that it will do damage to advertising. The hon. Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew) referred to the damage that it will do to small newspapers and others on the fringe of advertising expenditure. In 1956, the amount spent on television advertising was £11 million. For the last year I think that the expenditure was £77 million. During the time when that expenditure has been increasing we have not heard much about damage to local newspapers, or to those on the fringe of benefit from advertising. I do not think that this modest proposal will have much effect on the advertising revenue of such people. I do not think that the imposition of this tax will make it more likely or less likely that the party opposite, should it have responsibility, would put a tax on advertising.
    The point has been raised many times about who will bear this tax, and a reference was made by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. Chapman) to my Budget speech. The point which I think is not sufficiently understood is that this tax will be passed on to the extent which the market will permit—according to the law of supply and demand.
    Supposing that one had put a tax on the programme companies, and supposing that we had said, "According to
    962
    your capital or your turnover there will be an ad valorem tax on the programme companies," would not that have been passed on? Of course it would. It would have been passed on to the extent to which the market would bear it, and a tax of this kind will be passed on according to the supply and demand of the particular material which the programme companies have to sell.
    We have seen that certain companies have dealt with the matter in different ways. Some have borne half the tax themselves and passed on half the tax, others have devised other ways of doing it and still others have suggested that it would be passed on in toto. With respect to my hon. Friend the Member for Surbiton, however, had I done this it would have been passed on by the programme companies and one could not have got at their profits in a more direct fashion than by Profits Tax and Income Tax.
    Mr. Chapman: Had it been covered by a straightforward Profits Tax that would not have been the case, and that it what we all thought it was to be.
    Mr. Lloyd: I think that any form of special taxation would have been passed on by way of increased rates. Those concerned would have tested the market and got back as much as they could to make up for any form of taxation.
    Mr. John Hall: Does my right hon. and learned Friend say that Profits Tax is likely to be passed on in precisely the same way?
    Mr. Lloyd: I think that any form of taxation will be passed on and that we have to accept that fact.
    Mr. Nabarro: My right hon. and learned Friend thinks that any form of taxation will be passed on. Can he say how I can pass on my Surtax? I should be delighted to know.
    Mr. Lloyd: I have always maintained that high taxation is often inflationary, because it pushes up the demands made on resources for wages and salaries. Any form of taxation is passed on, as far as the market allows, in one form or another.
    I have been drawn away slightly from the narrow point of this Amendment. The Amendment deals with the suggestion that the tax shall be put forward

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    for one year only. I cannot accept that proposition. I would say to my hon. Friends that I realise that the Pilkington Committee is sitting and I have no doubt that it will have recommendations to make about this matter. As I understand, that Committee is to survey the whole of the finances of television, of broadcasting and the position of the programme companies. Certainly, when the report of the Committee is at hand I shall reconsider this tax. I am unable to accept the Amendment.
    Mr. H. Wilson: We have heard some rather extraordinary remarks during the past five minutes about the ultimate incidence of various forms of taxation. It is rather a crude expression of fiscal economics which, I think, will not have been accepted by half the practical men and most of the theorists who have studied these matters in past years. To follow the Chancellor very far on these very interesting lines would rapidly take me out of order, Mr. Hynd, and encourage your wrath, which I am always loath to do.
    On the issue of whether this tax should have a currency of one year, or about one year, there are two different variants of it in the Amendments we are debating. It is, of course, extremely difficult, as the Chancellor found, to go into the issues raised without getting on to the broader subjects which could be more appropriately dealt with on the next Amendment or in the debate on the Question "That the Clause stand part of the Bill".
    I had a lot of sympathy with the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) when he was asked some very pertinent questions by the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. John Hall). The hon. Member for Kidderminster quite fairly replied that though he would like to go into the matters raised he thought it more appropriate to do so on the Question "That the Clause stand part of the Bill".
    The arguments which we have heard this afternoon, and which have already been dealt with very fully by my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew), have really been, I think, two. One of them has been that we do not know how the tax is going to work out, whether the incidence will be on the programme companies, on the one
    964
    hand, or whether, on the other, it will be passed on to the advertising industry and, if so, how far it will be passed on by it to consumers.
    That is the big issue, and, therefore, hon. Members are saying, "As we do not know how it will work out, let us limit it to one year." That is one argument. It is certainly true that the Chancellor has, perhaps, given expression to some rare thoughts at different times about where he expects the tax to fall. I do not wish to pursue that matter at the moment, even though it was the main argument behind this Amendment, because there is another Amendment on the Notice Paper to which we shall be coming very shortly and on which I think it will be more appropriate to discuss that matter.
    The Chancellor, in fact, gave the answer. He wants the money and he can see two fairly lush groups of companies involved. He does not care "two hoots" whether he is taking it out of the programme contractors or out of the advertising industry. I have a lot of sympathy with the right hon. and learned Gentleman. They can both well afford it. The only relevant question is to what extent is it to be passed on to the consumer. Obviously, from what the right hon. and learned Gentleman said, he does not care "two hoots", because he thinks that everything is passed on to everyone else.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Is it not?
    5.15 p.m.
    Mr. Wilson: The right hon. and learned Gentleman asks, "Is it not?" I must say that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has a very heavy responsibility for this. He was frank enough to admit in the Budget debate that he was responsible as a minority of one on the Beveridge Committee for saying that we should have commercial television. When he went on television on the night of the Budget, and was asked whether this tax would be passed on to the consumer, he said quite blithely that it would. Of course, we know how he reaches this conclusion. Boyle's Law is chicken feed compared with Lloyd's Law.
    When it is in order to deal with this matter I shall be glad to respond to the right hon. and learned Gentleman's invitation. We are learning a lot this afternoon, which is one advantage of changing

    965
    the Chancellor every year or two. What we should be debating is not whether the tax should be changed every year, but whether the Chancellor should be changed every year. My very strong recommendation to the Committee is that we should keep the tax and change the Chancellor. Hon. Members have their priorities wrong. However, I should be out of order if I pursued that matter too far.
    Since the point has been raised by the hon. Member for Harrow, Central (Mr. Bishop) that he understood that it was my point of view that all advertising was wasteful of national resources and should, therefore, all be taxed to a penal extent, I want to make it quite plain that I do not think that all advertising is wasteful of national resources but only that we have far too much of it at present. I said on the Second Reading of the Bill that if the rate of advertising expenditure both in terms of money and resources were cut by half, and the amount of industrial research in industry were trebled, the country would be a great deal healthier. So far as that is related to the question of whether this tax should be continued for one year, I think it would be fatal to say that it is going to last only one year. I should like to see it extended because I do not think that it goes far enough.
    Were it possible for the right hon. and learned Gentleman, with his ingenuity, to work out a tax which would fall with the present level of severity, or the intended level of severity, on the programme contractors, and then to introduce another tax on the advertising industry, it would be a good thing and would tend to direct more expenditure into such things as scientific research, which, I think, most must agree, is at present being carried out on too low a scale.
    When we come to the Question "That the Clause stand part of the Bill" I hope if I catch your eye, Mr. Hynd, to have a few words to say on the broader question of advertising expenditure and its relation to this matter, but before I sit down there is one thing that ought to be said.
    What we are debating, on this issue of whether this tax should be for one year or for a longer period, is not merely a question how far this tax is passed on. We are on a much broader issue, and
    966
    I am surprised that hon. Members opposite have not addressed themselves to this point. They all say that we know that we may have the Pilkington Committee's report in a year's time, and that we can look at the matter again, as the Chancellor said, but this tax ought to have been imposed a year or two ago.
    We proposed it a year or two ago, during the currency of the Entertainment Duty on cinemas. We said that this would be a good way of getting rid of that duty. We proposed it again last year, but we did not think that it was going to be done in such a chicken-hearted way as in this Bill.
    There is a much stronger argument than any that has been used by the Chancellor or anybody else today. What the House did when it so unwisely listened to the minority Report produced by the Chancellor, a few years ago, was to hand over a franchise, area by area—a monopoly franchise—to a group of businessmen literally to make almost unlimited profits.
    The Temporary Chairman: Order. The right hon. Gentleman is getting even nearer the brink now. He must confine himself to the Amendment.
    Mr. Wilson: I hope, in one short sentence, Mr. Hynd, to show the relevance of this point to the Amendment we are debating, whether this should be for one year only, because some hon. Members think that this uncertainty about who bears the tax is an argument for limiting it to a single year. I am trying to suggest that when the House of Commons gives a franchise to people to print money for a very long period ahead—because these charges go on until 1964—it is something almost unprecedented in this history of the House that a franchise should be given in this way—it is utter nonsense for hon. Members opposite to suggest that this tax is an experimental tax, and that it ought to disappear, if, at the end of the year, we have more information about who is really bearing it.
    The fact is that throughout the history of Parliament—and there is still a Statute of Monopolies and a Resolution of the House on monopoly which has never been rescinded, and is still, in theory, having full currency—whenever a firm or an individual has been given

    967
    a franchise enabling them to exact monopoly revenue, Parliament, or in more ancient days the King, has always insisted upon it being paid for. Therefore, what the Chancellor is doing in this particular Clause is to claw back, to my mind on a very small scale indeed, some of the revenues granted by this franchise.
    I suggest that those who want to limit the Chancellor's power to claw it back on this miserably inadequate 10 per cent. scale, that it should be limited to one year, are, in my view, going right against the whole traditions of the House. Where a franchise is given, which is given without competition, without any system of tendering, and completely contrary to all our traditions, it is obviously nonsense, where this miserably inadequate tax is to be exacted by the Chancellor in return for this concession, that it should be limited to a single year's tax.
    Mr. Pitman: I am very grateful to my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor for saying that he will have a good look at this matter when the Pilkington Committee has reported, but before I ask the leave of the Committee to withdraw the Amendment I should like to take up two points. One was made by the hon. Member for Woolwich (Mr. Mayhew), and it was one on which either I did not understand him or thought he was making a point that was not very worthy.
    I understood the right hon. Gentleman to say that he thought that a number of other people had not disclaimed the fact that they held no television shares. If that was so, I would say that there was no distinction between them and myself. If he was saying that because they were advertising agents they had an interest to declare, I think that there is a misunderstanding, because the advertising agents could not care what medium is used. They are just as happy with one medium as another.
    Both the right hon. Gentleman and the Chancellor made the point that if the Pilkington Committee was to authorise a number of new television channels, where would we be in respect of our solicitude for the provincial Press and the marginal medium? Perhaps I might say, on behalf of everybody, that in that case it is a natural efficiency which we welcome
    968
    and would gladly support. What we are objecting to is that it is the unnatural introduction of an inefficiency which so destroys the specialist paper and the provincial paper. If, as we hope, the Pilkington Committee gives a number of franchises, that would answer entirely the point of the right hon. Member for Huyton. We would then have extra costs which would go in that direction, rather than in the other, but much of those costs would come back to the consumer in a subsidised entertainment for television.
    I beg leave to ask to withdraw the Amendment?
    Hon. Members: No.
    Amendment negatived.
    Mr. Martin Maddan: I beg to move, in page 1, line 17, after "Britain" to insert:
    "from which advertisements had been transmitted before the seventeenth day of April, nineteen hundred and sixty-one".
    In moving this Amendment in the names of myself and some of my hon. Friends, we have in mind a position to which, or to one facet of which, attention was drawn by the Public Accounts Committee, three years ago. The effect of the amendment is to exclude from the television duty advertisements from stations which have not carried advertisements before the date of the Budget. The Public Accounts Commmittee, three years ago—and I think that the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) had this in mind when talking about monopolies—drew attention to the fact that competitive tendering was not the order of the day in the award by the Independent Television Authority of licences to programme companies. It also drew attention to the fact that the programme companies were making very large profits.
    We are concerned here with legislation which will affect programme companies which are not yet on the air, and we do not know whether they will make any profits at all. As I shall show, we may come to a point where we may find that my right hon. and learned Friend is taking steps that will lessen the competition between the television programme companies. He says that this tax is a tax to raise revenue, and that it is no part of social policy, but I suggest that he should recognise the effect

    969
    which this tax might have on social policy. If it is, as I think it is, the feeling on both sides of the Committee that there should be as much competition as possible between the programme companies, my right hon. and learned Friend certainly ought to consider whether imposing this tax in this way does not limit it.
    During the previous debate, we have been declaring our interests, and I must do the same, though it is a rather remote one. I am a director of a company called Television Audience Measurement, Limited, more popularly known as T.A.M., and all the present programme companies are, and I hope the future ones will be, clients of my company. So, also, are all the large advertisers and agencies. This gives me some knowledge of the position, and it is on that basis that I commend this Amendment to the Committee.
    5.30 p.m.
    If we accept that it is our policy to have competition, this tax on future stations may very well limit that competition. Up to the present, each new area that has opened up has had allotted to it a new programme company, so that, at least between the different areas, there is some form of competition. The position between the programme company in the south of England and that in London, where they both operate throughout most of Kent, provides some measure of competition.
    New stations are to open up. The South-West Television Company started operating at the beginning of this month. Grampian Television will open in North-East Scotland in the autumn. We are to have the Border Television Company for the Border Counties, and the tender has been offered for a programme company to operate in West and North Wales.
    We have to see what chance there is of companies of reasonable standing and ability coming forward to operate such licences effectively, because, not unnaturally, the smaller these areas are the less profitable they are. Further, the nearer we get to 1964 the less time they have to recoup their initial expenditure and investment. We may find that we have created a situation in which companies do not come forward to serve these prospective areas, or that those
    970
    that do offer themselves are not of the standard we think those areas deserve.
    I shall not weary the Committee with a lot of detail, but it may be of some interest to the Committee to know the total number of homes served in the various areas. In each of the areas of London and the North, there are about 4½ million homes; in the Midland area, about 2¼ million homes; Central Scotland, South Wales and West, and South Wales, about 1¼ million homes each; and in the Tyne-Tees area and East Anglia about ¾ million homes each.
    What is the position in future areas? Stations like that in North-East Scotland have less than 300,000 homes, the Border Counties only 170,000, and West and North Wales about 230,000. It is true that there is one very small station, Ulster, operating in an area of not much population—only about 340,000 homes—but that is a very special case. Quite clearly, the imposition of this 10 per cent. duty will to some extent limit the turnover of the television companies; rather less money will be spent on television than before. Some of it may or may not be diverted from elsewhere, but less money will be spent, and the position may arise in which a company that might have been viable without the tax will not be viable with it.
    I believe that competition is very important, but under the Television Act we are saddled with the present position until 1964. Things have gone rather differently and more quickly than was foreseen by the authors of that Measure, but as we are saddled with that position until 1964 we should not do anything to make the competitive or non-competitive situation worse.
    There is another small point for the future, in which the hon. Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew) may be interested. There is at least a theoretical possibility that the B.B.C. may one day carry some paid advertising. Do we want to create a precedent that would automatically tax the British Broadcasting Corporation's revenue as well? I am not certain that we do. The purpose of the Amendment, therefore, is to exempt from this tax those commercial stations that were not on the air at the time of the Budget, and, of course, any other stations such as the B.B.C. that might—I do not know—take advertising in the future.

    971
    My right hon. and learned Friend can-not say that this provision will be too difficult to administer. He has to collect the tax from a very small number of bodies. There is only a handful of television companies, and there can be no difficulty at all about collecting the tax from some of them. My right hon. and learned Friend could have raised this £7 million that he needs by a super-Profits Tax. As it is, he is increasing the Profits Tax on all companies by 2½ per cent. If that is not inflationary—and I do not think that he will say it is—it should be possible to have a special Profits Tax on the programme companies.
    That would entirely meet my point. If future stations have to be taxed, let them be taxed at special rates along with the others. As I see it, putting a duty on the revenue of these stations and reducing their possible turnover will lead either to a reduction in the number of companies that will tender, or cause a situation in which the I.T.A. will have to give the contracts to existing stations—enfranchise the existing stations—which will do the reverse of increasing competition.
    There are many other points that follow from that trend of argument, but I will not pursue them now because they can be better dealt with on the Question "That the Clause stand part of the Bill." If my right hon. and learned Friend were to accept the Amendment he could lose very little or no revenue between now and next year. He would make the task of the I.T.A. much easier, and make certain that the stations not yet on the air at least got off to a fair start. We should then see whether or not they were viable. If we make these small stations unviable, we have no hope at all of letting contracts in the future to even smaller stations.
    Mr. Mayhew: I hope that the Chancellor has no intention at all of accepting this Amendment. We have heard before this story of appalling risks and uncertainties that face the new programme companies. We heard it in connection with Granada, with Associated Rediffusion, with A.T.V., and with A.B.C. That argument was used constantly in the early months and years of commercial television to persuade the
    972
    Independent Television Authority to allow all kinds of concessions to the programme companies—concessions which, in my view and that of many others, were impermissible, and at variance with the Television Act. Those concessions allowed the television companies to advertise for eight, nine or ten minutes in the hour. They allowed all kinds of "natural-break" practices that were totally contrary to the Act.
    In their defence, the companies spoke of the great risks and uncertainties that lay ahead of them. Perhaps it might be argued that some risk was taken by the early ones. Perhaps the pioneers of I.T.V. can be considered to have had some uncertainty attached to them. But can anyone really say that the newcomers in the field have run any risk whatever It was about the smaller, newer companies that the phrase "licence to print money" was used, because all the work had been done by the pioneers.
    All the programmes, or a lot of them, had been made. Westward Television, for instance, which would be covered by the Amendment and which would thus not be subject to the tax, would have all the programmes already provided in cans, made by the big four companies or imported from the United States. The vast majority of Westward's programmes could be shipped by train or air from London and Manchester to the West Country tomorrow.
    Therefore, they have everything laid on—even the Parliamentary lobby—and, I must repeat, these newer companies are not even taking the risks that the older companies took. They have, indeed, a licence to print money. Westward, the major company concerned in the Amendment, was one of 12 syndicates which were scrambling for the licence—the usual ugly scramble that goes on—and the present syndicate was chosen out of twelve eager applicants. Everything was laid on for it and now we are told that Westward cannot pay unless the tax is lifted.
    Mr. Maddan: I did not say that it could not pay. I rather excluded Westward from my remarks, since I had to choose an illustration and I pointed out that there were 500,000 homes in Westward's area. I was thinking particularly of territories like Border, which has less than 200,000 homes, which is very small.
    Mr. Mayhew: I did not say that Westward could not pay, either. I was referring to a statement made by Mr. Peter Cadbury, Westward's chairman, who is quoted in the Advertisers' Weekly as saying, in reference to the tax, "We just cannot pay it." Undoubtedly, this pleading of poverty is the normal beginning of every programme company, but while I am quoting Mr. Cadbury as saying, "We just cannot pay it", he tells a very different story way down in the West, because he is reported on 5th May, 1961, in the Advertisers' Weekly, as saying:
    "When Westward Television went on the air for the first time last Saturday, the advertising revenue for new bookings for the next four months was 80 per cent. higher than had been estimated."
    The same man had said, "We just cannot pay it."
    In the following seven weeks, Westward's advertising revenue went up from an estimated £70,000 to £120,000. But even allowing for that deduction, £108,000 remains which is £38,000 more than Mr. Cadbury had originally estimated—yet he can say that the company cannot pay the tax. Mr. Cadbury appears in rags and presents himself as such to Parliament and asks to be let off this trivial tax. He no doubt welcomes the spectacle of hon. Gentlemen opposite holding out their collection boxes on behalf of Westward.
    I hope that the Committee will give considerable consideration to this matter before agreeing that Westward, or any other company, cannot pay the tax. I doubt very much whether hon. Members would be prepared to lop this tax off these new television companies. On the contrary, I should say that the television tax goes too little way towards lowering the appalling and excessive profits that are being made by the programme companies.
    5.45 p.m.
    The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Anthony Barber): My hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin (Mr. Maddan) declared an interest in that he is concerned with Television Audience Measurement. It is not a very direct interest, but it is an interest which gives him every right to speak on this matter. Certainly, in this particular case, my hon. Friend has considerable knowledge about
    974
    the differences between the various programme contractors.
    The effect of the Amendment would be to restrict the new tax to advertisements transmitted from television stations which were in operation before Budget day. My hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin has had come correspondence with the Chancellor about this particular matter and, quite frankly, there is little that I can add to what my hon. Friend already knows. I thought it right to mention that the Amendment relates to television stations, because that gives it a certain consequence which I do not think is really the intention of my hon. Friend.
    It would mean that the Amendment would apply to any new station that might be set up in the service area, for example, of an old-established contractor, perhaps improving reception in a particular part of the area, and, in that respect, the Amendment is defective. But it is clear that my hon. Friend is concerned with the new programme contractors and I felt some slight embarrassment while listening to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew), when he was speaking against the Amendment, which I am also doing, because I would not go quite as far as he went.
    My hon. Friend is right, in general, in suggesting that the existing, the pre-Budget, contractors have the most profitable service areas, and, of course, that they have had the greatest length of time in which to exploit that position. Westward Television opened on 29th April and Border and Grampian are both due to open later this year. As my hon. Friend pointed out, these contractors serve, in the main, rural and more isolated areas, which are bound, I should have thought, to be less lucrative than the areas served by the existing companies.
    My hon. Friend said that the Chancellor should have considered the effects of the imposition of this new tax, and I can assure him that the Chancellor has done that. I should like to draw the Committee's attention to the way in which this tax will affect the new programme companies. It is admitted that these new companies will be concerned mainly with sparsely populated areas. This fact will have been taken into

    975
    account by the I.T.A. in fixing the rents for the use of the transmitting stations. There should be no doubt—whatever may be said by the hon. Member for Woolwich, and he gave some figures which I will not dispute—that these new television companies are operating in relatively sparsely populated areas and that this will be reflected in their tariff charges for the insertion of advertisements. These charges will, in many cases, be lower than the tariff charges of the companies serving in the larger centres of population.
    This fact would, of course, be irrelevant if this new tax were not related to the amount of revenue received by companies from advertising. But the tax is related to that, because this is an ad valorem duty and, consequently, it takes this into account, insofar as it is possible for indirect taxation to take it into account. I ask the Committee to take the view that it would be impossible to vary the rate of any Excise duty according, for example, to the financial position of the supplier of the excisable commodity or the part of the country where he is carrying on his business or the date when he began to do so. Once this were done, as my right hon. and learned Friend pointed out in the letter which he sent to my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin, it would be very difficult to know where to draw the line.
    This is not merely a hypothetical problem. It has been put forward in the past in relation to other forms of taxation. It has been suggested that new entrants into a trade or industry should be excused from indirect taxation. Claims are made, for example, that some new line of production should be relieved from Purchase Tax. It may be said that if this were done it would help some new line to make headway in the export markets, or that this relief should be given because in the past a great deal of money has been spent on research, but always we have felt it right as a matter of principle to refuse to give treatment of that kind.
    I pointed out that the rents payable to the Independent Television Authority will already have taken into account the nature of the particular area concerned. To the extent that the tariff charges will be lower, and because the duty is a duty ad valorem the burden on these com-
    976
    panies would be less. I repeat that we are only applying in this case the same principle which is already applied in the case of indirect taxation.
    I agree entirely with my hon. Friend that this is not a case of administrative difficulty. I believe that this proposal is right in principle, and I hope that my hon. Friend will be influenced by the fact that we are following the invaluable practice which has always applied in the case of indirect taxation. I believe, also, that because it is an ad valorem duty and will work out in the way I have mentioned, it is equitable, and I hope that with these explanations my hon. Friend will realise why the Government do not feel able to accede to his request and, consequently, will withdraw his Amendment.
    Mr. Maddan: I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary for his explanation of the difficulties relating to these smaller stations. We shall have to think about stimulating or organising as much competition as possible in the television broadcasting industry, and I fear that this duty does not do anything to bring that about. Nevertheless, I appreciate the points which have been made——
    Mr. Marcus Lipton: Divide.
    Mr. Maddan: If the hon. Gentleman will allow me to finish my speech he can decide whether he wishes to divide the Committee or not.
    Mr. Lipton: It is the hon. Gentleman's Amendment.
    Mr. Maddan: If anybody else wishes to divide, he may do so.
    I will not press this Amendment. I shall ask leave to withdraw it, but before doing so I wish to address some remarks to the hon. Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew). He must not suppose that every time an hon. Member rises from this side of the Committee he is doing so to represent some particular interests who have been briefing him with their own profits in view. Such thoughts are unworthy of the hon. Gentleman. If it is of the slightest interest to him, or, indeed, to any other hon. Members, I would state that there has not been any correspondence or contact or communication whatsoever on this subject between me and any of the programme companies, present or future.

    977
    I hope that the hon. Gentleman will understand that some of us, from the knowledge that we happen to have, like to probe and to find out what is in people's minds, and prefer to do so without imputations of the kind that the hon. Gentleman had in mind being made against us.
    I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Hon. Members: No.
    Amendment negatived.
    Mr. Ian MacArthur: I beg to move, in page 2, line 1, to leave out from "him" to the end of line 5.
    The Deputy-Chairman (Major Sir William Anstruther-Gray): It would be convenient to take with this Amendment the Amendments in page 2, line 2, after "contrary", to insert:
    "or unless there was in existence on the seventeenth day of April, nineteen hundred and sixty-one, a contract to provide the programme for a payment fixed by the contract or calculable by reference thereto".
    and in line 5, at the end to insert:
    (3) If the person providing the programme shall seek to recover the duty charged on or paid by him from the person liable to him for the payment so made or to be made, then the person so liable shall not be liable to pay in respect of any contract for the provision of television programmes a sum greater than the sum originally fixed by that contract.
    Mr. MacArthur: The effect of the Amendment is to remove from the Clause the power which it gives television companies to pass on the television advertisement duty to the advertiser. I must declare my interest as an associate director of an advertising agency.
    Mr. Michael Foot: On a point of order, Sir William. Would it not speed up the proceedings of the Committee if we were to alter the conventions of the House so that hon. Members opposite could declare if they have not an interest?
    The Deputy-Chairman: As the hon. Member knows, it is not within my power to alter the conventions of the House.
    Mr. MacArthur: I realise that the hon. Gentleman must have his fun. I hope he realises also that some of us think that it is our duty from time to time to
    978
    discuss this sort of question from our knowledge of advertising.
    In our earlier debate a number of hon. Members drew attention to the uncertainty which had existed about the intention which was in my right hon. and learned Friend's mind when he referred to the television advertisement duty proposal in his Budget speech. It was widely thought that this was intended to be a duty on the television companies. I suppose we could argue whether or not it is right to introduce an additional selective tax on companies which happen to make very large profits, but certainly in this instance television companies have enjoyed a near monopoly to which my right hon. and learned Friend referred in an answer a week or two ago. They have unquestionably made very large profits indeed.
    As it stands, the Clause will not achieve the end of taxing the television companies. Indeed, this was made very clear on 17th April, Budget Day, by Notice No. 330 issued by the Commissioners of Customs and Excise. Paragraph 4 of the notice stated:
    "…as indicated in the Budget speech, provision will be made in the Finance Bill to enable existing contracts to be amended to take account of the duty."
    I would say with respect that I was surprised to see a proposal of this kind authorising an amendment to be made to existing business contracts. The notice went on to say:
    "It is expected that this provision will entitle the programme companies to recover the amount of the duty from any person who is contractually liable to the company for the payment for inserting a dutiable advertisement…"
    This is a direct invitation to the companies to pass on the duty. Naturally enough, they were quick to respond, and a few days later the television companies issued a notice saying that the 10 per cent. duty would be passed on to the advertisers. It is true that in three cases the companies at the same time announced various rate reductions which have the effect of absorbing part or the whole of the duty. If this had been a universal and a long-term decision, it would have made the duty the more acceptable and in keeping with what was believed to be in my right hon. and learned Friend's mind. However, it was neither universal nor long-term. Only

    979
    three out of the ten companies have made an announcement of that kind. It is not long-term because it applies only to the summer months and, in effect, it is no more than a kind of special short-term rate reduction to attract business when commercial television runs through a comparatively difficult period.
    6.0 p.m.
    I ask the Committee to consider for a moment the action which, so far as we can judge, is being taken or will be taken by advertisers as a result of the proposed duty, in order to make clear that its effect on the television companies will be slight while the main burden will in time fall on other forms of advertising media which, I am sure, my right hon. and learned Friend does not wish to harm.
    If an advertiser uses television, he does so because he believes that that medium will reach the market he wants to reach economically and effectively, and I do not think that a duty of 10 per cent. will be sufficient to cause him to reverse that opinion.
    Mr. Emrys Hughes: There is a doubt in my mind. Is not the hon. Gentleman connected with some kind of advertising business, and should not he declare an interest?
    Mr. MacArthur: If the hon. Gentleman had done me the courtesy of coming in a little earlier, he would have heard me declare my interest at the beginnning of my speech. [HON. MEMBERS: "Withdraw."] I do not want a withdrawal from the hon. Gentleman. He made a mistake.
    The bookings which an advertiser makes on television are not, as some may believe, the outcome of a haphazard spending of an arbitrary sum of money; they represent a careful promotion programme based on his selling needs and a long and detailed study of the television bookings necesary to carry his commercial message economically to his market. In addition to its television campaign, a large-scale advertising company, at any rate, will almost certainly run advertising in national and provincial newspapers, the periodical Press, and so on, and here also bookings are made according to a carefully studied programme. The cost of this
    980
    advertising is met from a budget which is usually fixed from year to year and is determined by considerations such as the sales plan for the year, new product development, and so forth.
    I ask the Committee to reflect, against that background, on the position in which the advertiser finds himself today. Somehow, he has to pay for the television duty. In some cases, perhaps, the total advertising budget will be increased accordingly so that the extra money can be found. Then, of course, this becomes an additional cost of the business—ultimately, I suggest, a cost on the consumer. However, from what little I have been able to see of advertisers' decisions in this matter, I believe that the increasing of the total budget will occur in only a minority of cases and in most cases the advertiser will look at his existing budget in order to make the economies he needs to meet the television duty. Three possible ways of doing this come to mind.
    The first is that an advertiser may decide to cut his general television expenditure. He may, for example, decide to postpone his entry into the new television stations which have been referred to, the one in North-East Scotland and the one for the Border. Alternatively, he may decide to make a general cut in his television campaign. If he does this, it will weaken the effectiveness of the television bookings which he, in the first place, considered necessary to carry his message economically to the public. If he does make a cut somehow, his next advertising budget will, I suggest, probably be adjusted so that he can reintroduce the full schedule of bookings which he considers necessary. Such adjustments, I believe, would very likely be at the expense of other advertising media.
    The second possibility is that the advertiser may use his contingency reserve to make up some of the duty. That is reasonable enough, but it may perhaps be argued—this may be straining the point—that in that way the contingency reserve would not go to other advertising media as might otherwise be the case.
    Thirdly, the advertiser may decide—and, according to my knowledge in certain cases, already has decided—to retain his television campaigns and finance the duty by making cuts elsewhere in his advertising programme. As hon. Members

    981
    know, there are many publications today which have been losing ground. Some have gone completely out of business. It is this sort of publication which is today being cut from advertising schedules because they are often marginal media in the advertising sense. There are several national daily newspapers which come to mind. Many local newspaper are very weak in this respect. There are also the thoughtful periodicals, magazines and the like.
    My right hon. and learned Friend said earlier today, if I understood him aright, that this sort of argument had been advanced before and these media and publications have carried on despite tremendous increases in the amount of money spent on advertising. This is so, but it is a fact that the proportion of advertising money spent in this way has decreased considerably and, as we know, several publications have recently gone out of business, not wholly because of lack of advertising revenue, but, in some cases, partly because of that, without question.
    I suggest that these media, local newspapers particularly, have a very important rôle to play in our society.
    Mr. H. Wilson: We are trying to follow the hon. Gentleman's argument. Will he elucidate the point a little? I think he is telling us that the proportion of the total advertising expenditure devoted to these newspapers, periodicals, thoughtful magazines and the like is falling. Who is gaining? What form of advertising is gaining the increased proportion? If newspaper advertising is falling, where is the increase going?
    Mr. MacArthur: It is hard to define the sections of the Press, but I have in mind newspapers like the Daily Sketch, the Daily Herald, and, until recently, the News Chronicle. They have been falling—
    Mr. Wilson: What is gaining?
    Mr. MacArthur: A great deal of money was and is going to television, certainly. That was the point which my right hon. and learned Friend made. The point I make now is that, as advertisers examine their plans for the current year in order to find the estimated £7 million, without question there will be cuts in the advertising schedules embracing these special media.
    Mr. Wilson: If a higher proportion has been going year by year into television advertising, to the detriment of Press advertising, ought not the hon. Gentleman to be pressing his right hon. and learned Friend to make it more expensive to advertise on television and, therefore, at the margin, perhaps, influence more people to advertise in the papers?
    Mr. MacArthur: The right hon. Gentleman has missed the point. I am sorry if I did not make myself clear. Perhaps the point will be clear to him when he reads my speech in HANSARD.
    Those are some of the results which I expect from the introduction of this selective tax. I find it hard to believe that they were desired originally by my right hon. and learned Friend.
    The Amendment is designed to remove from the Clause the words giving power to the television companies to pass on the duty to the advertiser. We have not made any alternative proposal in the Amendment because we want to give my right hon. and learned Friend as much room for manoeuvre as possible, and we shall be very glad to withdraw the Amendment—I hope I speak for my hon. Friends associated with me in this—if he can see his way clear to look at the matter again. If my right hon. and learned Friend considers that some form of duty on television advertising is desirable—I agree that a strong case can be made out for it at this time of near-monopoly—I hope that he will be able to work out a method for raising the duty which will cause it to be met by the companies themselves and not by the advertisers.
    Earlier today my right hon. and learned Friend put forward an argument with which, with great respect to him, I am not in complete agreement, namely, that additional duties, taxes, and so on, invariably found their way to the consumer. All that I am asking is that, instead of inviting the companies, as we have done, to pass on this duty, we should leave the matter to the natural commercial balance of the advertising business itself. For example, hon. Members will know that the Independent Television Authority makes annual charges on the television companies for the use of the transmitters. Last year I believe that these charges amounted to

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    £3¾ million. It may be—I put this forward very tentatively—that my right hon. and learned Friend could devise some way, through the Independent Television Authority, of increasing these charges by £8 million, or whatever sum he feels should be levied from television. This tax, which is subject to the usual annual review, could run until such time as the present television companies lose their complete monopoly of commercial television advertising within their areas.
    I very much hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will consider the Amendment sympathetically.
    Mr. Emrys Hughes: I have no desire to do any injustice to the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur). I apologise to him for not being present at the beginning of his speech. If I had, I should not have interrupted him in the way that I did. However, he has raised the question as to how far an hon. Member is here to represent his constituents and how far he is here to represent certain interests. The advertising interests are very well represented in the House. There is a slight tendency—I put it no higher than that—for hon. Members to forget that they represent constituents. Sometimes they speak as though they were at a board meeting of their advertising companies.
    Sir James Duncan: I am a constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur), and as such I am perfectly satisfied with his speech. The reason is that he explained in his speech that if the tax fell on advertising it would also fall on the consumer and, therefore, on me.
    Mr. Hughes: I quite understand that sometimes there is considerable overlapping among Members of Parliament and that some hon. Members represent other hon. Members. I represent one of the Joint Under-Secretaries of State for Scotland. He is a constituent of mine. I am not sure that I always represent his views in the House to the extent that the views of the hon. Member for South Angus (Sir J. Duncan) are represented by the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire.
    Mr. MacArthur: I do not wish to labour this point. I am grateful for
    984
    what my hon. Friend and constituent the Member for South Angus (Sir J. Duncan) said. I think that the point I made was a fair one. I am like many other of my hon. Friends. We speak not as members of the advertising business so much as Members of this House who happen to have a specialised knowledge of the business which we feel should be placed at the disposal of hon. Members.
    Mr. Hughes: That point is over.
    I did not follow the hon. Gentleman when he came to the conclusion that the local Press would in some way be injured by this tax. I read the local Press of Scotland with great avidity, and I have not seen any tendency for advertising in it to diminish in recent years. I do not think that this proposal will injure the county Press, the city Press or the daily Press of Scotland, as the hon. Member argues. Press and television are closely bound up. In Scotland, the controller of Scottish television happens to be a newspaper proprietor who thinks purely in terms of the commercial possibilities of newspapers and does not hesitate to close them down if he thinks that it would be more profitable to do so.
    6.15 p.m.
    The real reason why so many local newspapers in Scotland are gradually being transferred to fewer and fewer hands is that that is the tendency of monopoly and it pays the big combines which own the newspapers to buy this or that newspaper. The Dumfries and Inverness newspapers, the Kilmarnock Standard and the Ayrshire Post have gradually gone into the hands of George Outram and Company. All this helps the advertising people.
    I have seen the advertising interests grow from quite small numbers. They all seem to be concentrated in the hands of a few monopolies. I do not think that by taxing television advertising the Chancellor of the Exchequer is contributing in any way to the disappearance of local and county newspapers in Scotland.
    Mr. Graham Page: I am obliged to you, Sir William, for saying that the Amendment in my name can be discussed with that of my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur). The point of my Amendment is much narrower than that of my

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    hon. Friend's. It is a fairly narrow legal point.
    It has been generally accepted in the debates on the Clause that this duty will be passed down the line to the advertiser and thence to the consumer. The apologies which my right hon. and learned Friend made to the programme companies in his Budget speech have been followed by something of a favour to them in subsection (2), which positively invites them to pass the tax down the line and to shuffle off their own liability. If they can do that legally, undoubtedly they will do so, and therefore there is no need to mention it in the Clause.
    However, it goes a great deal further than telling them that in ordinary trading matters they can pass on this tax. It goes to the extent of telling them that they can break an existing contract in order to pass on the tax liability. In fact they can refrain from passing on the liability only if there is an agreement to the contrary. Subsection (2) states that only if there is an "agreement to the contrary" are they prevented from passing the tax on to the advertiser and thence to the consumer. I apprehend that that does not include a contract which is silent on the point and that in order to prevent the passing on the contract must state to the contrary.
    He would be a very clever fellow who had made a contract dealing with television advertising duty prior to the Budget. I should not think that such a contract is in existence. However, there are in existence many contracts, which cannot be cancelled, for the forward taking of space on television—that is, contracts under which advertisers have already agreed with the programme companies to take space at a certain rate for the future. The advertiser has agreed to pay for his space at a fee. The programme company has agreed to provide programme time for it at a fee. In law, the programme company would have to pay for an unexpected tax of this sort unless it were let out of it by statute.
    The Clause operates retrospectively on existing contracts. It adds a liability to those contracts. It puts into a contract which has been made a statutory obligation on the advertiser to pay an extra 10 per cent. on the service which he has contracted with the programme company
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    shall be supplied to him. It is not putting a tax on a future purchase, as is normally done in the Finance Bill; it is putting a tax on something which a man is already committed to purchase. The advertiser has no chance in an uncancellable contract of this sort to adjust his expenditure or to rescind the contract.
    Mr. Julian Snow: I am not out of sympathy with what the hon. Member is saying. He is talking in the context of television advertising. In the context of Press advertising, is it not a fact that the Newspaper Proprietors' Association insists that the chargeable amount for space taken is the amount in force at the date of publication?
    Mr. Page: I should be out of order if I went into the question of contracts for Press advertising. I am dealing purely and simply with what I call the uncancellable contract with the programme contractors. There are such contracts in existence which bind an advertiser to pay for the programme at certain rates.
    There is a further consideration why this part of the subsection should be deleted or a proviso should be added in the form which I have put down in my Amendment. This further consideration is that the contract for television advertising is made between the programme company and the advertising agent. It is giving him a wrong name to call him an advertising agent, because he is a principal who enters into the contract as a principal with the programme company. Under subsection (2) the programme company can recover the whole of the money, including the tax, from the person who has contracted with it—that is to say, the advertising agent; but the subsection gives the advertising agent no right to recover it by law from his client, the advertiser.
    Undoubtedly a change is required in the drafting. There is a very strong reason for amending the Clause, because it could cause immense hardship to some agencies. I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will look at the subsection again, bearing in mind the question of the uncancellable existing contract and the nature of the contract as being between the programme company and the advertising agent.
    Mr. John Hall: I have a great deal of sympathy with the Amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur). Like many other hon. Members on both sides of the Committee who have spoken on this subject this afternoon, I was clearly under the impression, after listening with the greatest care to the Budget speech, that the intention was that this tax should be borne by the television companies and should not be passed on. Being one of the comparatively few hon. Members on this side of the Committee who were originally opposed to commercial television, and still to some extent remaining opposed to it, I was not strongly against the idea that television companies might have to meet a 10 per cent. tax. But I was horrified when I discovered that a power was to be given in the Bill to enable them to pass it on, indeed almost forcing the television contractors to pass it on.
    My Amendment, which I understand is to be considered with other Amendments now, like the Amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Page), deals with a much narrower point. I shall be happy not to move my Amendment, leaving it in favour of my hon. Friend's Amendment, which has the merit of being shorter, and is therefore presumably easier to understand.
    The point which my hon. Friend made is relevant and should command the sympathy of both sides of the Committee. On the one hand, we have almost a statutory obligation, and certainly a statutory right, given in the Clause for the programme contractor to pass on this 10 per cent. to those who are buying the television space or time, and yet, on the other hand, we have no right at all for the advertising agent to vary contracts which may be in existence buying space and television time for several months ahead. The advertising agent, or the principal in this matter, can possibly make arrangements with his clients to pass on that tax in turn to them, but there is no legal right enabling him to do so, and it seems to me wrong that having arrived at a decision after consultation with his clients, the advertising agent should be in a position of having committed himself to a total expenditure greater than that originally envisaged when he made arrangements with his client.
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    There is a further consideration to be borne in mind. If, as a result of the Amendment, a right is given for an existing contract between an advertising agent and a programme company to be varied so that he is not called upon to carry the extra burden of this tax and is thereby allowed to reduce the total sum which he was prepared to spend on television programmes over a certain period, we should not allow the client to be penalised. If the advertising agent is allowed to vary the arrangements, then the advertiser should also be allowed to vary his advertising budget and the arrangement which he has made with the advertising agent for his advertising programme over the same period.
    The main points about the Amendments have been well covered by previous speakers and I need not elaborate them. This seems to me a matter of justice and equity which would command the support of both sides of the Committee. It is a matter, I am certain, which has been overlooked by the Chancellor and the draftsmen, and I am certain that, having listened to the arguments, my right hon. and learned Friend is ready to accept, if not the Amendment, at least the principle enshrined in it. I hope that he is prepared to accept at least the principle of the Amendment.
    Mr. Donald Wade: I think that the Amendment deserves favourable consideration. The discussion has raised a more fundamental problem—namely, if the Chancellor is to raise revenue, is he doing it by the most appropriate method? It is doubtful whether he is.
    We have reached an extraordinary state of affairs. The Government have created a number of commercial monopolies, and at first sight it seems not unreasonable to tax some of the benefits created by the Government in permitting these commercial monopolies to flourish. But this Clause will not have that effect. It is clear from what has been said both by the Chancellor and in the course of the debate that the tax will not fall on the television programme companies. They are invited to pass on the burden of the tax to the advertiser, and most of it will fall on the consumer.
    I think that I follow the point made by the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur). I can see

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    the difficulty of the advertising agencies if they are allowed an overall figure for expenditure on advertising for particular products. They may have to cut the advertising expenditure on some other media, and it may well be that newspapers will suffer. I do not know whether they will, but it is possible, and I appreciate the point. But, in the main, the tax will fall upon the consumer. Certainly it will not come out of the profits of the television programme companies.
    6.30 p.m.
    I do not suppose that it will be in order to develop an alternative now; I would merely throw out a suggestion. I should like to see a much more radical proposal. I should like to see the collecting of revenue from advertising dissociated from the arrangement of programmes. The proper function of the programme companies should be to put on the best possible programme. It would be perfectly practicable for the advertising revenue to go to the Independent Television Authority and for the Authority to engage the programme companies to put on the best possible programmes and be paid well for doing so. They would not be expected or tempted to give so much of their attention and thought to raising income from advertising. The programme companies would be adequately paid. There would be ample funds from I.T.A. to pay them. I see no reason why that should not be done. An ample balance would still be held by I.T.A. I have been asked whether there is an alternative, and I say that there is.
    On the point dealt with by the Amendment, we are faced with the question whether it is right that the Chancellor should invite the breaking of contracts in this way, because that is in fact what is being done. On balance of principle, it is difficult to justify the contents of the Clause.
    Mr. John Hall: The hon. Member should make clear that it is a one-sided breaking of contracts.
    Mr. Wade: I entirely agree. It is a one-sided breaking.
    Mr. Chapman: We have reached an extraordinary situation. I expressed my protest earlier when I invited the Chancellor to tell the Committee exactly
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    what he had in mind when he introduced the new tax, and he said in his speech that he had faced the inevitable fact that this tax would be passed on. We have the extraordinary situation therefore that here is a Chancellor saying on the one hand, "Here is a good field of monopoly revenue which I ought to tax." One cannot explain his words in his Budget statement in any other way. The right hon. and learned Gentleman made rather a lot of fun out of the situation. He said that nobody could grumble that, having made a lot of money which they had been helped to obtain, they should now have to pay tax on it. But we now find that the tax will be passed on to somebody else. In allowing that to happen, the whole justification for the Clause disappears. The whole justification for the tax has disappeared in the course of our finding that it is to be passed on to other people.
    In the end we have a discriminatory tax on one particular form of advertising and not a tax on television profits. I might as well say to the Chancellor that he should introduce a tax on newspaper advertising. It is equivalent to this and could be done. We are now in complete chaos as a result of what has happened since the right hon. and learned Gentleman's opening remarks in his Budget speech. But it does not stop at that. I do not imply that he deliberately misled us, although looking back on it it looks pretty near it, but having connived at the impression that this would be a tax on television profits, the Chancellor reverses it first by means of this Clause, by inviting people to pass the tax on, and then, in the Customs and Excise statement which has been read out in this debate, by telling these people in so many words that that was the right way to do it.
    The Committee has been misled. We are debating quite a different tax from the one which we were led to believe was the tax when it was first introduced. The whole justification for it has been cut away by developments since the Budget speech. I feel so strongly about the way in which the Committee has been misled that on a purely non-party basis I will act as Teller with any hon. Member who will come with me to express our strong opinion about the way the Chancellor has misled us and the country.
    Mr. Mayhew: I am sure that the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. Chapman) has been listened to with sympathy on both sides of the Committee. Strangely enough, after the speeches of the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur) and the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page), I hope that my hon. Friends will support their Amendments. Indeed, I will go further and suggest that we withdraw our Amendment in favour of theirs. It is perfectly plain that the Chancellor has made an extraordinary muddle over the tax. It is clear that his original intention was to tax the programme companies. It is equally clear that he has now discovered that, as the Finance Bill is drafted he does not do so.
    Today the Chancellor went further and asserted that he cannot tax the programme companies without their recouping themselves by passing it on. He said that the programme companies are beyond his powers of taxation. We knew that they were powerful companies indeed. We have always said on this side of the Committee that their powerful monopoly and their link with the newspapers gave them undesirable power. We have said that they were excessively wealthy and that they spent far too much on public relations in this way and that by their control of patronage they were far too powerful. But this time we are told that they cannot be taxed by the Government. Of course they can be taxed if the Chancellor so wishes. A number of suggestions have been put forward on how the £8½ million could be raised from the programme companies.
    I ask the Committee which is best for the purpose of the tax—the advertisers or the programme companies? And I ask hon. Members not to suppose that by insisting upon a tax being paid by the programme companies we do not believe that the advertising industry is not also a perfectly fair target for taxation. On the contrary, as has already been said, it is one of the things that we would seriously consider if we were returned to power at the next Election. On the pros and cons of having the tax paid by the advertising industry or by the programme companies, I would point out that there is a great civil war going
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    on at the moment between the two. When times were good they acted together as a united crew but now bitter words are passing between them. As often in the history of buccaneering, when the Revenue cutter hoves in sight civil war breaks out on the pirate ship.
    It would be right to suggest that the best way to settle the controversy would be to provide that both should pay 10 per cent. They could both well afford it. It is hard to see how the public interest would be harmed by doubling the tax which the Chancellor has proposed and contributing the revenue to the purpose which my hon. Friends have suggested in the debate.
    It would be a curb on extravagance and waste in advertising in general and in television commercials in particular. I am not referring only to the cost of time for broadcasting commercials, which can go as high as £1,125 for 30 seconds. Quite apart from the expenditure on broadcasting time is the actual cost of making these commercials, ranging from £500 to £2,000 for a 30-second commercial, and sometimes more. Sometimes £2,800 has been spent on producing a 30-second film commercial, the equivalent of up to £100,000 or more for a 30-minute documentary.
    It is worth comparing the cost of a 30-minute, first-class documentary for public showing, which can cost between £10,000 and £12,000, one-tenth as much, or the cost of an industrial documentary for export purposes. A 30-minute black and white documentary would cost only £6,000 to £8,000. If we go slumming, and consider the cost of the films which the Government produce to sell Britain overseas through the Central Office of Information, there for a 30-minute black and white documentary film a cost of £4,000 or £5,000 is considered perfectly sufficient. What a contrast that is. One minute of film for advertising Britain abroad, £150 or less: one minute of commercial film for selling one detergent rather than another, £2,000 or more. There we have the contrast. Commercial enterprise gets something like 20 to 30 times more money per minute than the business of advertising Britain which, I think, both sides of the Committee would agree is an important thing to go for.

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    That is one part of the case for the advertiser paying—to try to cut down the extravagance of the commercials—but this is really not only a matter of money but also, of course, a matter of talent. It is a shocking thing to see how much talent in the film world, of the film director, the cameramen, and technicians of all kinds, is sucked away into this sterile process. The production people themselves do not like it. They feel a considerable animosity against the advertising agencies, the amateurs who order them about and interfere in their work and, indeed, pervert their talents. They feel a considerable animosity. But if one is a great, well-known film director, and if one is offered £500 for 24 hours' work, that makes a difference, and that has happened and is happening regularly, and thus it is not only a question of money, but a question of talent. If this tax fell on the advertising industry it would be healthy in as much as it would curb that kind of extravagance.
    It is difficult to work out estimates fully of the cost of television commercials themselves, but undoubtedly it is fair to judge that, year after year, I.T.V. is devoting more money and talent to its commercials than to its programmes, and indeed, is spending enough money on the commercials to sustain an entire new television channel. Hon. Members opposite may welcome it. We have heard some argument that this makes trade flow more, but I think that it will be the general feeling of public opinion that this amounts to a wicked waste of money and talent.
    Let us consider the case for the programme companies paying the tax. This undoubtedly was the original intention of the Chancellor. It was certainly what the newspapers assumed to be the case after the Budget speech. It was in those terms that the tax was welcomed by The Times and the Guardian. I should have thought that on grounds of equity and from every point of view the programme companies should have their profits taxed. This is a monopoly. Of course, in King James's day we had State monopolies, but they had to pay for the privilege. Today we have a State monopoly which apparently is unable to be taxed by the Chancellor and which seems to have the field to itself. His £8½ million started off as a feeble effort
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    to restore to the public millions of pounds which they paid in the shops for I.T.V. We find from the way this Clause is drawn that we have this extraordinary folly that it does not do anything of the kind. This is not in fact costing the programme companies a penny.
    6.45 p.m.
    I think it was the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire who said that the programme companies have made some statement about their future intentions. As I understand it, two of the companies, Tyne-Tees and Scotland, have stated that they will bear the full cost up to September—for what that is worth: it is only temporary. A.B.C. and Anglia have stated they will bear 50 per cent. of the cost up to September—for what it is worth: it is only temporary. But the rest, including Associated Rediffusion, whose deputy-chairman said a few days ago that his profits were immoral, and all the other programme companies are going to pass the 10 per cent. surcharge on to the advertisers.
    I read the Sunday Times yesterday. I read the statement about Mr. Norman Collins:
    "Almost overnight in 1958 his £2,250 investment became worth £501,000 and today he is almost certainly a millionaire."
    But not only a millionaire; as we know, a millionaire with a social conscience, deploring the immorality of the money he has made.
    The profits of the programme companies in general are not easily estimated. The estimate of £20 million is probably a considerable understatement. We were talking of the lesser profitability of the smaller companies and an hon. Member opposite made this plain. Southern Television is not one of the larger companies, but I happened to see this morning that it had declared an interim dividend on its £1 shares of £4 10s. free of tax. This kind of thing, as we all know, can be paralleled throughout the gamut of commercial television.
    Are they incapable of paying? Obviously not. Would it be unfair that they should pay? Obviously not. They are the most extravagant and excessively profitable organisations. Even the advertising agencies say that the programme companies are extravagant.

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    Perhaps I should read from a comment by an advertising agency on this point. It is part of the civil war which is going on between the agency advertisers and the programme companies. Here is a letter from the current issue of Advertiser's Weekly from Mr. John Major of the Major Advertising Agency Ltd.:
    "I suggest that if the contractors searched their empires for economies they could afford to pay a large part of this duty without passing it on. One has only to look at the expensive literature with which agencies are bombarding all the television contractors and which do not sell one second more of time to see very considerable economies could be made immediately."
    One would like to point out to Mr. Major that advertising agencies are not the only people to be bombarded by useless and extravagant advertising matter; also, perhaps, that he as an agency has not been bombarded, of course, by programme contractors: he has been bombarded by programme contractors' advertising agents. Therefore, it ill-behoves him, I think, to talk about the extravagance of advertising methods of programme companies.
    The fact is that these companies have themselves described their wealth as immoral, and the country is looking forward to some effort by the Chancellor to take back some of the ill-gotten gain which, as he himself has confessed, he put into their hands; to pay back to the public some of the millions of pounds which they have paid to those companies through the shops in recent years. He made a feeble start. He suggested a mere 10 per cent., a mere £8½ million, and he is not taking it from the people from whom it should primarily come.
    All these facts lead me to conclude that he should follow the advice of his hon. Friends below the Gangway. Whether they agree with what I have said about the need of advertisers to pay tax, I am not clear, but at least we can make common cause on this, that the programme companies pay the tax. Why not in a friendly, amicable spirit, have a united front on this proposition? Why not march unitedly through the Division Lobby behind what was the Chancellor's original intention?
    Mr. Barber: I rise to deal with some of the points which the hon. Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew) has
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    made. First, I would say that I do not understand how he and his hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, North-field (Mr. Chapman) can say that the House of Commons was misled by what my right hon. and learned Friend said in the course of his Budget statement. I have glanced through it again, and, in so far as it is possible to summarise what one intended to do by means of raising a particular tax, I thought that his criticism was wholly unjustified.
    Mr. Douglas Jay: Can the hon. Gentleman really think that the impression made on the House of Commons and the public by the Chancellor of the Exchequer's remarks about biting the hand he fed was that he was not going to tax the programme companies? If it did not mean that he was, what did it mean?
    Mr. Barber: I suppose that my right hon. and learned Friend should have prefaced that remark by explaining that it was a joke. Since this is bound up with the content of what he said, I will quote my right hon. and learned Friend's statement:
    "I am, therefore, proposing a duty of 10 per cent. on the charges made by the television programme contractors for the insertion of advertisements in programmes broadcast on or after 1st May."
    He went on to say:
    "Provision will be made to enable existing contracts to be amended to take account of the duty."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th April, 1961; Vol. 638, c. 817]
    I should have thought that that was a fair summary of what is contained in Clause 1.
    Mr. Jay: When I asked the Chancellor at the end of the Budget debate why he was selecting this form of advertising for tax, he said that it was because it was a monopoly form of advertising. Is it not obvious that the programme contractors and not the advertisers generally hold the monopoly?
    Mr. Barber: That is so. In so far as these Amendments are concerned with the question of whether or not the programme contractors should pass on the tax, which I intend to deal with at some length, I would only say by way of introduction that even if there are no such provision in the Bill as that which is now sought to be deleted, so far as future

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    contracts are concerned, it will always be open, as must be obvious to all in the Committee, to the programme contractors to pass on this duty in the same way as they can pass on increases of wages or any other additional costs. That is not the point which my hon. Friends have in mind in moving their Amendments.
    Mr. Chapman: It is not fair to say that the Chancellor gave a proper impression. He must explain why no single newspaper or public commentator differed from us in thinking that this was intended to hit the programme contractors. It is not good enough for the hon. Gentleman to wriggle out of it with a few phrases and to ignore the fact that the whole country had a contrary impression.
    Mr. H. Wilson: Will the hon. Gentleman explain the reaction of the Stock Exchange the next day? Their reaction was to take the Chancellor at his word.
    Mr. Barber: The shares rose again, so the Stock Exchange appreciated the meaning of what my right hon. and learned Friend said. The words are in black and white, as the hon. Gentleman fairly said. They are there for the hon. Gentleman to read.
    Each of these three Amendments raises the question of whether or not it is right to give the programme contractors the power, subject to any agreement to the contrary, to pass on the duty to the advertiser. The first two Amendments in page 2, line 1, and page 2, line 2, are very similar although certainly not identical, and the Amendment in page 2, line 5, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr. John Hall) deals with the matter in a rather different way. The effect of all these Amendments is to seek to deny to the programme contractors the legal right which is embodied in this Bill to recover the amount of the duty from their customers in respect of contracts made before the Budget for advertisements to be broadcast on or after 1st May.
    The first Amendment also removes the essential provision making it clear that the duly is 10 per cent. of the duty-exclusive payment for the insertion of any advertisement and not 10 per cent. of the payment including the duty.
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    My hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) said that what we were doing in framing Clause 1 in this way was providing a positive inducement to the programme contractors to pass on the duty. I think that it is right that the Committee should appreciate that for all practical purposes what we are concerned with in these Amendments is the position of existing contractors.
    Concerning the future, that, of course, is a matter for agreement between the programme contractors and the advertisers. My hon. Friend the Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur) asked whether, in future, we could not find some way of encouraging the programme contractors to shoulder the burden of the duty and not to pass it on. I think that if my hon. Friend will consider his proposal further, he will agree that there is in fact no way in which this can possibly be done in the future I shall return in a few moments to the case of existing contracts Concerning the future, this duty will undoubtedly and inevitably be looked upon by the programme contractors as one of their costs.
    As to contracts since the Budget, the programme contractors will obviously be free to pass on the duty. They will be free to do that in just the same way as any merchant can pass on the burden of any indirect tax or duty, if it is commercially feasible, and by that I mean if the conditions of supply and demand in respect of television advertising time will permit him to pass it on. I do not see, even if it were thought by the Committee desirable to do what my hon. Friend has suggested, how that could possibly be done in an Act of Parliament.
    In general, as I think the Committee knows, the programme contractors have stated that the duty will be passed on in respect of new contracts, although three or four of them, I am advised, have in effect decided to absorb half or all of it in respect of advertisements broadcast between now and next September. The practical effect of the words which the first Amendment and the others in effect propose to leave out is to give the programme contractor the same freedom to vary his existing contracts to take account of this new liability for duty as he of necessity has to vary the terms on which he would enter into new contracts.
    I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby, being like him a lawyer,

    999
    that it is a very serious matter when one takes power in an Act of Parliament to vary a contract, a solemn agreement which has been made between two or more people. Therefore, I agree with him that this is something which should be taken very seriously.
    I think that I should mention that, although the Clause gives the programme contractors legal right to recover the duty of existing contracts, the same commercial considerations come in here as they do on new contracts, and I am advised that some of the major programme contractors have announced that they are prepared, no doubt in order to retain good will, to allow existing contracts to be cancelled at less than the customary eight weeks' notice, and this gives the customer who is not prepared to pay the duty the opportunity of avoiding doing so and presumably, if he wishes to do so, to transfer his advertising expenditure elsewhere.
    7.0 p.m.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Crosby raised a point which had not occurred to my right hon. and learned Friend or myself previously. It was that the Clause, so my hon. Friend thought, permits a programme contractor to pass on the duty to the advertising agent but does not in terms permit the agent to pass it on to the advertiser. I should like to consider this. It would be difficult to give any undertaking off the cuff. I might mention that when the representatives of the advertising agents saw some officers from Customs and Excise only last Friday they did not mention this point. However, I will certainly look into it and see whether it is necessary that anything should be done about it.
    Mr. Jay: Can the hon. Gentleman say—it has not yet been explained—what is the purpose of having these words in the Clause? What objection is there to leaving them out?
    Mr. Barber: That is a point with which I am just about to deal. I was dealing with subsidiary points first. I am going on to deal with the main points, but, first of all, out of courtesy to my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe, I feel that I should say a word about his Amendment. His Amendment, unlike that in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and East Perthshire,
    1000
    is not open to the objection that it might be held to increase the incidence of the duty, and, therefore, from the point of view of the Treasury it has a certain advantage. Nevertheless, it is defective. I could give the Committee an example of the way in which it is defective, but suffice it to say, in short, that two subsections of the Clause as it would read if amended on the lines suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe would imply different amounts of duty on the same advertisement. If the Committee wishes me to pursue that, I will certainly do so.
    I now turn to what I believe by far the most important part of the arguments which have been put forward in support of these Amendments, and that is the statement that we are in this Clause taking power to vary existing contracts. It may be overlooked by the Committee that what we are doing is based, if I may so put it, on solid Victorian precedent. Indeed, we are adopting a principle which has always applied to Excise duties. As this is so important, and as we are considering three Amendments. I should like to draw the attention of the Committee to the provisions in two Acts of Parliament.
    The first is Section 20 of the Customs Laws Consolidation Act, 1876, which was concerned with tax on goods or commodities. This is a serious matter and I want to take the Committee through the stages because I know that some of my hon. Friends are concerned about it. The side-note to the Section reads:
    "When contracts have been entered into, amount of increased or decreased duty to be added or deducted."
    The Section reads:
    "In the event of any increase, decrease, or repeal of duties of Customs chargeable upon any goods or commodities after the making of any contract or agreement for the sale or delivery of such goods duty-paid, it shall be lawful for the seller, in case such increase shall accrue before the clearance and delivery from the warehouse of such goods at such increased duty, and after payment thereof, to add so much money to the contract price as will be equivalent to such increase of duty, and he shall be entitled to be paid and to sue for and recover the same…"
    That was in the 1876 Act and I will not go any further back than that. I would merely tell the Committee that that was a consolidation of earlier laws. It was

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    later amended and extended in Section 8 of the Finance Act, 1900, and was re-enacted in Section 10 of the Finance Act, 1901, which still applies to goods and commodities.
    Mr. Graham Page: That Statute gives warning to anybody who enters into a contract for goods that if a tax is applied at a future time it will be taken into account in a certain way. That is not retrospection. It is warning people who may have contracts. In this case it is definitely retrospective legislation affecting existing contracts.
    Mr. Barber: Perhaps I may proceed a little further. That Act was concerned, and is still concerned, only with goods and commodities. My hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) rightly said that this is in a sense an application of Purchase Tax to one form of advertising.
    So I go on to the next step in my argument, which is that when Purchase Tax was introduced it became necessary to take some similar powers and these powers appear in Section 24 of the Finance Act, 1948. The reason why the Section of the 1876 Act, which I read just now, does not apply to Purchase Tax is that in form Purchase Tax is not a tax on goods but is a tax on transactions. I will not weary the Committee with reading out Section 24 of the 1948 Act, but suffice it to say that, there again, provision is specifically taken for dealing with the question of an increase or a decrease in duty.
    In this Bill we are going one stage further in the sense that we have hitherto proceeded from changes in duty on goods to changes in duty on transactions. Now we are dealing with something new—services. It is only because this Clause is concerned with services that it has been necessary to take the specific powers which we have done.
    It is part of this traditional method of dealing with existing contracts on a change of duty that when the duty is reduced the seller under the contract must pass on the benefit of the reduction to his purchaser. Clause 1 makes the duty recoverable between the parties as an element distinct from the payment for the insertion. It follows that if in a future Budget the duty were reduced to, say, 7½ per cent. the advertiser who had
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    contracted before that Budget for the advertisement to be broadcast after the date when the duty was reduced would get his advertisement at a lower price than he had expected to pay.
    Mr. Nabarro: This form of tax in an Excise duty, and as an Excise duty it is subject to the economic regulator presumably. I should like my hon. Friend to confirm that. Surely it means that every time the economic regulator is applied to this form of duty, this difficult point about a plus or a minus will arise in the form of a contract. Is that the intention?
    Mr. Barber: I do not want to anticipate any discussion that we may have on a Schedule, but perhaps I might mention in answer to my hon. Friend that he will see that in paragraph 2 of the First Schedule, which contains supplementary provisions relating to this duty, a distinction is made between the date on which the duty is due and the date on which it is payable. This means that the due date will be the relevant date for any implementation of the economic regulator, and I think that when my hon. Friend appreciates that he will agree with me that there will not be any such practical difficulty as he has at the moment in mind.
    The point that I want to make to the Committee is that the power contained in Clause 1 is permissive. There is power for the programme contractor to pass on the duty. It is, and always has been, of the essence of any indirect tax or duty that the manufacturer or merchant who is accountable to the Exchequer may pass it on. The point at which the duty is payable is chosen in all these cases in the main for administrative reasons.
    Mr. Jay: The hon. Gentleman has developed a rather tortuous argument to show that there is respectable precedent for adopting this course, but he still does not seem to have told the Committee why the Government have to do it. I again ask him what, even assuming that there are respectable precedents for this, the Government's objection is to leaving out these words.
    Mr. Barber: It does not matter at all to the Exchequer. We would get the duty in any event. The only reason why this has been included in the Bill is that we have thought it the fairest way.

    1003
    [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] It is for the same reason that a provision was included by the Labour Government in 1948, by a Liberal Government in 1901, and by an earlier Government at the very beginning.
    Mr. Jay: But there is a new problem here—whether it is to be a matter of policy that the tax should be paid, even in the first instance, by programme contractors or by other companies.
    Mr. Barber: The right hon. Gentleman may have his own views on that. I believe that, if it is fair as a matter of principle to permit the tax to be passed on in the case of goods—transactions on which Purchase Tax is leviable—it is fair that the same principle should apply to taxation on services. All I wanted to do was to point out to my hon. Friends what I am bound to admit I did not appreciate when this matter was first considered—that the proposal was merely to extend a principle which had been applied to indirect taxation for a century or more.
    For my part, I do not rely on the fact that this principle has been applied hitherto throughout indirect taxation for many years. I rely in the main on the fact that I believe that this is a fair way of doing it.
    Mr. Mayhew: Why?
    Mr. Barber: For the same reason that it has always been applied to goods. It has always been applied to transactions. If the hon. Gentleman does not think it fair in this present case, I do not think that he could think it fair in the case of goods on which Purchase Tax is charged.
    Mr. Mayhew: The important question is: does the Chancellor want to make it possible for the programme contractors to pass the tax on?
    Mr. Barber: There are really two categories of contracts which we are considering. [HON. MEMBERS: "Answer."] This is important. The hon. Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew) has not told me which contracts he means. He knows that neither he nor I can prevent, in the future, this duty being passed on. It would be impossible for my right hon. and learned
    1004
    Friend to do so, even if he wanted to. In dealing with transitional provisions we are concerned with existing contracts, where we are following precedent and doing the right thing for the future. It is no good the hon. Member thinking that, in some way or other, my right hon. and learned Friend can prevent the programme contractors from passing on the burden. It is impossible for him to do so.
    7.15 p.m.
    Mr. H. Wilson: It is obvious that we shall have to hear what the Chancellor of the Exchequer has to say about this matter. The Economic Secretary has merely succeeded in further muddying waters which were already muddy at the start.
    Mr. Norman Pannell: He was very clear.
    Mr. Wilson: Perhaps the hon. Member would care to give us an explanation of what the Economic Secretary failed to explain. The Economic Secretary, at some length, drew a distinction between future contracts, in which, he said, no one can interfere with a contractor passing on the tax—indeed, from passing on more than the tax—on a cost plus basis, if he wishes, and existing contracts with which the Treasury wanted to deal. The only reason he gave for doing this was that Disraeli in 1876 considered it necessary. I must remind him that Disraeli's was not a Liberal Government.
    Mr. Nabarro: My hon. Friend said that the Government of 1901 was a Liberal Government.
    Mr. Jay: He said 1900.
    Mr. Barber: At any rate, there is solid Conservative precedent.
    Mr. Wilson: There is all the difference in the world between, on the one hand, the traditional form of passing on indirect taxation, such as arises in the whisky or cigarette duty, where one is dealing with a multiplicity of distribution outlets, and cases like this, on the other hand, where one is dealing with State created monopolies. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said as much in his Budget statement. He has taken the point. That is why I want him to reply to this debate.

    1005
    Where one has a monopoly of this kind, which has already been charging high rates, it seems wrong that not only should it be utterly free for the future, but that it should also be helped for the past. But that is what the Economic Secretary says will be the position if these Amendments are withdrawn or defeated. The Committee must consider whether these programme contractors should have the right to pass the tax on in this way.
    It has been rather interesting to listen to the debates of the last three and a quarter hours. Member after Member opposite has declared an interest. We do not complain about that, for it is in accordance with the convention of the Committee. Only a very small minority of Members opposite, of whom the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) is one——
    Mr. Nabarro: A distinguished one.
    Mr. Chapman: Was one, at any rate.
    Mr. Wilson: —have not had any interest to declare. It would have been a refreshing change if we had heard a few Members opposite rising in their places to represent the consumers. The hon. Member for Kidderminster went wide on the subject, however, and I wish we could have followed him on some of the suggestions he made.
    Mr. Nabarro: Wait until a quarter of an hour from now.
    Mr. Wilson: In declaring their interest with monotonous regularity, they said, "Oh, no. We are not representing these interests in advertising and commercial television. We are just Members doing our share in bringing to fulfilment our special expert knowledge of this problem."
    That attitude has all the vanity and smoothness of the profession which it represents. It suggests that they are just here to help the rest of us laymen who are merely here to represent the consumer. The extraordinary thing is that all of them coming with this expertise gave the same view of the Amendment. Some of us cannot forget that in 1952 the advertising lobby in the House was very powerful and took advantage of the then smaller majority of the Conservative
    1006
    Government to force commercial television on that reluctant Government.
    Mr. Maddan: No.
    Mr. Wilson: The figures are there, and they are quite plain. The hon. Member for Hitchin (Mr. Maddan) has only to look them up to see the size of the advertising lobby.
    Mr. Maddan: If the right hon. Gentleman's argument were carried to a logical conclusion, the hon. Member for Rother-ham (Mr. Jack Jones) should not speak in a debate on steel.
    Mr. Wilson: I am not aware that my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham has a financial interest in the steel industry similar to the interests disclosed by Members opposite in this debate. My hon. Friend has a full knowledge of the steel industry, and has the right to represent the steel workers with whom he has worked for many years. He has not just been found a job in the steel industry, as has happened so much in the advertising industry, which is, to some extent, a mushroom industry.
    The Committee must watch with care some of the specious arguments put forward on behalf of so powerful and slick a lobby as the advertising lobby. Having said that, I propose to ask my hon. Friends to support the Amendment, but only as a choice of evils. We have to decide whether this tax—and we agree that it is a good thing that the Chancellor has finally decided to impose it—should be placed on the contractors, who have been given a monopoly franchise by the Government, or whether they should be free to pass it on.
    The first question is whether there should be taxation on advertising at all. That is something which we shall be able to debate better when we come to the Motion "That the Clause stand part of the Bill", but I want here and now to say, because it is relevant to this question of apportionment, that there is a great deal of hypocrisy and humbug talked about the way in which advertising expenditure is supposed to lower production costs. To a large extent it does not lower but increases production costs, and I will deploy that argument later. Where it increases demand for production to a point where production economies can be applied, there may be an argument for saying that it reduces costs, but, with

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    advertisements for petrol and so on, where there is no increase in demand, the only result of advertising is to add to the costs which the consumer has to pay.
    A great deal of the advertising which we are now discussing is connected with invading or repelling the markets of other products, either trying to invade someone else's market, without increasing total demand for the products, or defending one's own market against someone else who is trying to invade it. No one pretends that more motor cars will be driven further because of the advertising of petrol, so that there are no production economies to be made as a result of such advertising and at the end of the day someone has to pay all those lush costs, and it is obvious that that person is the consumer.
    Therefore, we have to consider whether it is right that the programme contractor on the one hand, or the advertiser on the other should pay these costs. One the whole, most hon. Members, certainly on this side of the Committee, feel that it is right that the programme contractor should bear this tax and not be free to pass it on, for the reason, given on a number of occasions, that this is a quasi-monopoly often making very large profits and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew) pointed out, large capital gains in some of the more spectacular cases. It therefore seems reasonable that the programme contractors should bear the cost.
    That does not mean that we think that the advertising industry could not bear its mede of taxation, but that would have to be done in a different way, and to say how it could be done would be to incur your displeasure, Mr. Hynd, as getting out of order, but we have said it many times in the past.
    How would it be possible to prevent the passing on of this tax in respect of existing contracts, the point mentioned by the Economic Secretary? Obviously, there would be some protection if any of the Amendments were accepted. That would deal with the past. The Economic Secretary is right when he says that there does not seem to be any way, by means of Amendments to the Finance Bill, of preventing these monopolies
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    from passing on the charges in future contracts. The only way to do it would be by some kind of price freeze for contracts, and that would be an unmanageable provision to put into a Clause of this kind, or even into a Schedule.
    However, the Chancellor has already expressed his interest in what may come out of the Pilkington Report, and I hope that he will make it quite clear that he does not want these monopoly programme contractors to pass on these charges. The problem would be solved, if he were to say that, having listened to all the debate, he was quite sure that the general sense of the Committee and of the country was that the monopolies were rich enough to be able to bear this extra burden, and that he was looking to them not to pass on these charges and that, if they did, then before the Finance Bill became law he would consider altering the whole basis, so that instead of it being an excise duty it would become a tax on profits. I am certain that I would be out of order if I suggested, on this Amendment, that what we want is a tax on the profits, although if there were a tax on profits we would not have had to spend one and a half hours debating this problem, as we have done.
    Therefore, although it is out of order to suggest this as an alternative, or to move an Amendment to that effect, because it would be outside the Money Resolution, if the Chancellor would murmur those harmless and innocuous words which I have suggested, he would give a great deal of comfort to his hon. Friends and would make clear his intentions about the absorption of this tax by the programme contractors.
    Sir Harmar Nicholls: Is the right hon. Member seriously suggesting that we should move from government by legislation to government by exhortation and threats? Does he think that that would be a healthy trend to follow?
    Mr. Wilson: The Government, of which the hon. Member has been a member and which he has supported so solidly over the last ten years, have done nothing but that in many directions. One can think of wage restraint, about which there have been threats, and divided restraint and the Chancellor's own threats and appeals about business

    1009
    expenses in this year's Budget statement. However, to respond to the challenge would mean that I would be getting out of order, which I do not want to do.
    Sir Derek Walker-Smith: Without getting out of order, can the right hon. Gentleman give any precedents for what would be a discriminatory profits tax, which is what his suggestion would mean?
    The Temporary Chairman (Mr. H. Hynd): I think that this will have to stop. We ought to concentrate on the Amendment.
    Mr. Wilson: I will concentrate on the Amendment and keep in order and at the same time give the right hon. and learned Member for Hertfordshire, East (Sir D. Walker-Smith) some help on this matter by saying, as I have said, that there is all the difference in the world between indirect taxation, or profits taxation, when dealing with a competitive situation and when dealing with a monopoly situation. It would be perfectly appropriate to have a discriminatory profits tax, just as it is perfectly appropriate to have a discriminatory commodity tax, when dealing with a monopoly and not with a competitive situation, which forms the basis of the excise duty quoted by the Economic Secretary. It is true that I myself last year suggested an excise duty on administrative grounds as a means of handling this situation, but it appears, in the light of experience gained since that Budget that the only way to prevent this tax from being passed on is to tax profits.
    In order to give himself time to study the situation, I hope that the Chancellor will accept the Amendment and deal with the future by reference to a possible tax on profits. My hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, East has made it plain that we are in some difficulty in having to arbitrate between the monopoly programme contractors on the one hand and the advertising industry on the other. We regard both as over-inflated and over-prosperous in contrast with other parts of the national economy which are a great deal less prosperous. But if one has to choose between the two, our choice is that the Amendment should be accepted and that the charge should fall on the monopoly programme
    1010
    contractors and that the Chancellor should use his ingenuity and that of his Department to find other means of dealing with the case of advertising and the burden which it places on national resources.
    7.30 p.m.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: I want to say a few words in reply to the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson), and also in reply to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Mr. Chapman), who accused me of having misled the Committee in my Budget speech. I want to make the point absolutely clear. I said:
    "First, I propose to look to expenditure on television advertising"—
    that is not the profits of programme companies, but expenditure on television advertising—
    "for a modest contribution to the Exchequer. I am, therefore, proposing a duty of 10 per cent. on charges made by the television programme contractors for the insertion of advertisements in programmes broadcast on or after 1st May. Provision will be made to enable existing contracts to be amended to take account of the duty."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th April, 1961; Vol. 638, c. 817]
    I said that quite clearly. I referred to expenditure on television, and I gave fair warning that I was going to ask for contracts to be amended. Whether that is right or wrong, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Huyton said, it is difficult to discriminate between advertisers and television contractors.
    Mr. Chapman: The right hon. and learned Gentleman must read the second paragraph. As is inevitable in a Budget speech, a lot of phrases go through quickly. The impression created when there are a lot of figures and short sentences is not always taken. But what was taken was the impression created by the next paragraph, when the right hon. and learned Gentleman said:
    "…I am sure that those concerned with the payment of the duty will not mind too much being bitten by the hand which originally fed them."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th April, 1961; Vol. 638, c. 817.]
    The right hon. and learned Gentleman did not feed the advertisers when he agreed to commercial television. He fed the programme contractors. We understood that it was the television contractors whom he was biting, and so did the Committee.
    Mr. Lloyd: I am not responsible for what the hon. Gentleman understood. What I said is clear, and the frivolous part of my speech dealt with the people who benefited from the introduction of television, and that includes the advertisers who use commercial television. The accusation that I was misleading the Committee was unworthy of the hon. Gentleman.
    The right hon. Member for Huyton asked whether we were right to have this proviso with regard to passing on. I think that we were right to follow the precedent, because it outs both ways. If the duty is reduced, it means that the reduction can also be passed on. But, basically, I think that the right hon. Gentleman is right. I think that he agreed with this part of "Lloyd's Law" that indirect taxation will, broadly speaking, be passed on. There may be a squeezing of profit margins and some increased efficiency because of increased taxation, but if the market will take it indirect taxation will be passed on.
    I do not think it is feasible or wise to start discriminatory rates of Profits Tax. I assure my hon. Friend that this is not a threat or an exhortation. It is a statement of the obvious. The Pilkington Report will be examined by the Government. The time will come when these franchises will have to be renewed, and what has taken place in the meantime will be carefully considered.
    Mr. John Hall: I would be deceiving the Committee if I said that I was not disappointed with those parts of my hon. Friend's speech which referred to the Amendment in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Page), and the Amendment in my name. I am prepared to agree that my Amendment is not perfect. It may not have quite the effect that I intended, but I said in my opening remarks that I was prepared to have it amended in any way in which it was thought fit to give effect to the principle which we are trying to establish.
    The principle is this. On the one hand, there is a duty imposed on the television programme contractors which they have a right to pass on. On the other hand, there are people who will be forced to pay this additional duty but who have no right to vary their contracts, so that over the period of the
    1012
    contracts they are not forced to pay more money than they originally intended to pay.
    The advertising agent will undoubtedly pass this on to his clients. His clients will be committed to a programme which they did not originally anticipate. We are asking for simple justice. We are asking that they should be allowed to adjust their contracts so that they do not pay more in a given period than they intended to pay. I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend will have second thoughts about this.
    Mr. Graham Page: On a point of order, Sir Norman. I ask for your guidance on the Amendments that we have been discussing and which ones you intend to call because that may assist us in deciding which Amendments to vote on, and which not to vote on should there be a Division.
    We have been discussing the Amendment in page 2, line 1, the Amendment in line 2, and the Amendment in line 5. I do not know what my hon. Friends propose to do about the Amendment in line 1. The hon. Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew) also mentioned the Amendment in page 2, line 1, leave out from "him" to end of line 13. He said that he would not formally move that Amendment, although I understand that it has been selected.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr. John Hall) evidently does not intend to move the Amendment in page 2, line 5, which leaves my Amendment to line 2. If we could have some guidance about whether you intend to call the Amendment to line 2—it has been discussed already—it might assist us in considering the first Amendment to line 1.
    Mr. H. Wilson: What my hon. Friend was seeking to convey was that he did not intend to move the Amendment to page 2, line 1, leave out from "him" to end of line 13. Although I understand that it has been selected, we do not intend to move it. That leaves us with the Amendments to line 1, to line 2, and to line 5.
    The Amendment to line 1 has been moved, and the debate has been on the three Amendments to which I have just referred. Presumably, the Question will be put on the Amendment to line 1, but

    1013
    I join the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) in asking whether it is your intention to put the Question on the Amendments to line 2, and to line 5, after the Amendment to line 1 has been disposed of.
    Mr. John Hall: I have stated that I am willing to withdraw my Amendment in favour of the Amendment in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby.
    The Temporary Chairman (Sir Norman Hulbert): That Amendment has not been moved. It is my intention to put the Question only on the Amendment to page 2, line 1, leave out from "him" to the end of line 5.
    Mr. MacArthur: It would assist me and many of my hon. Friends if we could have the answer to two questions. If they have been answered in the course of the interesting legal discussion which has taken place, I ask for the indulgence of the Committee.
    I understand that if the Amendment were accepted it would have the effect of enabling existing contracts to stand, and in effect the television companies would finance the duty represented by those contracts, but that any future contracts would be subject to increased rates, or whatever was the commercial practice of the television companies. If that is so, despite the precedent mentioned by my hon. Friend, I would have thought that that was reasonable in present circumstances, but perhaps I have overlooked some legal implication.
    My second point concerns the intention of my right hon. and learned Friend. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the Committee are obliged to my right
    hon. and learned Friend for explaining what was in his mind in the first part of his Budget statement about the levy of a duty on advertising on television. It might be possible for my right hon. and learned Friend to express the hope that television contractors will find some way themselves of absorbing some part of this duty instead of necessarily passing on to advertisers the full 10 per cent., which most of them are doing at present.
    Mr. Barber: I will answer the second point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur) first. As for my right hon. and learned Friend's intention, I do not think I can go further than to remind my hon. Friend of what the Chancellor said in his Budget speech, and also what he has just said in reply to the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson).
    My hon. Friend was quite right in his interpretation of the effect of the Amendment upon old contracts, and the effect of the Clause on new ones. The only other point—which the Committee may have lost sight of during the varied discussion we have had—is that which was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page), about the Clause permitting the programme contractor to pass on the duty to the advertising agent without, in terms, permitting the agent to pass it on to the advertiser. I can assure my hon. Friend that the Chancellor will look into the matter and, if necessary, move an Amendment to deal with it at a later stage.
    Question put, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause:—
    The Committee divided: Ayes 237, Noes 176.

    Division No. 168.]

    AYES

    [7.42 p.m.

    Agnew, Sir Peter

    Boyle, Sir Edward

    Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)

    Aitken, W. T.

    Brewis, John

    Cleaver, Leonard

    Allason, James

    Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter

    Cole, Norman

    Arbuthnot, John

    Brooman-White, R.

    Cooke, Robert

    Balniel, Lord

    Brown, Alan (Tottenham)

    Cordle, John

    Barber, Anthony

    Browne, Percy (Torrington)

    Corfield, F. V.

    Barlow, Sir John

    Bryan, Paul

    Costain, A. P.

    Baxter, Sir Beverley (Southgate)

    Buck, Antony

    Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. O. E.

    Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton

    Burden, F. A.

    Currie, G. B. H.

    Bell, Ronald

    Butcher, Sir Herbert

    Dalkeith, Earl of

    Berkeley, Humphry

    Campbell, Sir David (Belfast, S.)

    Dance, James

    Bevins, Rt. Hon. Reginald (Toxteth)

    Campbell, Cordon (Moray & Nairn)

    d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

    Biggs-Davison, John

    Carr, Compton (Barons Court)

    Deedes, W. F.

    Bingham, R. M.

    Carr, Robert (Mitcham)

    de Ferranti, Basil

    Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel

    Cary, Sir Robert

    Digby, Simon Wingfield

    Bishop, F. P.

    Channon, H. P. G.

    Donaldson, Cmdr, C. E. M.

    Bossom, Clive

    Chataway, Christopher

    Doughty, Charles

    Box, Donald

    Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)

    du Cann, Edward

    Duncan, Sir James

    Kaberry, Sir Donald

    Ramsden, James

    Eccles, Rt. Hon. Sir David

    Kerans, Cdr. J. S.

    Rawlinson, Peter

    Eden, John

    Kerr, Sir Hamilton

    Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin

    Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

    Kershaw, Anthony

    Rees, Hugh

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

    Kimball, Marcus

    Rees-Davies, W. R.

    Emery, Peter

    Kitson, Timothy

    Renton, David

    Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn

    Lagden, Godfrey

    Ridley, Hon. Nicholas

    Errington, Sir Eric

    Langford-Holt, J.

    Ridsdale, Julian

    Farey-Jones, F. W.

    Leburn, Gilmour

    Roots, William

    Farr, John

    Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

    Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard

    Finlay, Graeme

    Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

    Russell, Ronald

    Fisher, Nigel

    Lilley, F. J. P.

    Scott-Hopkins, James

    Fletcher-Cooke, Charles

    Lindsay, Martin

    Sharples, Richard

    Forrest, George

    Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)

    Shaw, M.

    Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)

    Longbottom, Charles

    Simon, Rt. Hon. Sir Jocelyn

    Freeth, Denzil

    Longden, Gilbert

    Skeet, T. H. H.

    Gammans, Lady

    Loveys, Walter H.

    Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'rd Chiswick)

    Gardner, Edward

    Low, Rt. Hon. Sir Toby

    Smithers, Peter

    Gibson-Watt, David

    Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

    Smyth, Brig. Sir John (Norwood)

    Glyn, Dr. Alan (Clapham)

    McAdden, Stephen

    Spearman, Sir Alexander

    Goodhart, Philip

    McLean, Neil (Inverness)

    Speir, Rupert

    Gower, Raymond

    McMaster, Stanley R.

    Stanley, Hon. Richard

    Grant, Rt. Hon. William

    Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)

    Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)

    Grant-Ferris, Wg Cdr. R.

    Maginnis, John E.

    Stodart, J. A.

    Green, Alan

    Maitland, Sir John

    Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm

    Gresham Cooke, R.

    Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir R.

    Studholme, Sir Henry

    Grimston, Sir Robert

    Markham, Major Sir Frank

    Sumner, Donald (Orpington)

    Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.

    Marlowe, Anthony

    Talbot, John E.

    Gurden, Harold

    Marples, Rt. Hon. Ernest

    Tapsell, Peter

    Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)

    Marshall, Douglas

    Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

    Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.W.)

    Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)

    Taylor, W. J. (Bradford, N.)

    Harris, Reader (Heston)

    Mawby, Ray

    Temple, John M.

    Harrison, Brian (Maldon)

    Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

    Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret

    Harrison, Col. J. H. (Eye)

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

    Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)

    Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesf'd)

    Mills, Stratton

    Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin

    Harvie Anderson, Miss

    More, Jasper (Ludlow)

    Tiley, Arthur (Bradford W.)

    Hastings, Stephen

    Morgan, William

    Tilney, John (Wavertree)

    Hay, John

    Morrison, John

    Turner, Colin

    Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

    Nabarro, Gerald

    Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.

    Henderson, John (Cathcart)

    Nicholls, Sir Harmar

    Tweedsmuir, Lady

    Henderson-Stewart, Sir James

    Nicholson, Sir Godfrey

    van Straubenzee, W. R.

    Hendry, Forbes

    Nugent, Sir Richard

    Vane, W. M. F.

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

    Oakshott, Sir Hendrie

    Vickers, Miss Joan

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

    Orr-Ewing, C. Ian

    Vosper, Rt. Hon. Dennis

    Hinchingbrooke, Viscount

    Osborn, John (Hallam)

    Walder, David

    Hirst, Geoffrey

    Page, John (Harrow, West)

    Walker, Peter

    Hobson, John

    Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale)

    Watts, James

    Hocking, Philip N.

    Partridge, E.

    Webster, David

    Holland, Philip

    Pearson, Frank (Citheroe)

    Whitelaw, William

    Hollingworth, John

    Peel, John

    Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)

    Hopkins, Alan

    Percival, Ian

    Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

    Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Patricia

    Peyton, John

    Wise, A. R.

    Howard, John (Southampton, Test)

    Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth

    Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

    Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John

    Pike, Miss Mervyn

    Wood, Rt. Hon. Richard

    Hughes-Young, Michael

    Pilkington, sir Richard

    Woodhouse, C. M.

    Hutchison, Michael Clark

    Pitman, I. J.

    Woodnutt, Mark

    Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

    Pott, Percival

    Woollam, John

    Jackson, John

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

    Worsley, Marcus

    James, David

    Prior, J. M. L.

    Yates, William (The Wrekin)

    Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)

    Profumo, Rt. Hon. John

    Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

    Pym, Francis

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

    Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

    Quennell, Miss J. M.

    Mr. Edward Wakefield and

    Mr. Chichester-Clark.

    NOES

    Ainsley, William

    Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

    Fletcher, Eric

    Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

    Crossman, R. H. S.

    Foot, Dingle (Ipswich)

    Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

    Cullen, Mrs. Alice

    Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)

    Bacon, Miss Alice

    Darling, George

    Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)

    Baxter, William (Stirlingshire, W.)

    Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

    Galpern, Sir Myer

    Bence, Cyril (Dunbartonshire, E.)

    Davies, Harold (Leek)

    George, LalyMeganLloyd (Crmrthn)

    Benson, Sir George

    Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

    Ginsburg, David

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

    Deer, George

    Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.

    Bowles, Frank

    Delargy, Hugh

    Gourlay, Harry

    Brockway, A. Fenner

    Dempsey, James

    Grey, Charles

    Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

    Diamond, John

    Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

    Brown, Thomas (Ince)

    Dodds, Norman

    Griffiths, W. (Exchange)

    Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

    Ede, Rt. Hon. C.

    Gunter, Ray

    Callaghan, James

    Edelman, Maurice

    Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)

    Castle, Mrs. Barbara

    Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

    Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvil (Colne Valley)

    Chapman, Donald

    Edwards, Walter (Stepney)

    Hall, John (Wycombe)

    Chetwynd, George

    Evans, Albert

    Hamilton, William (West Fife)

    Cliffe, Michael

    Fernyhough, E.

    Hannan, William

    Collick, Percy

    Finch, Harold

    Hart, Mrs. Judith

    Corbet, Mrs. Freda

    Fitch, Alan

    Henderson, Rt. Hn. Arthur (Rwly Regis)

    1016

    1017

    Herbison, Miss Margaret

    Mellish, R. J.

    Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

    Hill, J. (Midlothian)

    Millan, Bruce

    Snow, Julian

    Hilton, A. V.

    Milne, Edward J.

    Sorensen, R. W.

    Holman, Percy

    Mitchison, G. R.

    Steele, Thomas

    Hornby, R. P.

    Moyle, Arthur

    Stewart, Michael (Fulham)

    Houghton, Douglas

    Neal, Harold

    Stonehouse, John

    Howell, Denis (B'ham, Small Heath)

    Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)

    Stones, William

    Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

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

    Strachey, Rt. Hon. John

    Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

    Oliver, G. H.

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

    Hunter, A. E.

    Oram, A. E.

    Swingler, Stephen

    Janner, Sir Barnett

    Oswald, Thomas

    Sylvester, George

    Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas

    Owen, Will

    Symonds, J. B.

    Jones, Dan (Burnley)

    Padley, W. E.

    Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

    Jones, Elwyn (West Ham, S.)

    Page, Graham (Crosby)

    Taylor, John (West Lothian)

    Jones, Jack (Rotherham)

    Paget, R. T.

    Thomas, George (Cardiff, W.)

    Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

    Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)

    Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

    Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

    Pargiter, G. A.

    Thompson, Dr. Alan (Dunfermline)

    Kenyon, Clifford

    Parker, John

    Thorpe, Jeremy

    Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

    Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)

    Tomney, Frank

    King, Dr. Horace

    Peart, Frederick

    Ungoed-Thomas, Sir Lynn

    Lawson, George

    Pentland, Norman

    Wade, Donald

    Ledger, Ron

    Popplewell, Ernest

    Wainwright, Edwin

    Lee, Frederick (Newton)

    Prentice, R. E.

    Warbey, William

    Lipton, Marcus

    Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

    Weitzman, David

    Loughlin, Charles

    Probert, Arthur

    Wells, Percy (Faversham)

    MacArthur, Ian

    Redhead, E. C.

    Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

    McCann, John

    Reid, William

    White, Mrs. Eirene

    McKay, John (Wallsend)

    Rhodes, H.

    Whitlock, William

    Mackie, John

    Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

    Wigg, George

    MacMillan, Malcolm (Western Isles)

    Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

    Willey, Frederick

    MacPherson, Malcolm (Stirling)

    Robertson, John (Paisley)

    Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

    Maddan, Martin

    Rogers, G. H. R. (Kensington, N.)

    Willis, E. G. (Edinburgh, E.)

    Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

    Ross, William

    Wilson, Rt. Hon. Harold (Huyton)

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

    Royle, Charles (Salford, West)

    Woof, Robert

    Manuel, A. C.

    Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.

    Yates, Victor (Ladywood)

    Mapp, Charles

    Short, Edward

    Marquand, Rt. Hon. H. A.

    Skeffington, Arthur

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

    Marsh, Richard

    Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

    Mr. Charles A. Howell and

    Mason, Roy

    Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)

    Mr. Ifor Davies.

    Mayhew, Christopher

    Small, William

    Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.
    Mr. Jay: I begin by declaring that I have no interest whatever either in programme contracting or the advertising industry. One of the remarkable features of this debate has been the high degree of expertise on advertising questions shown by hon. Members opposite, and, curiously enough, the expertise all seems to lie in one direction. I think we have established by this proposal and the debate today that, at any rate, it is practicable to tax advertising.
    In the past, there have been many discussions about the desirability or practicability of placing a tax on advertising. Many people have argued that it simply was not a practical course. Now, thanks to the Chancellor, we have learned that it is not so difficult to put a tax on at least certain forms of advertising. We have here what the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) quite reasonably calls a type of Purchase Tax on this form of advertising at the simple rate of 10 per cent.
    I know that in the past the Inland Revenue has been inclined to argue that a tax of this kind could be levied by
    1018
    Customs and Excise and Customs and Excise has argued that it could be levied by the Inland Revenue, but neither has been anxious to do it. Now we have at least solved this part of the problem. We know that it is possible in this simple fashion for Customs and Excise to impose a tax on advertising. The next question which the Committee must ask before we leave this Clause is, what good reason is there for selecting this particular form of advertising for a tax and excluding the rest?
    I asked that question of the Chancellor in the middle of his speech winding up the Budget debate. The reply which the right hon. and learned Gentleman gave was perfectly clear. He said that there was a justification for this selective tax because here we were dealing with monopolies and monopoly profits. The first comment I make about that is that it opens up interesting possibilities. These are not the only monopolies with which we are faced in the commercial life of this country, or semi-monopolies, either. This argument which the Chancellor has introduced, and which I certainly think has some validity, carries us a long way. If it is justifiable to have discriminating taxes on these

    1019
    monopolies, no doubt it is justifiable to have them on other monopolies. It may be said—as has been said in this case—that it is only justifiable where the Government, by granting a franchise, have themselves created a monopoly.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: The hon. Gentleman said that he was quoting me. Will he tell me where in my speech is the quotation? I do not recollect saying it.
    Mr. Jay: I will give the right hon. and learned Gentleman the exact line later, but he said it in reply to a question put to him in the middle of his speech. I was merely saying that the argument would carry us a good way further even than the television advertising companies.
    The queer fact is that when we come to consider the tax we find, as has been pointed out by several of my hon. Friends, that now, to our surprise, the tax is not to be paid by the programme companies which are in this specially privileged position—if the Chancellor prefers that word. We agree that it is a privileged position which has enabled them, in the oft-quoted expression, actually to "print money" in this country. We find instead that a large part of the tax, at any rate, if not the whole of it, is to be passed on to the general advertising industry.
    This is the situation, as is now perfectly clear, and although I do not accuse the Chancellor of deliberately misleading us in his Budget speech, I think he did in fact mislead us and unintentionally misled most members of the public into believing that we were taxing the programme companies. I do not think that the monopoly argument, which I have quoted, could have any other meaning than that it was the programme companies rather than the general advertising industry which was being taxed. However, we now learn that in fact it is advertising generally and not the programme companies which will pay most of the tax. This, I think, makes the whole proposition very much harder to justify.
    There might be a case for a tax on all advertising, which I gather is what the hon. Member for Kidderminster proposes to argue. Alternatively, there might be a case for some special discriminating tax on the programme com-
    1020
    panies which have been given this particular privilege. But it is hard to see the justification for a tax which starts with T.V. companies only and spreads out, rather indeterminately, over certain other parts of the advertising field. That is the proposition which the Chancellor is now putting before us and I think it hard to justify.
    I believe that what most hon. Members would like to see is a genuinely discriminating tax which would fall on the programme companies, I agree with the Chancellor. I do not suppose that it is possible, by means of an indirect tax levied through the Customs—which the companies would almost certainly regard as a cost—to confine the incidence of the tax to the programme companies. So I think that the case which the Chancellor has really made is a case for a discriminating tax on the profits of the TV programme companies. Despite what the Chancellor has said this afternoon, I do not think there is any serious doubt that although an indirect tax can usually, as to the major part, be passed on, there is not much doubt that a tax on profits, in the normal event, is not passed on. The Chancellor has appeared to run away from it since, but he did enunciate this extraordinary "Lloyd's Law". So far as I recollect it, the right hon. and learned Gentleman said that all taxes are wholly passed on, and that is an extraordinary proposition——
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd Mr. Selwyn Lloyd indicated dissent.
    Mr. Jay: That is what I heard him say, but I shall be very glad if the right hon. and learned Gentleman is already withdrawing from that extraordinary proposition.
    Mr. Lloyd: I certainly did not say "wholly passed on".
    Mr. Jay: If the Chancellor thinks that some taxes can, to some extent, be passed on, I should not dissent. I hope he will agree that it is far more likely that an indirect tax would be passed on than a tax on income or profit. As the hon. Member for Kidderminster said, if Surtax can be passed on, what is all the fuss about? If a tax on profits can be passed on, why do we hear all these complaints about the terrible burden of taxation on companies?

    1021
    If the Chancellor proposes to start his conduct of our financial affairs by propounding this extraordinary proposition, as he appeared to do earlier today—that almost all, or most taxes can and are being passed on—I think that we shall be in for some very curious financial events and policies in the months ahead. Certainly "Boyle's Law" will be a small affair compared with "Lloyd's Law".
    Indeed, if we are to have both Boyle's Law and Lloyd's Law at the same time, I do not know where we shall be getting. It is not surprising that the Government cannot make up their mind about the European market—if these are the sort of doctrines that are going around in the Chancellor's head. Therefore, I think there is a place, although a very dubious one, for the particular form of tax the Chancellor is now introducing.
    8.0 p.m.
    If hon. Members wish to take account of the privileged position of these programme companies, inevitably the argument leads to some sort of discriminating tax on their profits. But I cannot follow that argument on our discussion on the Clause. On the other hand, I will not advise the Committee to vote against this Clause, because although it is not the ideal form of tax—either on television or on advertising—it appears that it will fall mainly on certain sections of the advertising industry. I think there is quite a respectable case—I do not say that it is as strong as the case for taxing the television programme companies—for a general tax on advertising.
    That case rests on the fact that a remarkable proportion of the nation's annual resources, more than £400 million, is devoted to advertising. Since there is a tax on petrol, tobacco, whisky and beer, there is at least as strong a case for having a general tax on advertising. Although, therefore, the Chancellor's whole conduct over this tax—which was introduced in one guise and has now been redressed in another—is peculiar and very misleading, if not intentionally so, there is some case for it, even in its present form, and I advise my hon. Friends not to vote against it.
    Mr. Nabarro: There are three great sectors of consumer expenditure which, have, so far, escaped taxation. They are firstly, soft drinks, secondly, sweets
    1022
    and confectionery and, thirdly, advertising. I hope that they will all be brought within the general ambit of reformed indirect taxation in the next two of my right hon. and learned Friend's Budget statements.
    I deal this evening with the relatively narrow sector of an incursion in fiscal matters into the field of advertising, for, so far as I am aware, no attempt has previously been made by any Chancellor to tax any part of advertising expenditure.
    Mr. Jay: The hon. Gentleman will recall, as has already been observed in this debate, that the then Chancellor in November of 1947 introduced a tax which was to have been collected by the Inland Revenue, but that tax was subsequently withdrawn.
    Mr. Nabarro: I should not merely have said "introduce". I should have said "introduced and subsequently statutorily implemented". As the right hon. Gentleman says, the tax to which he refers was withdrawn before it was implemented. We have never had a tax on advertising and it seems to me that advertising is an essential part of consumer expenditure and should attract taxation. But it seems undesirable, ethically, that the Chancellor should have extracted from the very large total expenditure on advertising what is a relatively small part—in the form of television advertising—and have placed a 10 per cent. excise duty on it.
    If I wander a little by making passing references to Purchase Tax somewhat generally, I hope that I will not be ruled out of order. [HON. MEMBERS: "Why not?"] If hon. Members had been listening to the Economic Secretary some minutes ago, they would have heard him say that the hon. Member for Kidderminster was exactly correct when he referred to this tax on television advertising as being a Purchase Tax on it. That is exactly what it is.
    It might have been brought into the Finance Bill in an alternative, yet equally efficacious way, by adding to the Purchase Tax Schedules. The fact that the Economic Secretary referred to it as a Purchase Tax on advertising is patently clear from the fact that the moment it was announced in the Budget it became the subject of a Customs and Excise Circular.

    1023
    It has been admitted that it is subject to the economic regulator of a maximum of 10 per cent., up or down. So, there can be no doubt that it is a Purchase Tax on advertising—and I welcome it as such. As this is a tax on one form of advertising, perhaps I shall be permitted to mention advertising generally. In 1960, advertising expenditure in this country amounted to a total of £455 million. Out of that figure, £220 million was in respect of Press advertising, £210 million was in respect of advertising by other media and the residual of £25 million was in respect of advertising expenditure by companies which conduct their own advertising departments.
    The source of these figures is the Economist, 25th March, 1961, derived from a survey made by Dr. Mark Abrams for the London Press Exchange. Of that total of £455 million on advertising last year, the Chancellor is proposing to apply a tax of 10 per cent. only in the very narrow sector—he estimates the figure of £77 million—of television advertising. Dr. Abrams estimates that figure as £72 million.
    But, in any event, this advertising tax, as the hon. Member for Deptford (Sir L. Plummer) has observed, is slightly selective and will apply to only 17 per cent. of the total advertising expenditure of this country. I want the Chancellor to regard this in his next two Budgets as a precursor for extending advertising taxation.
    Advertising, in the context of which I speak, attracts additional demands from domestic consumers, notably; on television, on cinema screens or in newspapers, but it contributes nothing whatever to National exports. How can it be possible that advertising on television, in cinemas or in newspapers of 20 sorts of detergent, all claiming to wash shirts one whiter than the other, is something of which the Chancellor can be proud? I support and defend advertising in a free society. It is an essential ingredient of sale.
    But I join with the hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) in saying that there is nothing wrong with advertising, ethically, but that if it becomes too excessive it should attract a measure of taxation. That can be underlined by reference to exports. Advertising in its present form, on the domestic British
    1024
    market, contributes nothing to exports, yet those industries which contribute most to our exports are taxed the most highly—motor cars, 50 per cent. Purchase Tax; radio sets, 50 per cent.; television sets, 50 per cent.; and cosmetics, 50 per cent. They are all forms of Purchase Tax.
    Other manufactured goods which contribute to our national exports are taxed as high as 25 per cent., others at 12½ per cent. and yet others at 5 per cent. If you select a new Clause standing in my name, Sir Norman, I shall deal with all the Purchase Tax troubles. I am making the point that it has been admitted that this form of taxation is a Purchase Tax on advertising.
    It is a beginning. I want it applied to all forms of advertising, and I want the additional revenue derived to be applied to a reduction of Purchase Tax on those goods in the 50 per cent. bracket; motor cars, radio sets, television sets and cosmetics, because if that rate of tax can be brought down, exports are indirectly associated. But in order to implement it, it is essential that the Chancellor has an additional source of revenue which I claim he ought to obtain——
    The Temporary Chairman: Order. The hon. Member is now getting very far away from the Clause.
    Mr. Nabarro: I am sorry if I strayed a little, Sir Norman. This is a very important matter. You will recall, Sir Norman, that the Economic Secretary gave this Clause its proper name—"Purchase Tax on advertising". Those were his words. I did not coin the phrase. I made a passing reference to it on an earlier Amendment, but it was the Economic Secretary who used those words. However, I will not pursue the matter. I have made my point. I expect that from the advertising lobby on the Tory benches—and a very powerful lobby it is, too——
    Mr. Graham Page: Would my hon. Friend explain exactly what he means by "lobby"?
    Mr. Nabarro: If I may explain in terms which I think my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) will well understand, he belongs to the same lobby as I do on the abolition of

    1025
    Schedule A Tax. A very good lobby it is, too. Many of my hon. Friends belong to the same lobby as I do—
    The Temporary Chairman: Order. We cannot discuss advertising lobbies.
    Mr. Nabarro: As you know, Sir Norman, in these important matters I am normally as snow white as the detergent advertisements to which I have referred—
    Mr. Graham Page: Brand X.
    Mr. Nabarro: —but I have been led astray by my hon. Friends. The fact is that though my right hon. and learned Friend has said that this new form of taxation is for revenue purposes in Clause 1, it has been widely recognised by the advertising lobby on these benches and in the newspaper world as a first attempt to impose taxation on advertising. For example, that well-known organ of Tory opinion, Aims of Industry, distributed a circular including these words with reference to Clause 1:
    "The Conservative M.P.s see that the proposal has now become the first stage in the general application of a tax on advertising. This, they say, is socialism. It is the policy of Mr. Harold Wilson, 'Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer.'"
    On the contrary, it is my policy as well. I do not believe that there is any party political content in this matter. It ought to be judged objectively in the context of assisting exports.
    There will be powerful forces marshalled against the Treasury in the next twelve months for implementing my suggestion for extending this tax on Clause 1. For example, the president of the London Newspaper Society said, as reported in the Daily Telegraph on 10th May:
    "Mr. H. R. Pratt Boorman, the society's president, said: 'It is a deplorable tax. Oh, yes, it was a sitting duck for the Chancellor, but it won't be television which will pay for it. "I'm all right Jack" may be our outlook today, but that tax will be extended to posters, to outdoor signs and to newspapers'."
    In other words, a general tax on advertising.
    Mr. Ellis Smith: So it should be.
    Mr. Nabarro: I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. I shall have powerful allies next year if it is possible to
    1026
    remain in order by moving an Amendment for an extension of this duty.
    All I seek to do is to give succour to my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer and to say to him that I realise that Clause 1 is a Ministerial kite being flown this year in this Committee on the Finance Bill to test reactions. It covers only 17 per cent. of advertising expenditure. I hope that next year it will be converted into a general advertising tax and that I shall command support from both sides of the Committee in what I have said this evening.
    8.15 p.m.
    Mr. J. T. Price: I do not intend to make a long-winded speech at this stage of the debate, but certain revelations have come to light which call for at least a footnote.
    To begin with, the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) has just delivered a most powerful plea for the extension of this pilot tax on advertising. This tax has been assailed by a number of hon. Members opposite in a way that rather surprises even myself who has been in the House for some years and who is not easily surprised by what can happen here.
    I confess that I have not heard all the the speeches in the debate today, but I have heard enough of them to make me think about this topic for a few minutes, and I must say that I have been more than surprised at some of the attacks that have been launched against the Chancellor for introducing this tax on advertising. If some of these speeches had been delivered in the council chambers of some of our municipalities and the members who had delivered them had then gone into the lobby and voted against this tax, they would have been under a financial penalty imposed by the Local Government Act.
    The time has come when it should be said in this Committee without any mealy-mouthed apology that it is quite wrong for hon. Members to come here and nakedly put up a case for something from which they can profit financially. It ought to be condemned. It is entirely against the spirit——
    Mr. MacArthur Mr. MacArthur rose—
    Mr. Price: I do not wish to give way at the moment. I will do so later on.

    1027
    It should be a point of honour in the House of Commons, with all its great traditions of which we are all proud, and where so many have given their disinterested service without any thought of personal gain, that Members should not make out a case for something from which they get financial benefit. Democracy is being reduced in stature when we hear this naked propaganda for private interests out of which hon. Members stand to profit in hard cash.
    Mr. MacArthur: The hon. Gentleman should not make a remark of that kind. It bears no relation to facts. [An HON. MEMBER: "How does the hon. Gentleman know?] I happen to be one of those hon. Members to whom I presume the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price) is referring.
    Mr. Price: I do not wish to be tempted to get out of order at this stage of the debate, but we must all answer to our own consciences. If some hon. Members feel at all sensitive about references to some activity in which they are personally interested, it is a matter of personal choice for those hon. Members, but they must not be surprised if people like myself condemn this kind of conduct.
    The Temporary Chairman: Order. It would be very much better if the hon. Member were to confine his remarks to the Clause.
    Mr. H. Rhodes: He is dealing with the Clause.
    Mr. Price: With great respect, Sir Norman, we are dealing with a Clause to which certain Amendments have been moved. Those Amendments are concerned with resisting the imposition of a tax on a section of the advertising industry with which hon. Members who have spoken are personally identified, and I think that it is bad Parliamentary practice and that the time has come when we ought to amend the, procedure of the House so that no hon. Member shall be free to vote on a matter in which he is interested. I am not directing my remarks personally. They apply as a matter of principle to the whole practice which is developing in the House. The Conservative Party has become so complacent and so arrogant that hon. Members opposite
    1028
    think that they can come here and treat us like a lot of numbskulls.
    Mr. Maddan: I am sorry to have to interrupt the hon. and gallant Member again, but—[HON. MEMBERS: "The hon. Member."]—I thought that he must be gallant; he was so ferocious. I voted in the Lobby in a sense which, if it is of the slightest interest to the hon. Member, is contrary, I should judge, to the interests of some of the very biggest clients of the company of which I am a director.
    Mr. Price: If the hon. Member has had second thoughts, I give him full credit for that.
    Mr. Maddan: I am sorry to interrupt again, but there is no question of second thoughts. That is the position I have always maintained. It was the point we argued from this side, and we voted in that way. The hon. Member does not seem to understand what the Clause is about.
    Mr. Price: Perhaps I might be allowed to continue. I do not wish to detain the Committee for long. If my remarks do not apply to the hon. Member for Hitchin (Mr. Maddan), who voted as his conscience led him, I give him all credit for that; but my remarks certainly apply to other speeches which were made. I have been a Member long enough to recall the time when legislation was passed to introduce commercial television, and I remember the scandalous speeches which were made on that side of the Chamber and the personal interests of hon. Members which were plainly apparent then.
    The Temporary Chairman: The only matter in order in this debate is what is in the Clause.
    Mr. Price: With respect, Sir Norman, I was prepared to let the matter rest. I had already made my comment, but I was interrupted and I had to reply to the interruptions as a matter of common courtesy. I promise hon. Members that, if they interrupt me again, I shall go on for quite a long time. I am not short of ideas on this matter. I did not wish to speak for a long time, but I think that I must be allowed to deal with interruptions.
    I am sorry that the Chancellor has gone to have dinner. He has to eat at some

    1029
    time—[An HON. MEMBER: "Why?"] The right hon. and learned Gentleman has worked quite hard, and we give him credit for that. He made some astonishing revelations. I have heard a succession of Chancellors deliver arguments at Budget time, but I never expected to hear a Chancellor declare in such round, unequivocal terms as the right hon. and learned Gentleman used that all taxation is inflationary. It has been said by certain economists and financial experts for a long lime, but the Chancellor said it tonight, and the setting in which he said it is rather interesting.
    If all taxation is inflationary and if, as he said, all taxation is passed on to the consumer, we are left with the important question: who bears the burden of taxation in this country? That is a question which I, as a humble Socialist, am entitled to ask. A Chancellor of the Exchequer in Britain has announced, first, that all taxation is inflationary and, second, that those who pay the tax take steps to see that it is passed on.
    Mr. Jay: I do not know whether my hon. Friend listened to the Chancellor's later speech when he appeared to have changed his mind. Now, he says that it is only indirect taxation which can be passed on.
    Mr. Price: I have to trust my recollection. I was here when the Chancellor made his first speech and I took note of it. I do not wish to be unfair to the right hon. and learned Gentleman and to misquote him; we will look at HANSARD tomorrow. Nevertheless, I recall him saying what I have just quoted. He said it at a time when we have heard other arguments from another Treasury Minister. I have sat here on many occasions and heard the hon. Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Sir E. Boyle), who, I think, is now in his second reincarnation as Financial Secretary to the Treasury, enunciate a quite different principle. When defending an unpopular tax, the hon. Gentleman has argued in favour of it, saying that it was a tax to mop up surplus purchasing power. He said it in his usual good-natured, avuncular fashion with which we are all familiar. Indeed, it became so notorious that some of the financial journalists outside christened it "Boyle's Law". We all know that Boyle's Law proper applies to physics
    1030
    not finance, but this was the second "Boyle's Law", that taxation is levied by Conservative Chancellors for the purpose of mopping up surplus purchasing power which people ought not to have in their pockets to spend as they wish.
    The present situation is remarkable. We have two senior Ministers at the Treasury, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, on the one hand, saying that all taxation is inflationary, and on the other hand, his second in command saying that taxation is levied for a deflationary purpose in the economy, to mop up surplus money. We cannot have it both ways.
    People are entitled to know what is the policy of the Treasury on these matters. If the Government are having this kind of—I am not sure whether this is the right word—ambivalent advice given to them by two senior Ministers, it is no wonder that they are in such a hell of a mess. However, I am not concerned about the Government being in a mess. I am sufficiently patriotic to wish that this Government——
    The Temporary Chairman: All I am concerned about is Clause 1, which deals with the television advertisement duty.
    Mr. Price: I am obliged for the correction. If I have strayed from the path of virtue, I shall return to it as soon as possible. I thought that we were discussing the Question "That the Clause stand part of the Bill", and that does involve the principle behind it. The principle can be properly understood only in conjuction with the explanations give in defence of the Clause by the Ministers responsible for it. Surely, if the Chancellor himself has commented on the merits of the Clause, I am entitled to reply to the comments he made. I put it no higher than that.
    Perhaps I had better sit down. I have been out of order several times. I conclude by saying again that the time ought not to be far distant when the House of Commons revises its rules so that no Member is allowed to vote in the Lobbies on any matter in which he has a personal financial interest.
    Mr. Geoffrey Hirst: I do not propose to be very difficult about the Clause, but I shall damn it with some very faint praise. I do not like the principle. I agree with those who

    1031
    have said that it is unfortunate to pick out in a discriminatory way one section of advertising for a tax of this character. I do not, however, go as far as my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) goes. I told my hon. Friend that I should refer to him, and he has asked me to apologise for his absence. He has to see two constituents and has had to leave the Chamber.
    I cannot agree with my hon. Friend in his approval of the Opposition's idea that taxing advertising is a good thing in itself. Where I go at least part of the way with him is in taking the view that, if it can be found possible to lower taxation in other directions, for instance, the higher rates of Purchase Tax to which he referred, by means of some form of general, much lower sales tax—which would be very difficult—then I should be prepared to listen to his argument. However, in the absence of that, I cannot favour a tax on advertising as such.
    I have no interest to declare. I hope that that encourages the hon. Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price). As I sit here, I have the impression that there is a great deal of old-fashioned party feeling about this matter. The Opposition have the idea that advertising is a bad thing in itself. That is the impression that we get from these discussions, of which we have had many.
    Less than enough regard is paid to the purpose for which advertising exists, which is to increase demand. It has been proved many times that it is by far the most economical and most efficient method of obtaining what is called mass demand. In turn—and this is something which my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster seemed to overlook—it is one of the best methods of securing a sound home market, thereby getting costs down to enable our country to compete competitively overseas.
    It is an argument not of theory but of fact.
    Mr. Charles Loughlin: How does that apply to detergents?
    8.30 p.m.
    Mr. Hirst: I am speaking in general. To attack advertising in general is bad, and it is the wrong approach.
    1032
    I do not think it behoves a Conservative Government, pressing as they are for increased production, particularly in the export trade, to start something which has caused a good deal of fear that we are embarking on a new and additional form of tax which would not, in my view, be beneficial to the objects we have in mind.
    I realise the position in which the Chancellor finds himself this year, and, in a matter of this kind, I do not propose to put him in difficulty. I have not always argued quite so kindly for the Chancellor, and probably I shall not argue quite so kindly when we come to other Clauses of the Bill. Basically I support his endeavour, but I feel that there should be at least one or two Members on this side saying, "Frankly, we do not like it." There must be some warning that, if this sort of thing is to be carried into much wider fields in another year, there will have to be quite a lot of criticism of a very severe character.
    Sir Leslie Plummer: I support the powerful speech of the leader of the Conservative Party, the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro). [An HON. MEMBER: "Leader?"] I apologise. I am being a little premature in my thoughts. The hon. Member made clear the view of the left wing of the Tory Party towards advertising. The hon. Member for Shipley (Mr. Hirst) has misinterpreted the view of hon. Members on this side about advertising. We do not think that all advertising is bad. We merely think that certain forms of advertising are bad. We cannot understand why the Chancellor has decided to make a distinction between commercial television advertising and other forms of advertising.
    What the Chancellor has said, which is opposed by the hon. Member for Kidderminster, is this: "If you are a detergent manufacturer, and if you make three or four competing brands of detergent solely to keep your competitors out of the market—one may not be any better than another; perhaps they do not wash whiter than white—and if you pour money in to protect your money, you will pay a 10 per cent. tax". The Chancellor says that this is necessary for revenue purposes and that this is either inflationary or not inflationary. He could not make up his mind about it.

    1033
    If a gentleman, who is unknown outside his family circle and the minute board of directors which he controls, decides to take five columns in The Times and to adorn them with a picture of himself to advertise a company meeting which no one will attend to announce an increase in the dividend which was announced three weeks before in the Daily Telegraph, he is not taxed. He does that at the expense of the Treasury. The Treasury pays for an advertisement of a company meeting which is of a limited interest to everyone but the advertising agent who places the business, the chairman of the board himself and his immediate associates.
    Why is it that we are asked to say that a useful function which is performed by television advertising, such as the announcement that a book has been published, that there has been a change in the price of petrol or any of the things which are valuable to the community, should be taxed at 10 per cent. whereas useless advertising should be supported out of pockets at the expense of the Treasury? Day after day we see in the newspapers what is called institutional advertising telling us that some concern makes a bumper for a motor car. Such an advertisement has a very limited appeal. It contains no general information for anyone. This sort of advertising is simply a way of getting rid of excess profits at the expense of the Treasury. There is, therefore, a good argument for saying that this sort of advertising should be treated more seriously by the Treasury than the way in which the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposes to deal with television advertising. There is no question that the advertising profession believes that this is the beginning of a general tax on advertising.
    I wonder if the Economic Secretary will reveal the attitude of the Government towards advertising as a whole. If he institutes, as the hon. Member for Kidderminster suggests, an advertising tax, may I recommend that he puts a 200 per cent. tax on outdoor advertising so that we can have a countryside returned to its pristine beauty instead of being spoiled by the sort of nonsense that we have at present. This would be a useful sort of tax. It would be, not only a revenue tax, but a tax for beautifying
    1034
    our country. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer is looking for revenue of such a kind, he could well look in this direction.
    Mr. H. Rhodes: Some of the arguments which have been put up this afternoon reminded me of the two little boys who went home to their Sunday dinner. The smaller boy said to his mother, "Why do you give our Johnny more meat than me?" His mother replied, "Our Johnny is a lot bigger than thee". "Aye", said the little one, "and he always will be if he has more meat than me." That is how the argument has run today.
    This subject is in a class of its own. It is big business. Some powerful voices have been raised to put some powerful arguments this afternoon, but I want to bring hon. Members back to what the Chancellor wanted to do when he introduced his Budget last month. He wanted to stimulate exports and productivity. The hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) has told us that advertising means nothing in terms of exports. This argument this afternoon means nothing in terms of creating a better attitude towards productivity in this country which means more exports. This is the sort of thing that you do not understand, and——
    The Chairman: The hon. Member should bear in mind that he is addressing the Chair.
    Mr. Rhodes: Everyone in this country who is patriotic is desperate to bring about better productivity. If people do not agree with that they are not patriotic. There were small elements in the Budget which might have helped, but the argument today has been whether we are unjust in putting a 10 per cent. tax on a section of an industry which has made millions. We have heard the cry about inflationary tendencies. What about the inflationary tendency of the remaining 90 per cent. This is an enormous inflationary factor, because the profits in the large advertising companies have already been discounted on the Stock Exchange, or else some bargains have been missed.
    I ask hon. Members opposite not to overdo it. A sincere effort must be made by everybody at some time to buckle to in this country, but some members are doing their level best to divide society

    1035
    by this sort of argument. They may smile. They will understand it sometime.
    Mr. MacArthur: Do I understand the argument to be in essence that it is noble to produce but ignoble to try to sell the product?
    Mr. Rhodes: If it is a good product one can be proud to advertise and sell it. There should be no shame on anybody's part in doing so, but it should fit in with the community's needs either in terms of keeping costs down or in subscribing to the country's revenue. There must be during the next year or two, whether under the Tories or under Labour, a rejuvenation of our attitude to work. This sort of argument is liable to postpone that day.
    Mr. Maddan: I am grateful for the opportunity to follow in the debate the hon. Member for Deptford (Sir L. Plummer) and the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Mr. Rhodes), because it is always better to come a little late in the debate when most of the arguments have been deployed. But I found the argument of the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne difficult to follow. He seemed to think that this was a tax on industry which was making millions of pounds, a tax on the television programme companies, but it is not, and that is just what we have been debating all afternoon. It is a tax on expenditure paid by all and sundry, including those who make the valuable products to which the hon. Member referred.
    The hon. Member said that we must have a better attitude towards productivity, and particularly towards exports. I am grateful to him for that remark, because it is on that point that I want to concentrate in my comments upon the Clause. This is a tax of a limited form on sales promotion. It is a tax on one form of advertising. As my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Mr. Hirst) has said, there has been throughout the debate an undercurrent of thought that advertising in general is a rather poor sort of activity which does not contribute to the standard of living or the well-being of the country. But without a spirit of sales promotion we cannot sell anything abroad. People who return from abroad criticise the intensity and direction of our sales promotion, and if
    1036
    we cannot get people to be sales promotion minded at home, how are we to be sales promotion minded when it comes to exports?
    Hon. Members opposite completely undermine the concept that sales promotion is an important and essential activity in our economy. My hon. Friend the Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur), who asked whether to sell was ignoble while to produce was noble, put his finger on the whole issue. If the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne in his pæon of praise for hard work had included the salesmen who flog round the country day after day in very disagreeable conditions away from their families I would have had more sympathy with the point he made.
    Mr. J. T. Price: Surely we are discussing television advertising. How much is added to the country's export output by looking at television screens three times a night and being told of the importance of putting pink stripes into somebody's toothpaste? How does that increase the country's industrial output overseas?
    8.45 p.m.
    Mr. Maddan: Of course, this is not a tax on looking at television screens. That tax of £5 is paid by everybody who has a television set. We are talking about one aspect of sales promotion, and unless sales promotion is nurtured and practised and regarded as respectable at home, we shall not get people to undertake it abroad, and television advertising is a pant of sales promotion and, in many cases, a major and important part.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) and others, including, I think, the hon. Member for Deptford suggested that the duty should be the precursor of a wider tax on advertising. There may be something to be said for that, and I want to come to that, but before I do I want to correct the impression that advertising is burgeoning in this country out of all proportion to the growth of the national product. It is worth getting this straight. In 1938 about 2 per cent. of our gross national product was spent on advertising. Today it is the same percentage. Fortunately, our gross national product has risen, but our total advertising has only just kept pace with

    1037
    it. That proportion, 2 per cent., is not far different in the United States. I do not say that that is a recommendation. I just say that it seems to be the percentage of expenditure on advertising which sustains the economy and keeps it running, we hope, with flexibility and at a high level.
    If this tax had been, as it was suggested in some of our earlier debates that it should be, a tax on the monopoly position of the programme companies, a lot of what I have to say would have been entirely inapplicable. It might have been much better had it been such a tax. If it could not have been a profits tax perhaps it could have been a special provision giving power to the Independent Television Authority to raise the rentals charged to programme companies for their monopoly position, which has turned out to be, I think we must agree, very much better than was anticipated ten years ago. I think it must be said that ten years ago it did not look anything like as bright as it now does.
    Mr. John Diamond: Would the hon. Gentleman agree, if he were to want to tax—as, I should have thought, most of us would—the monopoly position of these companies, and if their monopoly position is represented by the increased profits which the companies make, that the logical thing is to tax the results of that position, namely, the profits?
    Mr. Maddan: Curiously enough, I do agree with the hon. Member exactly on that, but people have said that this would be a terrible burden, to have a special tax at profits level on one type of company and not on another, and so I suggested an alternative way to achieve exactly the same thing without creating this precedent—give power to the television authority to increase its rentals to the programme companies.
    That is not what this Clause does. This is not a special tax on the high profits of the programme companies. It is a tax which skews the expenditure on advertising—or is intended to skew it—away from television advertising. Whether it succeeds in doing so or not is open to debate. I think that the initial reception given to this proposal would have been different had it been properly understood. I certainly misunderstood
    1038
    what my right hon. and learned Friend said, but my company's lawyer told me that I had not got a leg to stand on and that my right hon. and learned Friend's phraseology to him was crystal clear and meant exactly what is now embodied in the Bill. It shows one cannot get far in this business without a lawyer.
    It is surprising—and this is interesting and makes me wonder whether my right hon. and learned Friend may be producing the thin end of the wedge which hon. Members opposite have asked for—that by having chosen television to start with he has chosen a medium which under the Television Act, 1954, cannot itself, through its publicity means, make known its views. It is precluded from taking sides in a political issue of this kind. The programme companies, as the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. S. Silverman) will know, are precluded from taking sides on a political issue. Had my right hon. and learned Friend started with newspapers or posters, or whatever it might be, they could in their editorial columns or by putting up posters have explained and voiced their opposition to what was proposed, but he started with the programme companies, which are statutorily precluded from publicly running a campaign of this sort. An hon. Member says "No", and no doubt if he disagrees he can explain to us how they can do it under the Television Act, 1954.
    I suspect that my right hon. and learned Friend may regard this as a pre-curser to a general tax on advertising. If he does so, I think that it is very important that he should make clear the basis on which he does so. If he thinks that there is too much being spent on advertising—that it is all very nice but not very respectable—it is like the attitude that so many people entertain towards salesmen, that they would rather he not them. If that is the case, he will be making a very serious blow at not only free enterprise as a whole but at the inculcation and stimulation of the sales promotion spirit.
    If, on the other hand, he has in mind that advertising, being a powerful stimulus to the economy, should be controlled in a Keynesian sense to increase or decrease economic activity, he is on an entirely different wicket, and he should not have started a tax on one form of

    1039
    advertising only. If he wants another regulator——
    Sir L. Plummer: I do not think that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is batting on either of those wickets. The Chancellor said:
    "Because of my minority report as a member of the Beveridge Committee on Broadcasting, I feel that I have a certain personal responsibility for the introduction of commercial television. If I may mix up my metaphor, I am sure that those concerned with the payment of the duty will not mind too much being bitten by the hand which originally fed them."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th April, 1961; Vol. 638, c. 817.]
    He was clearly referring to the programme companies and not to the advertisers.
    Mr. Maddan: My right hon. and learned Friend has already explained in this Chamber that he had in mind not only the programme companies but also the advertisers who have also benefited from the introduction of this new and powerful medium.
    To continue my argument, if he wants the regulator to continue I suppose that as a means of increasing or reducing the amount of advertising it would have quite an effect, but, if so, it needs to be designed in quite a different way from the present tax which we have which is on one advertising medium only. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley, I would prefer a general sales tax which could be moved up or down, taking it through to the end product, as an economic regulator. I would have thought that that would have been very much better.
    If we are to have a tax on advertising, I think that my right hon. and learned Friend or the Economic Secretary should make clear to us and to those concerned with advertising, both as users of advertising and as providers of advertising media what is in their minds. But please may we not be given the answer, "It is because we want £7 million." There are many ways of raising £7 million. This particular way, as I think has been agreed by almost every speaker in the Committee, is full of illogicalities. We all advance different ones and do not always agree but I think that all of us, except the Treasury Front Bench, are convinced that this is full of illogicalities.
    1040
    So I hope that when my hon. Friend replies he will make clear what is the philosophy behind this tax. If he does not do so, I think he will be misleading not only industry and the advertising business but political opinion too. We are entitled to have this made clear.
    Mr. Diamond: A good deal of what the hon. Member for Hitchin (Mr. Maddan) has said meets with my approval. I think that a word or two should be said from this side of the Committee, however unpopular it may be, against those who decry advertising hook, line and sinker without thinking precisely what they are referring to. Many hon. Members, like me, know of advertising solely in terms of detergents and so on, and they wish for much less of it, and I share that view. I do not share the view that all advertising is bad and that we ought, therefore, to start off by taxing this kind of advertising and then other kinds of advertising.
    It is a dreadful over-simplification to refer to advertising in those terms. Some advertising ought to be not taxed but prohibited; it should be completely prohibited by legislation affecting it physically. But other advertising which brings to the notice of the public facts and information of which they would otherwise be completely unaware ought not to be taxed at all, for such advertising is part of the method of conveying information from one to another without which we should all be lost. Consequently, to generalise in the way that is sometimes done gets us nowhere about advertising. Also, as everybody knows, it is no good just making an article and not making any attempt to sell it; we have to do both.
    Unfortunately, as has already been borne out in the debate, it is very difficult to put a tax on advertising without paying for it out of one's own pocket as a consumer. Those who advocate a tax on advertising because they do not like advertising generally Should consider a little more carefully how they are to tax advertising and yet not at the same time tax the consumer to either the same extent or a greater extent. As everybody knows, where one has an item entering into costs, two things happen: first, one adds it on to the selling price; secondly, one adds one's proportion of profit on

    1041
    to the additional cost as well. The tendency, therefore, is to recover not merely the amount of the advertising tax but the amount of the advertising tax and the extra amount from the consumer. For these reasons, I think it is right that one should say, even incurring some unpopularity in doing so, that this matter should be looked at perhaps a little more objectively and a little less emotionally than some of us are inclined to look at it.
    When an advertising tax was introduced by the Labour Government, I took whatever steps were open to me to join other hon. Members, including mostly members of the Conservative Opposition of the time, in getting the tax withdrawn because I thought it was a bad tax and that the method by which the then Government chose to tax advertising was thoroughly bad. I am delighted to say that Labour Chancellors have flexibility of mind and understanding of principles, and the tax was withdrawn before it was implemented. I suggest that that would be a wise precedent for the present Treasury Ministers to follow and that they should replace this unfortunate proposal by a tax which really sets out to do what the Chancellor wanted to do and what all those who listened to his speech understood full well that he wanted to do.
    That is why the hon. Member for Hitchin and I, listening as laymen, understood what the Chancellor was talking about. That is why any of these who did not hear the Budget statement but read the cold print with an objective mind, paying no attention to the tones which were used, or the enthusiasm, or what was in the mind of the speaker, would say that what the Chancellor said was in the cold print and that he was entitled to bring in a tax of the kind that he has done.
    9.0 p.m.
    What the right hon. and learned Gentleman wanted to do, and what we all wanted him to do, was the obvious thing of reducing the excess profits which he himself, as a state Minister, by setting up a monopoly, had given to a limited group of people. Such a proposition would have met with approval on both sides of the Committee. It is well known and admitted on both sides that these profits are excessive. The biggest profit maker of the lot describes them as
    1042
    immoral—that is to say, he is willing for them to be reduced.
    The only way in which they can be reduced is by the hand that fed them now taking away again. Instead, however, it talks about biting them but actually caresses them. Under the pretext of a tax on the profits of the programme companies we are getting the usual evil cycle. The tax is put on the advertising agent. He puts it on the advertiser, and from the advertiser it goes back to the consumer, and here we are, the "mugginses", paying for the tax. Unfortunately, we are in a position of being unable to vote against this Clause because inherent in it is something which could be turned to good, but the logic of the argument has not been followed up.
    Neither the Chancellor nor the Economic Secretary paid any attention whatever to the serious argument advanced about the way in which this could have been followed up. We are dealing with a State-granted monopoly which produces monopoly profits. The way to withdraw part of this grant is to tax the monopoly profits, but all the Chancellor could do was to say a few words about that being discriminatory. But this proposal in Clause 1 is discriminatory against certain advertising. By it, the Chancellor is not taxing all advertising but only a tiny proportion of it.
    The right hon. and learned Gentleman is bringing up the whole problem of whether it is right or wrong to tax advertising—the whole problem of how to deal with advertising fiscally—in order to collect a sum of money from a particular group, the owners of these monopolies. It would have been courtesy at least to the Committee if somebody on the Front Bench opposite could have explained why it is not possible to tax the profits.
    The Government have given the right to make the profits to these few people. Why should the Government not put upon them a contribution, through taxation on profits, to the revenue of the country? This is a poor and muddled Clause. It is regrettable that we must allow it to pass because we cannot, under the rules of order, do what we should like to do and propose a different kind of taxation, but I hope that even at this late stage the Government will turn their mind to a

    1043
    tax on profits. A tax on profits tends not to be passed on to the consumer.
    I hope that the Economic Secretary will at least give some attention to this when he comes to reply, and, for the first time, will turn his mind to the question of why he thinks it to be natural justice that a television programme contractor who is now, under this Clause, being required to pay some tax, should pass it on to the advertiser and, therefore, to the consumer.
    What is the philosophy behind that? That is what the Clause contains and that is what we are complaining about. If that part had been left out of the Clause, it is conceivable that a large number of programme contractors would have said, "We are making very large profits; the Government have put this tax on us and it is calculated by reference to advertising revenue, but that is merely how it is calculated and the tax is on us; we are making very large profits and we will carry the can to that extent". At all events some would have said that. Instead of that, not at the open invitation but by the order of the Government, even where the contract has been entered into, they are to break the contract and to pass on the tax to the advertiser and in that way to the consumer.
    Mr. Raymond Gower: The hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Diamond) uses the expression "passing it on". It is feasible that if the tax were raised there would be a point at which the consumer would say, "It is not worth while; I will divert my advertising to some other medium". The consumer in this case is the advertiser and as such he would say, "This medium is becoming too expensive for the results which it produces and I will therefore divert my advertising back to newspapers, or some other form of medium".
    Mr. Diamond: That may be so. I was using the word "consumer" in its normal sense. When an article is advertised, the cost of the advertisement forms part of the cost of the article and has to be recovered in the sale price and the person who pays the sale price in the shop is the consumer, the "muggins", as I have called him, who will have to pay this tax because of the obstinacy of the Government.
    Mr. Graham Page: The hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Diamond) has
    1044
    repeated almost word for word one or two of the arguments which I used earlier, and so I need not go over them again. We have had a number of complaints—they might be called sneers and smears—about those who have spoken from this side of the Committee and who have found themselves financially interested in this subject. Professional men on both sides of the Committee often become involved in commercial matters as part of their professional business, and it would be wrong to preclude them from speaking to the Committee when they have declared their interest. The only concession made by the Treasury Bench this afternoon was on a technical point which I made concerning advertising agents. That shows that those of us who are concerned in the subject can contribute something towards these discussions.
    I now propose to go on with some frank special pleading on behalf of one of the parties concerned in the advertising business, the advertising agent. There are three parties in this matter—the television company, the advertising agent, and the advertiser. I want to explain how the Clause will affect the middleman, the advertising agent.
    The advertising agent receives 15 per cent. commission out of the money paid by the advertiser for advertising. The advertiser arranges his programme or his schedule a year ahead and it is not likely that he will alter that for this year. The result will be that the advertising agent will get his commission on about 10 per cent. less so that of his 15 per cent. he will lose 1½ per cent. of the whole expended. The advertising agent has no one to whom to pass that on. Unlike the television company or the advertiser, who can pass it on to the consumer, there is no one from whom he can recoup his 1½ per cent.
    I ask hon. Members to put out of their minds the Colman Prentis and Varleys of the advertising agency world and to appreciate that out of that 15 per cent. which the advertising agent makes gross—and there are many small agencies doing essential work in the distribution of goods—on average, after paying his overheads, he makes 1¼ to 1½ per cent. net profit.
    Some of the small agencies have as much as 50 per cent. to 75 per cent.

    1045
    of their capital in television advertising. If hon. Members care to work that out, the effect of this tax would be to deprive these small agencies entirely of their net profit for a time. Of course they will adjust their business accordingly, but that is how it will affect the middleman.
    This is special pleading on behalf of a profession or industry which is affected by the Clause. It is one of three parties who are affected, and it is as it were the middleman who joins together the advertiser and the television company. He is the man who is important in the distributive effort.
    Sir L. Plummer: Will the hon. Gentleman explain what he means by the 1¼ per cent. profit which the advertising agent makes? Is it 1¼ per cent. on his capital, or 1¼ per cent. on his client's billing.
    Mr. Page: It is 1¼ per cent. to 1½ per cent. of his client's billing.
    Sir L. Plummer: Of his client's billing?
    Mr. Page: That is his net profit. I want to clear this issue because so much has been said about the millions of pounds which are made by way of profits. That does not apply to the middleman. He is the man who will be hit by this tax.
    Sir L. Plummer: But 1¼ per cent. of his client's billing may be 10 per cent. of the agent's capital. It does not mean that because an advertising agency gets only 1¼ per cent. or 1½ per cent. of the amount of money spent for a client that he is therefore a poor man. It may be a considerable percentage of dividend on the capital he employs on his business.
    Mr. Page: That is true. If he loses 10 per cent. which is 1½ per cent. of 15 per cent., he may be losing all his net profit for a period until he rearranges his business. I do not say that advertising agencies cannot rearrange their business, but for six or twelve months this may be a great blow to some of the medium-sized advertising agencies.
    This is special pleading on behalf of one profession or industry which is affected by Clause 1. I say quite
    1046
    honestly and deliberately that I am concerned in that industry in a small way, and I think that it is right that special pleading of this sort should be put forward when an industry is affected.
    Mr. Cyril Bence: I am sure that when our discussions today are reported in the Press there will be some amazing reactions in the country. We have heard several hon. Members, particularly the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro), suggesting that the Government should raise more revenue by spreading this form of tax among all forms of advertisements. It is a long time since I heard any hon. Gentleman ask for an increase in taxation, but that has been the theme of the speeches made by hon. Gentlemen opposite on this Clause.
    Hon. Gentlemen have suggested that the Chancellor must increase taxation, and that as this form of tax is in part reasonable it should be spread to all forms of advertisement.
    Mr. John Hall: Can the hon. Gentleman say who, apart from my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro), made that suggestion?
    Mr. R. J. Maxwell-Hyslop: My recollection of the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) was that he wanted to use the extra revenue raised to reduce the overall level of Purchase Tax and not to raise extra revenue as such.
    Mr. Bence: The hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur) argued that this tax should be spread over general taxation and should not be just a special tax on the television companies. I believe that the hon. Member for Hitchin (Mr. Maddan) also said that this should not be a special tax on television advertisers, but agreed with my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mr. Diamond) that it would be better to tax the profits of these companies.
    Mr. Maddan: That is not precisely what I said. I should like to get the record clear. I said that if the Chancellor thought that dealing with advertising would provide him with an economic regulator his proposal should affect all forms of advertising.
    9.15 p.m.
    Mr. Bence: I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. Apparently I did not get his argument quite correctly, but I think I have the general idea of what he means. There it is. We have had expressions of opinion favouring the spreading of this tax among all forms of advertising.
    I cannot accept that argument. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester that some forms of advertising are a very valuable part of our industrial processes. It is no use producing, in a factory in Scotland or the Midlands, a very fine product—a machine or whatever else it may be—if the world is not told that it is being produced. It is essential that it should be advertised. As an industrial engineer my complaint is that, very often, although factory workers put in a great deal of effort to create a good product our market research and sales promotion is abominable, and far below that of our competitors in other countries. Sales promotion is an important thing.
    But do not let anyone try to kid me about some of the advertisements that I have seen on television and in the newspapers. They are not likely to increase our exports. To connect some of these television advertisements with what I call sales promotion is an insult to the sales department of any of our leading companies and to the profession of sales promotion. It would be impossible for anybody to convince me that the commercial television advertisements that I see for soap powders, chocolates and Coco-Cola represent anything of value to this country in the promotion of the sales of our products abroad.
    British salesmen often go back to their firms—I suppose this happens in the case of television advertisements, too—and say, "We ought to manufacture this, that or the other". The job of sales promotion advertising is to convince those who read or see the advertisements that the manufactured article advertised is the best thing they can buy. That is what sales promotion is. But to call television advertising sales promotion is to talk a lot of nonsense. It is merely the parrot repetition of quick, cheap phrases, alluding to soap powders or cereals that go pop in the saucer. I have never heard such a lot of nonsense.
    1048
    It has nothing to do with Britain's survival in the export market. These are the stupid commercial trimmings of a society which I sometimes feel is becoming decadent. This nonsensical advertising is merely patronising the public. But large and small manufacturers who advertise in trade and scientific journals, and seek to sell their products by illustrations and photographs and a little detailed material——
    Mr. Loughlin: My hon. Friend seems to be conveying the impression that the advertisements which appear infantile are not effective. In fact, they are most effective. Some of the most infantile are the most effective in selling the products with which they are concerned.
    Mr. John Hall: Would the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence) agree that this is an example of the degrading effect of television on the intelligence of the population?
    Mr. Bence: I have heard from some people who look at T.V. that their children ask for the T.V. to be switched on in order to see the advertisements with the funny pictures. The children laugh at them and enjoy these advertisements. Whether that increases the sales of the products among the children I do not know, but probably it is infantile in that sense. I object to that kind of thing being linked with serious advertising because I do not think that it is anything of the sort.
    We have been told by the Chancellor of the Exchequer that indirect taxation, in the main, can be passed on to the consumer. Here is a tax which the Chancellor instructs or informs the company to pass on to the customer. We have such a structure of indirect taxation in this country that one can hardly go into any shop to buy anyhting without finding that the person selling the product is paying a portion of the indirect taxation. A hundred years ago we were referred to on the Continent as a nation of shopkeepers. At the rate at which we are now going we shall be alluded to as a nation of tax collectors. Everywhere one goes there is indirect taxation. The hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro) desires this "purchase tax", as he calls it, to be spread over all forms of advertising. The time will come when it will spread into

    1049
    other spheres because the Government are determined to raise more revenue. We shall then become a nation of tax collectors, and we shall be collecting taxes from one another.
    I hope that this is not the beginning of a spread of further forms of taxation on profits and services in which the person who has the tax imposed can pass it on to the consumer at the next stage. I should prefer a policy of a straight clear-cut Income Tax and a Profits Tax. I hate this indirect taxation——
    The Chairman: Order. I hope that the hon. Member will not pursue that argument too far, as he is getting away from the Motion before the Committee.
    Mr. Bence: I was following the point that the Chancellor made about indirect taxation being passed on to the consumer. This is a form of indirect tax and the Chancellor instructs the company to pass it on to the advertiser. During the debate the suggestion has been made, particularly by the hon. Member for Kidderminster, that this tax should be spread over all forms of advertising and I presume that were it to be spread in such a way it would again be passed on to the consumer. Here we are pursuing a course of taxation when we shall be passing the tax from the top down through all ranks of the community. Then, indeed, we shall be a nation of tax collectors. I am sorry that hon. Members on this side of the Committee are not voting against the Clause. In my opinion, it is establishing a very dangerous precedent.
    I have little sympathy with what I have seen of advertising on the television screen. How in the name of fortune it can—whether taxed or not—promote productivity and the efforts of this country to export more, is beyond my comprehension. I hope that there will never be a move by any Government to tax genuine international sales promotion and advertising. I consider that to be essential in order to secure good designs, large and efficient production and an entry into the markets of the world, and only by those means can this country survive.
    Mr. Barber: There has been a considerable amount of criticism of some of my hon. Friends for speaking in this
    1050
    debate, despite the fact that they had declared a financial interest. I hope that, at any rate, it will not be necessary for me to declare my interest on this occasion, but that it may be taken for granted. We have had a fairly full discussion on this short Clause—more than five hours—and when we discussed, at the outset, the first and third Amendments together, my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor was permitted by the Chair to go to considerable lengths in explaining the principles and purposes which lay behind the introduction of this tax. Consequently, there is little more I wish to add to what my right hon. and learned Friend said and to what I said in relation to some of the earlier Amendments.
    It is fair to say that the principle in this Clause is generally acceptable to the Committee. I know that there are certain hon. Members on both sides of the Committee who do not quite take that view. There are other hon. Members who take the middle course. My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Mr. Hirst) said that he was a little dubious about what the Chancellor was doing, but that he did not feel that he would make it an issue on this occasion, although he was issuing something in the nature of a warning.
    This tax will apply only within the limited field of television advertising. I regret that I did not hear the speech of the right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) who, I gather, spoke of the possibility of a general tax on advertising. This was also a point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro). It would be out of order for me to go into the merits or demerits of a general tax on advertising, and I remind hon. Members that we are considering a tax on one particular form of advertising.
    In answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin (Mr. Maddan), I would say that this is, of course, not being used as an economic regulator in the sense that it is a tax which the Chancellor intends to increase or decrease from time to time according to the state of the economy. My hon. Friend the Member for Shipley referred to there being a certain social purpose in advertising, as he put it, and he criticised some hon. Gentlemen opposite

    1051
    for what, I think he called, their rather sneering attitude towards advertising in general.
    It is apparent from what has been said by some hon. Gentlemen opposite that that is not the universal view of hon. Members on the other side of the Committee. Certainly, whatever one's view may be about advertising in general, or of particular forms of advertising, this much can be said: there is no social objection to the imposition of this tax by the Chancellor. His purpose is solely to raise £7 million of revenue in this year and £8½ million in a full year. Whatever the views the Committee may take about the particular way in which the tax is levied, it is not unreasonable, in view of what has been happening to this industry over the past few years, to impose a tax which, in relation to the amount expended on television advertising, is a fairly modest tax.
    Mr. Diamond: The Economic Secretary has referred to what has been happening to this industry in the last few years. May I ask him which industry has profited, and which industry is now being called upon to pay the tax?
    Mr. Barber: I thought that my right hon. and learned Friend the Chancellor dealt with that when he said that he thought that both the programme contractors and the advertisers had benefited, and I do not think that anyone would deny that. I intend later to deal with the point about this tax being passed on and perhaps I may, in due course, deal with that particular subject.
    9.30 p.m.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin spoke for some time about the merits of advertising. I would say that there is good advertising and bad advertising, but for myself—and it can only be a personal view—I certainly accept the fact that advertising is an essential part of sales promotion in a free society. My hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin is very knowledgeable in these matters. As I said earlier—if I may say this for the benefit of those hon. Members who were not here earlier—although he has an interest in this matter, it is a very remote one. He asked me what is the purpose of the imposition of this tax.
    I should like to refer to the OFFICIAL REPORT of 17th April, to a passage in
    1052
    my right hon. and learned Friend's Budget statement which came immediately before his reference to the imposition of the television advertisements duty. He said:
    "The concessions I have announced will cost about £13½ million this year. They will reduce the surplus above the line to £424½ million. Having regard to the economic circumstances of which I have already spoken, I have decided that this surplus is not enough. I consider that I should provide for an above-the-line surplus of about £500 million, involving an overall deficit of under £100 million. I have, therefore, decided to raise an additional £80 million of tax."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 17th April, 1961; Vol. 638, c. 817.]
    He then referred to the possible use of one or both of the new economic regulators and went on to make his first proposal for raising additional taxation, which was this tax which we are considering tonight.
    The hon. Member for Gloucester (Mr. Diamond) quite rightly said that an indirect tax of this kind was to a greater or lesser extent bound to be passed on by the programme contractor. This is certainly true, and this is inherent in all indirect taxation. Bearing in mind the purpose for which this tax was imposed, which my right hon. and learned Friend made clear in his Budget statement, I should have thought that this was something to which the hon. Gentleman would not take exception. Obviously, when my right hon. and learned Friend was considering this matter he appreciated that to some extent it would be passed on. The extent to which it would be passed on depends, of course, on the normal forces of supply and demand.
    Mr. Mayhew: The hon. Gentleman will agree that it is clear that after September at least no part of this tax will be paid by the programme companies. It will be all passed on.
    Mr. Barber: It is certainly not clear to me that that is so—most certainly not. As I explained earlier—and I do not want to go over the old ground again—ignoring for the moment the position so far as existing contracts are concerned, there is nothing that any of us can do with regard to any form of indirect taxation to prevent it being passed on if the state of the market will stand it. But it may be that certain programme contractors in certain areas at certain times of

    1053
    the day may not be able to pass it on, or, if they do pass it on, they will have to reduce their tariff rates. But, at any rate, whether this is so or not, this is not an aspect over which we, in this Committee, have any control at all.
    The hon. Member for Gloucester, I am happy to say, although he described it as a poor and muddled Clause—I thought somewhat reluctantly—added that he was going to give us his support in the Lobby this evening if that should be necessary. If I may correct him on one point, he said that the Government had given the order—it was not merely an invitation—to pass on the tax. This was the same point which was made by the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence). He said that we were forcing the television contractors to pass it on. I shall not weary the Committee with the details of the Clause, but if those hon. Members will look at the Bill they will see that the Clause is permissive and in that respect applies only to existing contracts. As regards future contracts, as I said, the aspect of passing on will have remarkably little effect.
    Mr. Loughlin: Will the hon. Gentleman say categorically on behalf of the Government that it is the desire of the Government that the tax shall not be passed on to the consumer? Such a statement would leave no doubt about the Government's intention.
    Mr. Barber: No, Sir. The hon. Member cannot have been in the Committee when my right hon. and learned Friend dealt with it.
    Mr. Loughlin: I was here most of the time, and I was here when the Chancellor dealt with it.
    Mr. Barber: Then the hon. Member must have missed the point when my right hon. and learned Friend dealt with it.
    Mr. Bence: The hon. Gentleman says that I have misread the Clause. The words of the subsection are:
    "shall be recoverable by him from any person liable to him for the payment so made or to be made".
    The expression is "shall be recoverable". What does that mean?
    Mr. Barber: It means that it is recoverable by the programme contractor. He may recover it if he wishes, but I assure the hon. Member that it is not obligatory.
    Mr. G. R. Mitchison: It creates a debt which would not otherwise exist. If the programme contractor is a company, it will be bound to recover that debt, will it not, if it is to fulfil its duty to its shareholders or whoever it may be?
    Mr. Barber: The point is that the words are "shall be recoverable" and not "shall be recovered". In other words, there is no obligation on the programme contractor to recover the amount of duty from the advertiser.
    Mr. John Hall: I think that the confusion arises from the words "shall be recoverable". Would it not be clearer if the word "may" were used?
    Mr. Barber: I am sure my right hon. and learned Friend will consider that. At the moment, I am bound to say that I do not think it necessary to change the wording because it will, I think, be clear to anyone wishing to make a decision. However, I will certainly consider it.
    Mr. Diamond: The hon. Gentleman has suggested that I misread the Clause. I am not a lawyer and I do not understand these things, but, with the greatest respect, I think that the common sense of the Clause is obvious. The subsection reads
    "shall be charged on and paid by him, but…shall be recoverable by him from"
    somebody else. It is paid by him but it "shall be recoverable" from somebody else. If that does not put upon companies, trustees and all others in a position of trust with regard to other people's money a responsibility for collection, I do not know what does.
    Mr. Barber: It really is not so. I think that the Committee ought to be clear about it. If a programme contractor finds that, in order to maintain the goodwill of the advertiser, it does not wish to pass on the duty, it need not do so. Without going into details, I should tell the Committee that I have here a list of the various programme

    1055
    contractors, and some of them are taking action wholly or partially to that effect, presumably because they consider that it is in their best interests so to do; and that is in accordance with the provisions of the Clause.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) referred to the position of advertising agents, and he made it clear that he had a particular knowledge of their circumstances. It is true that most orders for the insertion of advertisements in television programmes are placed through advertising agents, to whom, as I understand it, the programme contractors allow a commission of 15 per cent. of their normal tariffs. Advertisers who place orders direct with the programme contractors do not receive any equivalent price reduction.
    However, I think my hon. Friend will agree that one could not really differentiate between the case where there is an intermediary, an advertising agent, and the case where the contract is made direct with the advertiser. In that event, more duty would be payable when an order was placed direct with the programme contractor than if the same order were placed through an advertising agent. This matter was brought to the attention of my right hon. and learned Friend in an Amendment which appeared on the Notice Paper. I should be out of order if I went into that in any detail. Suffice it to say that we considered the position with care and came to the conclusion, for reasons which I could develop and which I could give my hon. Friend, that the Clause was correctly drawn in its present form.
    We have had a very long debate on this Clause, which is an important matter. We have subjected it to considerable and detailed scrutiny. On the first Amendment, my right hon. and learned Friend went into the various policy aspects of the Clause at considerable length with the permission of the Chair. I have tried to deal with some of the points which have been raised. I hope that, as we have a great deal to do, and as, I am sure, it is the Committee's wish that we should make progress during the first two days, perhaps we can now get on to the Schedule and Clause 2.
    Mr. Diamond: Will the Economic Secretary be courteous enough to deal with the point which several hon. Members and I have raised? As the hon. Gentleman said, we cannot prevent part or the whole of an indirect tax being passed on. Would he say why he has not sought the obvious alternative of a direct tax on the profits of the programme contractors?
    Mr. Barber: I could not on an occasion like this go into the merits of the alternative of a direct tax on advertisers, or indeed on one particular form of advertising. I have tried to be fair, objective and frank with the Committee. I make no party point whatsoever, but the hon. Gentleman will realise that a Labour Government, in exactly the same way as a Conservative Government, for sound economic reasons and in order to maintain a balance in the economy, increased indirect taxation knowing full well that it would be passed on to a greater or lesser extent through the various media to the consumer. There is nothing new in the principle which my right hon. and learned Friend is adopting. All that the Committee has to decide on the Question "That the Clause stand part of the Bill" is whether television advertising is a suitable source from which to obtain the increased revenue which my right hon. and learned Friend desires.
    Mr. Edwin Wainwright: Could the hon. Gentleman clear up one point about advertising agents? The hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) said that the agent would not be able to recover the 10 per cent. tax. If the advertising agent could recover the 10 per cent. tax, and assuming that the cost of the advertising was £100 and that the 10 per cent. tax made it £110 and he received 15 per cent. of £110, he would get a commission, not of £15, but of £16 10s. If that is so, he would get a benefit out of the tax of 10 per cent.
    Mr. Barber: I said earlier when this point was raised on a specific Amendment that the question of passing on the duty in the way which was mentioned was a matter into which I should like to look.
    Mr. Mayhew: I do not know whether the Economic Secretary's reply has satisfied the many critics on his own benches,

    1057
    but I am sure that it has given very little comfort to my hon. Friends. He said that he hoped that we might now get on to the Schedule and Clause 2, but, after listening to this debate, I would say that the Government will be very lucky to get Clause 1. I cannot recall one speech made in favour of the Chancellor's policy as set out in the Clause. I do not know whether the Government underline the policies set forth by the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Mr. Nabarro). I shall be surprised if they object any less to his speech than to some others in the debate. The Government have had no effective supporter in the long debate and it is therefore surely anomalous that we should let the Clause through, as I gather is the intention, without a Division.
    Mr. Loughlin: Why?
    9.45 p.m.
    Mr. Mayhew: I will try to explain the position. Serious objections have been raised to the Clause and to the Government's policy which lies behind it. The Chancellor told us, "I never intended that this should be borne by the programme companies". We must ask ourselves what the Chancellor intended. He must have known that the vast proportion of this tax would be passed on to the advertiser, as will be the case. He must have known that when drafting the Bill. Was it not his intention to tax the programme companies at all—because that is the effect of his policy?
    Whatever he intended, does he acknowledge that the tax will have no effect in practice on the programme companies, and that this great commercial monopoly which everyone agrees is making too much profit will not be affected by the provisions of the Bill? He talks about the state of the market, but that is not unpredictable. The simplest assessment of the market position must have told him that the tax would not be borne by the programme companies but by the advertisers. If that is so, we must assume that it was not his intention at any stage effectively to interfere with the huge monopoly profits being made by the programme companies.
    1058
    We had some frank special pleading, as the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) described his intercention. He said that agencies make only 1½ per cent. net profit out of the 15 per cent. commission which they receive. The 15 per cent. commission excludes the cost of making a commercial film. Their 1½ per cent. net profit, as my hon. Friend the Member for Deptford (Sir L. Plummer) pointed out, could mean huge percentage dividends and earnings on their capital. After all, 1 per cent. of £82 million is a very large sum, and that could be a very high rate of profit.
    We must ask whether there are not economies to be made among the advertising agencies. May I tell the hon. Member for Crosby a story which was told me by a leading member of an advertising agency? He said that when an advertising magazine was broadcast on the Southern television transmitter on the Isle of Wight, if during this magazine an article were held up and few well-chosen words spoken about it on behalf of a client, it was common routine for the advertising agency to dispatch an executive by plane from London to the Isle of Wight to supervise the holding up of the article and the one or two sentences said about it.
    If my understanding of the salary scales in the agencies is correct, it would be a well-paid executive, and the expenses of the flight would be fairly considerable, too. Before the 1½ per cent. net profit is reached we have the cost of this expensive executive flying to the Isle of Wight and back to see one item held up for a few seconds and commented upon. This is the kind of expense which the hon. Member for Crosby claims is making it very hard for the poor advertising agencies to make both ends meet. I do not think that money is as scarce among advertising agencies as he made out.
    Mr. Graham Page: The hon. Member used perhaps an exaggerated example. I was talking of an average figure for all agencies, carefully worked out, and not solely for agencies such as the hon. Member noted, the big glamorous agencies who send their executives by aeroplane. There are many small agencies which do essential work.
    Mr. Mayhew: I would take a great deal of persuading that agencies are in as dire

    1059
    financial straits as the hon. Member made out in his speech. I ask him to recall that 15 per cent. of £80·7 million, which was the gross advertising revenue to 31st March, 1961, comes out at £12 million. This is simply for the service of advising the advertiser about the placing and timing of his commercial.
    Mr. Page: No, not only for the placing but for the servicing, the designing, the copy-writing and so on.
    Mr. Mayhew: I quite agree. I only ask the hon. Member to remember that the whole cost of B.B.C. television is £23 million and that this £12 million is simply for servicing the commercials of the advertisers. It seems to me a fantastically wasteful thing.
    Sir L. Plummer: We ought to get this matter clear. The modern advertising agency handling £80 million of television advertising and drawing from the programme companies 15 per cent. commission on that, returns to the clients a net figure, that is £80 million less 15 per cent. I cannot work out what that is. [An HON. MEMBER: "Sixty-eight million pounds."] On top of that there is the cost of the aeroplane, the cost of the artists, the script writers, the drawings, the films and so on and there is 15 per cent. based on all of that. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] Yes, that is the way modern advertising works. The agents argue that they cannot live on 15 per cent. of the gross. It must be 15 per cent. not on the amount spent on the media but the amount involved in the whole production for the advertiser. Therefore the figure is considerably more than 15 per cent.
    Mr. Mayhew: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and possibly he has given the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) some ideas for the future conduct of his business.
    I said earlier in the debate, and it is my considered view, that more money and talent is spent by I.T.V. on the production of commercials than on the production of programmes. I am sure that that can be established if access is given to all the costings involved. The heartrending plea for aid from the hon. Member for Crosby on behalf of the advertising agencies has fallen on deaf ears on this side of the Committee.
    Mr. John Hall: Could I ask through the hon. Member whether the hon. Member for Deptford (Sir L. Plummer) would let us know the name of the firm that he has in mind so that we can avoid going to it in future?
    Mr. Mayhew: That certainly would be a little invidious, but my information came from a leading member of a highly respected firm.
    I was grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mr. Diamond) who pointed out, as have other hon. Members on this side of the Committee, that our complaint is not against advertising of all kinds, much of which is necessary. Indeed, we demand more and better advertising for British exports overseas but there must be hon. Members opposite who agree with us that there is a mass of useless, wasteful, misleading advertising in this country.
    I remember putting out an idea to the B.B.C. for three minutes on "Panorama". All that would happen would be that Mr. Dimbleby, perhaps, would sit in the studio surrounded by 40 newly-washed pillow cases and he would read out the names of the chairmen of the detergent companies and their advertising agencies who had declined his invitation to come to the studio and pick out the pillow cases which had been washed by their detergents.
    What would be wrong with this? Merely to state this shows what millions of pounds are wasted in totally useless effort to remove a customer from one identical branded product to another virtually identical branded product—made by the same firm very often. This has become an abuse of the £455 million which are spent on advertising. We know that a very good proportion is useful, necessary, productive, informative, but a very large proportion, perhaps half, as some people have estimated, is utterly wasteful and socially useless if not sometimes socially harmful, and I strongly agree, and I know that many of my hon. Friends agree, with some of the remarks made by the hon. Member for Kidderminster when he says that this whole question of the social and economic value of advertising and its possibilities as a source of tax revenue needs a great deal more investigation.

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    The debate has gone badly for the Government. It has gone badly for the advertising industry and it has gone badly for what one hon. Member described as the strong advertising lobby in the Committee.
    Mr. Loughlin: It will go badly for the housewives who have to buy the products when we go into the Division Lobbies.
    Mr. Mayhew: As my hon. Friend says—and many of my hon. Friends have made the point—the hand which the Chancellor is going to bite is, in the last resort, the hand of the housewife. There is no doubt about that.
    Mr. Loughlin: Hon. Members opposite criticise, but they will not vote against the Government.
    Mr. Mayhew: The reason why the debate has gone particularly badly for for the advertising lobby and the advertising industry is that we have not during this time heard challenged the proposition that advertising adds to the cost of living. That used to be a matter of controversy here. The Chancellor of the Exchequer himself, during his Budget broadcast, came round to the view, so often put forward from these benches, that advertising adds to the cost of the advertised product. Now it has been accepted on both sides of the Committee. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] I can quote in my support people in the advertising profession itself, if I needed to use quotations. I assure hon. Members opposite that I could do so.
    The fact is, as we all know, that this tax may add to the cost of the advertising product. We have heard that several times from Members below the Gangway.
    Mr. Hirst: No.
    Mr. Mayhew: Hon. Members opposite can argue it among themselves. This tax on the advertiser will be passed on to the consumer. Whether hon. Members opposite will argue, like King Canute, against the tide of growing knowledge and public enlightenment which is starting to illuminate the problem, these facts are becoming clear to public opinion and clear to everybody in the Committee.
    Mr. MacArthur: I am sure the hon. Member will not want to present in a wrong light what several hon. Members on this side have said. The point we were making was, on the question of passing on increased costs, that if overnight £100 television time suddenly goes up to £110, because of the imposition of a tax, that £10 excess is necessarily an extra cost carried by the business and possibly ultimately by the consumer.
    10.0 p.m.
    Mr. Mayhew: I am extremely grateful. I was aware that I was making my case with great lack of clarity, and the hon. Member has stepped in and put it very much better than I could myself. Of course, what the hon. Member sees today hon. Members above the Gangway opposite will see tomorrow. These are facts.
    It was only a short while ago, I recall, that one of the television companies was advertising itself on the screen as "Your free television service". I doubt whether it would have the temerity to do that today, because public opinion is beginning to understand that the public itself pays these heavy costs involved in advertising. We pay when we buy a product that has been advertised on television that little extra—a kind of instalment on an invisible television licence. If we add the instalments together, we, of course, pay a much heavier television licence for I.T.V. than for B.B.C. television. That is an important point.
    There is another point. We pay for I.T.V. whether we have a television set or not. If one is an old-age pensioner unable to afford a television set, it does not help when one goes to buy a product advertised on television—one pays that little extra. Already these facts are, I believe, becoming clear to public opinion and account for a great deal of the defensive attitude which the advertising profession is at present undoubtedly adopting.
    There are a number of other points relative to this Clause which I could go into. In conclusion, I shall mention one. I hope that the Chancellor, now that he is making money out of television commercials, will not aid and abet the work of the Postmaster-General and the Independent Television Authority by allowing the television companies to broadcast a lot more advertisements than they

    1063
    are entitled to under the Television Act. Let him look into this.
    I recall only two years ago receiving the permission of the House to introduce a Bill to lay down a maximum of six minutes of commercials in an hour, thereby carrying out the intention of the Television Act and of Parliament. I was told at the time that this was impossible. The television programme companies broadcast 8, 9 or 10 minutes in the hour pretty well whenever they liked. They have, since the inception of commercial television, broadcast more than 100 hours of excess commercials surplus to the six minutes an hour allowable under the Television Act. Now the abuse has been partly stopped. A year ago, a maximum was laid down of 8 minutes in the hour only, a little later it was reduced to 7½ minutes in the hour, and a few months ago it was made 7 minutes in the hour. Why? I do not flatter myself that it was because of my Bill and it was not because of the pressure of Parliament. The reason is that the Pilkington Committee is sitting. That is the cause of the better behaviour of I.T.A. and the programme companies. The programme companies want a second helping. We have been getting serious programmes at peak hours, the Pilkington programmes, as they are called in the trade. Will the Chancellor undertake, now that he has a vested interest in these commercials, not to join the Postmaster-General and the I.T.A. in conniving at this abuse of the Television Act by having too many commercials in an hour in peak periods? We should like that assurance before we pass this Clause.
    It is time to make clear the position of the Opposition to this Clause. The Opposition takes the view that it should not oppose the Clause. It deplores the way in which it was introduced. It deplores the fact that the Chancellor undoubtedly gave the impression not only in the House, not only to the Opposition but to a number of leading newspapers that he intended to tax the gross monopoly profits of the programme companies. In fact, as a result of the Clause the programme companies will pay nothing. We deplore that, and we tried to amend the Clause in such a way as to improve the position.
    We also feel that the 10 per cent., though a thin end of the wedge, is far
    1064
    too limited in its attack on this considerable problem, and we believe that here, on the advertising side and on the side of the programme companies, is a field of possible revenue for future Chancellors. That is why I hope my hon. Friends, with all these reservations, will nevertheless not oppose the Clause.
    Mr. Loughlin: I regret that my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew) took the line that he did Frankly, many members of the Opposition are really opposed to the Clause. It is true that the Chancellor kidded us all. I think that his attempt to create a wrong impression, if not to mislead, was done either deliberately or because he did not understand the tax at the time. The tax will hit the housewife. It is all right saying that the cost will be passed on to the consumer of television time, but it will in turn be passed on to the housewife.
    It is wrong of the Government, in looking at the taxation policy which they are pursuing in the Budget, to introduce a tax of this kind which will hit alike all sections of the community—the old-age pensioner and the housewife running a household on a low income rate and also those who can afford to pay extra money for the commodities involved—while at the same time they are pursuing the rest of their tax policy in other directions.
    A lot of television advertising is completely infantile, but it is the most effective medium, and it has produced golden eggs for those who control it; and those are the people who ought to be taxed. The Chancellor conveyed the impression that that was his intention. The Opposition ought to make it perfectly clear that we oppose this form of indirect taxation, and we ought to be prepared to oppose it even in the Division Lobby.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    First Schedule.—(SUPPLEMENTARY PROVISIONS AS TO TELEVISION ADVERTISEMENT DUTY.)
    Motion made, and Question proposed, That this be the First Schedule to the Bill.
    Mr. Graham Page: According to paragraph 2 of the Schedule, the tax

    1065
    becomes payable within fifteen days of the end of the month. That is approximately the day on which the television companies are paid. It leaves no margin between their receiving the money and the tax becoming payable.
    This means, I suppose, that they will in future require payment of the rates for advertising to themselves at an earlier date, which will put great inconvenience on the advertisers and the advertising agents. I think that my right hon. and learned Friend could have stuck to the practice of the trade and have given it until the end of the month instead of until the middle of the month for the payments to become due.
    My second point has nothing to do with advertising or television. Paragraph 3 (c) of the Schedule says that the Commissioners may require any person having any functions in connection with broadcasting to give certain information, or to produce certain records and books, whether that information, or those records and books, are in his possession or not. I have complained before, without success, about this sort of provision, which has appeared in several Statutes and many Statutory Instruments, and perhaps I will have some success this time. This provision should impose upon a person connected with this trade an obligation to give information which is in his possession, and the obligation to produce books or accounts which are in his possession, but not a wide obligation to produce anything which the Commissioners may demand from him—may, indeed, tell him to go and get from somewhere else.
    This is bad drafting. It imposes an obligation which could not be carried out in many cases, and, if the Commissioners endeavour to enforce it, it might cause considerable hardship. With these two comments, I hope my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary will look at the Schedule again to see if its drafting can be improved.
    Mr. Mitchison: We are very anxious on this side of the Committee that if this tax is imposed it should be adequately and fully imposed. But I am bound to say that I have some sympathy with the point of view put by the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page). It is like having to make a sort of affidavit of broadcasting
    1066
    papers—he will know what I mean. It is not only a question of what is in one's control, but of what one can get hold of by hunting for—and that is perhaps going a little far when there is a penalty attached.
    My point is rather similar to one which he raised. I repeat that we are only anxious to be satisfied that what is provided here is necessary. In paragraph 3 (1, b) a broadcaster has to
    "keep such books, records and accounts…as the Commissioners may direct, and…preserve for six months or any longer period required by the Commissioners all books, records, accounts or documents relating to the business;".
    Surely, if it is possible to limit the period over which advances of this sort are recoverable, it is equally possible to limit the period over which these rather comprehensive collections of papers may be required by the Commissioners? We can all assume that the Commissioners will be reasonable in a matter of this sort, but obviously there is no reason to give powers unless those powers must be as unlimited as the draft suggests. I see no reason why they should not have a reasonable period of limitation put on them.
    10.15 p.m.
    Mr. Barber: Three points have been raised—two by my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) and one by the hon. and learned Member for Kettering (Mr. Mitchison). My hon. Friend's first point concerned the provisions in paragraph 2 that the duty shall be payable within fifteen days of the end of the month. I should inform the Committee that this provision in the Schedule was based on the published practice of the programme contractors. Clause 8 of their General Terms and Conditions of Contract, the terms on which they accept advertisements for broadcasting, provides:
    "Accounts are payable on the 15th of the month following the date of transmission."
    One programme contractor, with Associated Television, varies that by requiring that:
    "Accounts of persons other than recognised advertising agents are, in the absence of special arrangements, to be payable in advance of transmission."
    But, in general, the Schedule requires the programme contractors to pay the duty at about the same time that they expect

    1067
    to be receiving payment inclusive of duty from their own customers.
    However, I realise that there are programme contractors who do not succeed in getting payments from all their customers by the 15th of the following month. Also, of course, there are some types of advertisements which are charged for according to the size of the television audience by whom they are seen. The fifteen days might not, therefore, be appropriate in all circumstances. This matter was brought to the attention of my right hon. and learned Friend by the Amendment in page 29, line 20, leave out "fifteen" and insert "thirty", in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Crosby and we did not know until this morning, of course, that that Amendment was not to be called. However, my right hon. and learned Friend had an opportunity to consider it and he has asked me to say that, in view of the issues which that Amendment raises and which have been raised in this debate, he will consider before Report what is in my hon. Friend's mind so that we can see whether in some cases there should not be some degree of postponement.
    My hon. Friend's second point was concerned with paragraph 3 (2). He is concerned that a person might be required to give information which was not within his knowledge, or to provide books which he was not able to make available. I draw my hon. Friend's attention to the case of the Commissioners of Customs and Excise against Ingram, 2KB, 1949, p. 103, which was concerned with the interpretation of Section 20 (3) of the Finance Act, 1946, which, deleting certain words which do not matter, says:
    "Every person concerned with the purchase or importation of goods…shall furnish to the Commissioners within such time and in such form as they may require information relating to the goods or to the purchase or importation thereof…or to dealings therewith as they may specify."
    It was held in that case that
    "the court on such an application as the present can and should make such an order as, on the one hand, will make reasonably clear to the defendant what he is called on to do and, on the other, will not impose on the defendant obligations which are beyond his power to discharge."
    I should have thought that in the light of that judgment it was clear that no
    1068
    court would convict a person for failing to give information which he had no power to give. Also, and I hope that this will go some way to satisfy the concern expressed by my hon. Friend, the Customs Department of Customs and Excise would never take legal proceedings against anyone for failure to comply with paragraph 3 (2) of the Schedule unless there was reason to believe that he had information or that he had records which he could make available, but which he would not make available.
    Mr. Mitchison: Does not the hon. Gentleman agree that it is sometimes preferable to say clearly what one means rather than to leave it to the courts to make the appropriate order in all the circumstances?
    Mr. Barber: I do not know. I seem to have heard the hon. and learned Gentleman advance arguments the other way on occasion. When the conjoined effect of an Act of Parliament and a case in court is clear, I think that there is a lot to be said for leaving things as they are.
    On the point raised by the hon. and learned Gentleman on paragraph 3 (1, b), I will look into this matter again, but I think that this is common form and follows the provisions which relate to the Pool Betting Duty which I think he will agree are equally apposite in this case. I have in mind what was said, and I hope that the Committee will let us have the Schedule.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Schedule agreed to.
    Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: I beg to move, That the Chairman do report Progress and ask leave to sit again.
    We have had a long and stimulating day on Clause 1. We have not got as far as we would like to have gone, and I hope that tomorrow we shall make more rapid progress. Nevertheless, it being twenty minutes past ten, I ask that you report Progress and ask leave to sit again.
    Mr. H. Wilson: I think that this Motion will receive more universal commendation from both sides of the Committee than anything the Chancellor said earlier in the day's proceedings. It is a wise proposal. I know that he is a little disappointed that we have not made progress with the Bill, and so am I in some

    1069
    ways, but I think he will agree—[Laughter.]—I am surprised that the hon. Member for Peterborough (Sir Harmar Nicholls) should laugh. Surely he is aware that we spent by far the greater part of the day debating Amendments moved by his hon. Friends and not Amendments moved from this side of the Committee? This is becoming rather common form in latter-day Finance Bills. We shall have to see what can be done about it.
    I think that the Chancellor and the Committee will agree that we have had a very interesting debate today. We have seen the power, eloquence and occasional smoothness of the advertising lobby on the benches opposite. That has been very revealing to some of us.
    We have also seen some of the humbug any hypocrisy that has been put forward by the lobby outside the House. I would not suggest that hon. Members have been guilty of purveying humbug and hypocrisy—not much anyway. We have heard some of that humbug and hypocrisy subjected to a devastating analysis by my hon. Friend the Member for Woolwich, East (Mr. Mayhew), and I am sure that the country will in consequence have noted some of the "phoney" characters of the kind of society which is being built up as a result of this over-dependence on advertising.
    Nevertheless, I think that the Chancellor was right to suggest that we should break off at this point, the more so because I think that the next Amendment to be called will be one of great importance to hon. Members on both sides, dealing as it does with agriculture and the effect on it of the Chancellor's proposals. I think that it is better that we should start that discussion at a more reasonable hour in the afternoon when I am sure that hon. Members on both sides will want to contribute to the debate.
    1070
    There are other important matters that we shall want to deal with tomorrow, and I echo the Chancellor's hope that, in statistical terms of the number of Clauses dealt with, we might make more progress tomorrow than we have made today. That is not a reflection on any hon. Member who has taken part in the debate. I am sure that the Patronage Secretary will be glad to see more progress chalked up, if we are able to do that tomorrow, as I am sure we shall.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Committee report Progress; to sit again Tomorrow.

  HIGHWAYS (MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS) [MONEY]
  [Queen's Recommendation signified]
  Considered in Committee under Standing Order No. 84 (Money Committees).
  [Sir GORDON TOUCHE in the Chair]
  Resolved,
  That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make certain amendments to the law relating to highways, streets and bridges in England and Wales, it is expedient to authorise any increase attributable to that Act—

  (1) in the sums payable out of moneys provided by Parliament—

  (a) in respect of the expenses of the Minister of Transport under section two hundred and thirty-six of the Highways Act, 1959, or the Trunk Roads Acts, 1936 and 1946;

  (b) by way of Rate-deficiency Grant or Exchequer Equalisation Grant under the enactments relating to local government in England and Wales or in Scotland; and

  (2) in the sums payable into the Exchequer under the section aforesaid.—[Mr. Selwyn Lloyd.]

  Resolution to be reported.
  Report to be received Tomorrow.

  POTATO MARKETING BOARD (MESSRS. GROVES AND SON)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Whitelaw.]
  10.26 p.m.
  Mr. John Fart: I rise to bring to the attention of the House the extraordinary case of Messrs. Groves and Son. This firm farms a lowlands farm near Blaby, in my constituency. It is not a large, semi-industrial, factory type farm; it is what is termed today a small farm. The firm farms just over 50 acres, and when one remembers that the national average for England and Wales is about 210 acres, one realises that by those standards the farm of Messrs. Groves and Son is a very small one.
  The story that I wish to relate tonight goes back about three years, to the time when Messrs. Groves and Son bought the farm in January, 1958. At the time the land was very dirty and weed-infested, and in an endeavour to clear away some of the weeds and get the ground into good heart Messrs. Groves and Son decided to plant potatoes. Many of us think that planting potatoes is a more natural and beneficial way of cleaning dirty land of weeds than some other methods, such as the use of poisonous sprays, which have various harmful effects.
  At any rate, Messrs. Groves and Son ordered seed potatoes in the spring of 1959. It was only after the delivery of those seed potatoes that the firm learnt that it had to join the Potato Marketing Board. It was in a difficult position. It had enough seed for 14 acres, and it found it impossible to resell the seed it had purchased for planting to anybody else, or back to the people who had sold it. Only after the 14 acres had been planted did the firm learn that the Board had given it an allocation of about 5 acres only.
  What was the firm to do? It was in a very difficult position. It was obviously impossible to uproot the excess of nine acres which it had planted. Mr. Speaker, the firm did what you and I would probably have done in similar circumstances; it left the whole of the 14 acres of seed potatoes in the ground and paid the £1-
  1072
  an-acre levy—£14—to the Board, and hoped for the best. Hon. Members will agree that, so far, no desperate crime had been committed. It is true that Messrs. Groves and Son had broken the law, but they had done so in ignorance, and so far they were acting completely in good faith.
  The next phase in the series of misfortunes which has befallen these smallholders was the dry summer of 1959. To some people unadulterated sunshine, such as we had in that year, is a blessing, but to many farmers it is a curse. In seven months only four small showers of rain fell on the newly-planted potato crop of Messrs. Groves and Son. The result was complete disaster. Only three-quarters of the crop was worth trying to lift and a quarter was left in the ground. Of the three-quarters which the firm attempted to lift, only 20 per cent. was worth picking up. That was used for animal feed. Messrs. Groves have estimated to me that the cost of planting the crop and endeavouring to lift it, reckoned in labour and seed alone, resulted in a loss of over £1,000. That is a tragedy for any small farmer and I submit that it might result in the bankruptcy of some.
  One might have thought that at this stage the Potato Marketing Board would have helped the newly joined member, the fledgling in the nest, to overcome the difficulty. But not a bit of it. The reaction of the Board was prompt, efficient and speedy. It immediately demanded from my constituents the payment of a £90 fine at the rate of £10 an acre for the excess of 9 acres above the allocation of 5 acres. In the circumstances, such a demand appears to me to be brutal. When one remembers that such a sum would be used to finance purchases of potatoes from other farmers, perhaps in a bigger way of business, who had been successful in lifting their crops, it becomes a case of Robin Hood in reverse. To put it a little more bluntly, it is a good example of kicking a man when he is down.
  My reason for raising this matter is not merely to bring to the attention of the House the misfortune of my constituents. I want to call attention to the method by which this fine was extracted. The normal procedure is for an offender

  1073
  to be notified of his case, which is heard by a disciplinary committee consisting of four to six members of the Board who are paid, and a chairman, who is generally a barrister of not less than seven years' standing, and who is usually reimbursed for his trouble by the Board. Such a committee met in London last Wednesday. The meetings are generally hush-hush and le-in-the-corner affairs. The Press is not notified. The fine is decided on by the Board and the defendants notified.
  That is the normal procedure, but one big flaw occurred in the case of Groves and Son. The firm was never notified by the Board or by anyone that its case was due for hearing by the disciplinary committee. The first Messrs. Groves heard of the matter was when they were notified that they were required to pay the fine of £90. After some correspondence with solicitors and others they asked whether I could give any advice.
  Does my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary think that it is possible for a disciplinary committee, the chairman of which is paid by the Potato Marketing Board, to act in good faith, however much it may wish to do so? I have written to the Potato Marketing Board in connection with this case and I have been informed that there is nothing that the Board can do in the matter. I have written also to the Ministry of Agriculture and I have been informed that there is no action that the Ministry can take.
  It seems to me that the very essence of British justice is that not only should justice be done but that it should be seen to be done. I ask the Parliamentary Secretary if he will be good enough to tell me whether he is satisfied that the disciplinary committee of the Potato Marketing Board is doing its job and is fair and impartial, and whether he is also satsified that it would not be far better if such committees were abolished and the whole procedure brought out into the open and in conformity with the normal course of British justice.
  10.31 p.m.
  The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (Mr. W. M. F. Vane): I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) for giving me notice that he would raise this
  1074
  subject tonight. I appreciate the reasons which have led him to do so, and I hope that I shall be able to help him on the question of procedure about which I do not think he has given the House an entirely fair account.
  I am only sorry that I can add so little to the explanation that I have already given him in the course of correspondence about the constitutional position. In short, I think that I must make it clear that the day-to-day administration of the levy arrangements under the Potato Marketing Scheme is a matter for the Potato Marketing Board, that Ministers have no authority to intervene, and that it would be improper for them to attempt to do so.
  There is not a great deal, therefore, that I can say in reply to my hon. Friend's points, but I will help him where I can. It would be helpful, I think, if I tried to explain in general terms where the Minister stands in a matter of this sort, which it must be admitted is a dispute between a producer and his own Board. I am going to speak of the levy arrangements, because that is how they are generally known. Here may I say at once that a levy is not a fine, and that it is misleading to refer to a levy as a fine. Nor do I think that the question of a disciplinary committee which my hon. Friend mentioned is relevant to this case.
  Strictly, both at the lower and at the higher rates these levies are arrangements for obtaining contributions towards the costs and operation of the Scheme. I have seen them before now described as fines, but that is a totally wrong description and is misleading. The position is that the Scheme empowers the Board to prescribe the rates of contribution which every registered producer shall pay to the Board for the operation of the Scheme, and the Scheme also provides that the sums payable shall be recoverable as a debt to the Board. These provisions were put up by producers. Parliament approved them in 1955 and Parliament gave the Board the responsibility for administering them.
  There is only one point of detail to which I want to refer. In a letter which my hon. Friend sent me he explained that his constituent purchased seed for 14 acres, that he had then received his

  1075
  allocation for 5 acres but, in his own words, as it was impossible to sell the seed he planted the whole lot. In the course of his speech, my hon. Friend said that he planted the whole lot before he realised what his quota amounted to. I mention that in passing in the interests of accuracy.
  The position is that Parliament approved these provisions, and Parliament gave the Board responsibility for administering them. It is not open to Ministers just to amend the Scheme. An amendment could be sought only by the Board, and it would be subject to the procedure of the Agricultural Marketing Act. The principle is that producers sought the Scheme in the first place. The Scheme is self-governing, and it is right that any proposal for amendment should come from the producers' elected Board.
  This leaves the question of the Minister's position to intervene by any other means, for instance, by directing the Board. As to this, the circumstances in which Ministers can of their own motion direct a marketing board are explicitly set out in the Agricultural Marketing Act, 1958, and they apply only where a board is using particular regulatory powers, which, I am advised, do not include this power to make levies.
  I might also mention now—indeed, it is public knowledge—that the Potato Board is considering some amendment of the Scheme, including amendments bearing on the levy provisions. If the Board proceeds with its amendments, there will come a stage in the statutory procedure when Ministers will have to consider them in a semi-judicial capacity, so it is important that I should be careful this evening to say nothing about the levy arrangements which could in any way be interpreted as prejudicing my right hon. Friend's position at that stage.
  I hope that the House will not consider that this explanation is too legalistic. I do not want that, but I must make it clear that it is not in our power to try to run the day-to-day management of the Scheme.
  My hon. Friend might think that Ministers ought to be able to intervene in particular cases where they think that hardship can be pleaded. But much of the responsibility for operating these
  1076
  marketing schemes, which involve large sums of producers' money as well as, in some cases, Government money, would then be transferred to Ministers, so undermining producer control and producer responsibility, which is the philosophy behind the Agricultural Marketing Act.
  Naturally, I do not support the extreme proposition that a marketing board can be a law unto itself, but when Parliament passed the Agricultural Marketing Acts, which are now consolidated in the 1958 Act, it was concerned to hold the balance between producer responsibility and the interests of the consumer and the general public. The main safeguards for the general public are those applied when the Scheme is introduced. It is virtually impossible for a scheme to be introduced without a public inquiry being held before Ministers decide whether or not to commend it to Parliament. When it is placed before Parliament, it is subject to affirmative Resolution of both Houses. When it has acquired binding force, a further set of safeguards comes into effect. I shall briefly refer to them now.
  First, there is protection for the consumer. There is a standing consumers' committee empowered to seek information from the Board and to hear complaints. Second, there is power under Section 19 for complaints to be referred by Ministers to a committee of investigation, the chairman of which is an eminent Queen's Counsel. Thirdly, under Section 20, there is a power of direction, to which I have already referred. Its purpose is broadly to prevent injury to the public interest arising from the Board's adoption of restrictive practices or the regulation of prices.
  The protection available for producers consists primarily of the democratic procedure specified by the Act for the election of the Board and the hearing of minority interests. Aggrieved producers can make their case at general meetings of the Board. They can participate actively in Board elections to secure the election of members who they feel will represent their point of view, and they can in certain conditions demand revocation polls. Above all, under Section 8 of the Act, each scheme provides for arbitration between an aggrieved producer and the

  1077
  Board. My hon. Friend did not mention arbitration. Indeed, I think he said that there was not arbitration.
  Mr. Farr Mr. Farr indicated dissent.
  Mr. Vane: I do not wish to misquote him. There is arbitration between an aggrieved producer and the Board, and the Act imposes no limitation on the subject matter of this arbitration. The arbitrator is to be a person agreed by the parties or, failing that, nominated or appointed by the Minister on the application of either party to the dispute. No doubt Messrs. Groves have considered seeking arbitration, but I understand that they have not yet taken this course. Whether they decide to do so must be their decision, but I should have thought that they would be wise to consider that course carefully.
  I said at the beginning of this speech that I was not in a position, nor do I think it wise for me to try, to go into great detail on an individual case which is not my right hon. Friend's responsibility. I have indicated certain points in the course of this speech and, as was most important, I have tried to explain to the House the general position dividing my right hon. Friend's responsibility from that of the Board. I hope that I have
  1078
  been able to make it clear that when Parliament considered setting up this Board it was careful not only to achieve a situation which was just but also to achieve a situation in which it could be shown that justice is done.
  10.46 p.m.
  Mr. Geoffrey de Freitas: The hon. Member for Harborough (Mr. Farr) referred at the end of his speech to the procedure of these disciplinary committees and the apparent—I stress the word "apparent"—injustice which can exist under these proceedings. Since it is out of order to discuss legislation on the Adjournment, I cannot argue for an amendment of the Act, but at least I hope that the Joint Parliamentary Secretary will say that the Government will inquire into the working of these Acts and especially the procedure of these committees. I have pressed for such an inquiry several times at Question Time over the last two or three years, as have other hon. Members. I hope that the Government will be forthcoming enough to say that they will investigate this procedure to see whether there is any room for improvement in it.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at fourteen minutes to Eleven o'clock.

ELECTRICITY
  Cost
  Cost
  Farms, South Wales (Connections)
  Farms, South Wales (Connections)
MINISTRY OF AVIATION
  Airport Charges
  Airport Charges
  London Airport (Car Parks)
  London Airport (Car Parks)
MINISTRY OF HEALTH
  Motor Tricycles (Disabled Persons)
  Motor Tricycles (Disabled Persons)
  General Practitioners, Sunderland
  General Practitioners, Sunderland
  Dentists, Sunderland
  Dentists, Sunderland
  Bronchial Diseases, West Riding
  Bronchial Diseases, West Riding
  Prescriptions
  Prescriptions
HOSPITALS
  Psychopathic Patients
  Psychopathic Patients
  Hospital Beds, Tees-side
  Hospital Beds, Tees-side
  Sedgefield General Hospital and Darlington Memorial Hospital
  Sedgefield General Hospital and Darlington Memorial Hospital
  Plastic Surgery Unit, Chepstow
  Plastic Surgery Unit, Chepstow
  Nurses
  Nurses
  Waiting Lists
  Waiting Lists
  Senior Registrars
  Senior Registrars
  Convalescent Homes (Old People)
  Convalescent Homes (Old People)
  Hospital Building (Non-Exchequer Funds)
  Hospital Building (Non-Exchequer Funds)
  Plastic Surgery Unit, South Wales
  Plastic Surgery Unit, South Wales
  SOUTH VIETNAM
  SOUTH VIETNAM
  ANGOLA (UNITED NATIONS RESOLUTION)
  ANGOLA (UNITED NATIONS RESOLUTION)
  EUROPEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY (DISCUSSIONS)
  EUROPEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY (DISCUSSIONS)
  GENEVA CONFERENCE ON NUCLEAR TESTS
  GENEVA CONFERENCE ON NUCLEAR TESTS
  GUATEMALAN FOREIGN MINISTER (VISIT)
  GUATEMALAN FOREIGN MINISTER (VISIT)
  LAOS (GENEVA CONFERENCE)
  LAOS (GENEVA CONFERENCE)
  ANGLO-EGYPTIAN FINANCIAL AGREEMENT
  ANGLO-EGYPTIAN FINANCIAL AGREEMENT
  NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANISATION (OSLO CONFERENCE)
  NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANISATION (OSLO CONFERENCE)
  DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS (CONFERENCE)
  DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS (CONFERENCE)
EMPLOYMENT
  Shipbuilding and Ship-Repairing, North-East Scotland
  Shipbuilding and Ship-Repairing, North-East Scotland
  By-Product Plant, Durham (Closure)
  By-Product Plant, Durham (Closure)
  Sickness
  Sickness
AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
  Bulls
  Bulls
  Milk
  Milk
TELEPHONE SERVICE
  Basingstoke
  Basingstoke
  Rumney (Waiting List)
  Rumney (Waiting List)
WIRELESS AND TELEVISION
  Advertisements (Sound Volume)
  Advertisements (Sound Volume)
HOME DEPARTMENT
  Northern Ireland (Firearms)
  Northern Ireland (Firearms)
  Prisons (Overcrowding)
  Prisons (Overcrowding)
  Mental Health Act, 1959 (Section 60)
  Mental Health Act, 1959 (Section 60)
  Point-to-Point Races (Deaths)
  Point-to-Point Races (Deaths)
PENSIONS AND NATIONAL INSURANCE
  Sickness Benefit Claims (Investigations)
  Sickness Benefit Claims (Investigations)
  Graduated Pension Scheme (Women)
  Graduated Pension Scheme (Women)
LOCAL GOVERNMENT
  New Towns Act, 1946 (Section 11)
  New Towns Act, 1946 (Section 11)
  Use Classes Order (Indoor Games)
  Use Classes Order (Indoor Games)
SCOTLAND
  Monkland Canal, Glasgow (Drowning Accidents)
  Monkland Canal, Glasgow (Drowning Accidents)
MINISTRY OF WORKS
  House of Commons Refreshment Department
  House of Commons Refreshment Department
NATIONAL FINANCE
  Profits Tax (Co-operative Societies)
  Profits Tax (Co-operative Societies)
  Members' Fund (Grants)
  Members' Fund (Grants)

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

LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN GREATER LONDON
2.35 p.m.
VISCOUNT MERSEY: 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 are now in a position to make a statement concerning the Report of the Royal Commission on Local Government in Greater London; and whether it is their intention to introduce legislation on this subject during the present Parliamentary session.]
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords, Her Majesty's Government are very conscious of the need to avoid delay in reaching their conclusions on this Report. But many important and complex problems are involved, and widely diverse views have been expressed about the Royal Commission's proposals by local authorities and other bodies. These are being urgently studied by my right honourable friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government and his colleagues, and a statement will be made as soon as possible. Your Lordships will appreciate that until the Government have reached decisions on the broad questions of policy involved it is impossible to forecast what legislation may be needed, or when it might be introduced—though it would be safe to say that no legislation could be brought before Parliament during the present Session.
VISCOUNT MERSEY: My Lords. I should like to thank the noble Earl for his very civil reply, although it does not get us very much further. Is he aware that delay in this matter is causing considerable difficulty and unrest among
384
local government officers in London and with London boroughs, and could he not give us some rather more definite time when legislation might he introduced? If it is not to be this Session, could he perhaps say that it will definitely be introduced next Session?
EARL JELLICOE: My Lords. I am afraid that I cannot give my noble friend the further information for which he is pressing; but in reply to his supplementary question, I can say that the Government are, of course, fully aware of the uncertainty caused by delay, and that they are most anxious to bring this period of uncertainty to an end as soon as possible. But the size and the importance of the subject, which I am sure my noble friend appreciates, makes it impossible, and indeed, undesirable, to rush to conclusions on this matter.

PARKING METER EXCESS CHARGES
2.38 p.m.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: 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 how many people, during the last six months, have complained to the borough treasurers within the London area that the fines imposed upon them for the unauthorised use of a parking, place, where meters are in operation, are not justifiable, and in what proportion of these cases has the decision been made that the fines should be waived.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD CHESHAM): My Lords, fines imposed for parking meter offences are the responsibility of the magistrates' courts and it is not within the jurisdiction of local authorities to waive them. Local authorities are, however, responsible for collecting the excess charge which becomes payable after the period of time purchased by putting a coin into a meter has expired, and I think perhaps it is this excess charge that the noble Lady has in mind. It covers a further period of two hours before it becomes an offence to leave the parked vehicle in a parking bay.

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The administration of parking meter schemes is entirely a matter for the local authorities concerned. My right honourable friend has been in touch with them, but understands that the information asked for about the number of people who have complained about the imposition of the excess charge, and in how many of such cases the charge has been waived, is not readily available. There is no reason to suppose that the authorities are exercising their discretion in this matter unwisely.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, the information for which I ask involves only the collection of a few numbers, and I would remind the noble Lord that a week has elapsed since I put the Question down. Borough treasurers are easily available, and it is a question of simple arithmetic to add together the number of people who have been charged and the number of people who have finally had the fine waived. So may I ask why this information is not easily available?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I am informed that the figures could be obtained only by a detailed analysis of records covering a large number of cases, and I understand that the authorities concerned are not very eager to undertake what they regard as quite a large task. That, my Lords, is the reason—unless I have somehow misunderstood the noble Lady's Question.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, I think the noble Lord has rather proved my point. He has now said that this would be rather a large task, which means, in fact, that there are a large number of names to be collected, and that certain borough treasurers have not kept these names. If this problem and the injustices did not exist, then this large task would not exist. May I ask the noble Lord, if he is not anxious to give me this answer publicly, whether he would write to me about it? I am quite prepared to give him another week or two to collect this information.
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I cannot entirely agree with the noble Lady that because it is a large task it means
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there are many cases, and that they involve injustice. But it surely does mean that the councils concerned would have to go through all the cases involving excess charges which they have on their books, taking out of those names the ones where any complaint had been made, and seeing what happened to them. I think that would require a good deal of work, although it does not necessarily mean that there are a large number of cases where complaints have been made. However, I am anxious, as I hoped I had proved by my original Answer, to help the noble Lady in any way I can. I do not want to make difficulties and to play upon words, but my difficulty is that I was not quite sure what the noble Lady meant by "not justifiable". I took it to mean that it was some reason other than mechanical defect (or something like that); that the charge had been unfairly imposed, and on that basis it gave rise to the difficulty. On the other hand, I shall be very glad, if I can, to have another go and see if there is something more I can find out which will help the noble Lady.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, may I put this question finally? Could the noble Lord say whether the Minister of Transport is satisfied that these machines are entirely accurate, and, furthermore, whether this arbitrary method of collecting funds does not deprive an individual from ventilating what might be a miscarriage of justice?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, I do not want to start a debate on this with the noble Lady, but it is a question whether or not you are going to call an "excess charge" a "fine". I thought it was clearly laid down that this amount of money was payable for a further period of two hours over the original period and as such is not a fine: it is an excess charge. I do not think it can be said, when a charge is payable on a further period, that this is an arbitrary decision. My right honourable friend has no reason to think that this system is being applied unwisely in any way. I agree that it is not unknown for a meter to go wrong, but on the whole, so far as I am aware the system is a satisfactory one.

PLOUGHING GRANTS SCHEME 1961
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD (EARL WALDEGRAVE): My Lords, with your Lordships' permission, I will deal with the Ploughing Grants (Scotland) Scheme at the same time as the Scheme for England and Wales and Northern Ireland, as they both cover virtually the same ground. We propose to make the Ploughing Grants Scheme, 1961, in the same terms as the 1960 Scheme, subject to the necessary advancement of dates This is the eleventh Scheme to be made under the 1952 Act.
Your Lordships would, no doubt, wish me to give a summary of results for the past year. The 1960 Scheme runs till the end of this month but we shall continue to receive applications until July 31. I cannot, therefore, give your Lordships the final outcome of the current Scheme, but what I can do is to give the actual figures for the financial year ended March 31. During that period we paid out £10· million, compared with £9·4 million up to March 31, 1960. The area of land ploughed, on some 180,000 farms, despite the prolonged wet conditions, reached the record figure of 1½ million acres, against 1·3 million in 1959–60.
I think that these figures are sufficiently interesting for me to break them down for each country, as noble Lords often raise this point. The figures are 858,000 acres for England, attracting £6·2 million of grant; 151,000 acres for Wales, attracting £1·1 million grant; 357,000 acres for Scotland, attracting £2·5 million grant; 161,000 acres for Northern Ireland, attracting £1·15 million grant; making a total of 1,527,000 acres, attracting grant of £10,950,000.
It will be evident from what I have said that this Scheme is still very widely and increasingly used throughout the United Kingdom. As I have previously explained to your Lordships in moving similar Orders, it is quite untrue to suggest that we renew these grants automatically from year to year without consideration of their purpose in present conditions. We have kept them repeatedly under review and believe they continue to serve a useful purpose. This production grant has three main effects;
388
first, it gives an incentive to rotational farming, which we believe is good husbandry; secondly, it keeps the land in good heart, and thirdly, it cheapens the cost of subsequent crops. But there are criticisms, and since last year my right honourable friend has caused a major review of the grants to be undertaken, which is now well advanced. I naturally cannot say at this stage what the outcome of this review will be, since it involves discussions between the Agricultural Departments and the Treasury and the industry.
Perhaps I should mention that, though a relatively small amount of the total acreage ploughed qualifies for the higher rate of grant under Part II of the Scheme, a very great deal of old grassland, of twelve years or more—in fact, about 250,000 acres in England and Wales alone—is ploughed out each year and either directly reseeded or brought into the rotation. As to Part I (£7 an acre grant), the Scheme is entirely flexible in its effects and significant areas of leys of all ages above the 3-year minimum are ploughed out every year. I beg to move.
Moved, That the Draft Ploughing Grants Scheme, 1961, be approved.—(Earl Waldegrave.)
LORD WISE: My Lords, first of all, I should like to thank the noble Earl for the detailed information which he has given this year in regard to these ploughing grants. In the House of Commons a few days ago there was considerable discussion as regards the continuation of these grants for this year and in future, and many different points of view were expressed, particularly by Scottish Members, but, on the whole, the grants have been supported. I understand from the noble Earl that before next year comes along there may be a different scheme altogether in regard to the payment of these grants or a scheme in substitution thereof. The noble Earl informed the House that the matter has been under review and that consideration is well advanced. From what I gather generally from the opposition which has been expressed to the payment of these grants, some alteration would receive favourable consideration elsewhere.
As to the grants, they form part of the Price Review which we have already

389
agreed to in your Lordships' House, and there cannot be any doubt as to the acceptance of them this afternoon. From many points of view, I think it is as well that we should accept them, because here is a matter of £10 million going into the agricultural industry. Whether or not definite arrangements could be made whereby that sum could be paid to agriculture in another way, it is certain that this £10 million finds its way to the pockets of those farmers who have already undertaken certain work and carried out certain obligations in ploughing up land, and does not (as it might do if different arrangements were made) go into other pockets. Also, £10 million is a great asset in regard to the spending of the farmers, and it eventually finds its way into the pockets of the tradesmen and the industries in those areas.
One point was made last year by the noble Earl which he has more or less referred to again this year, and that is the matter of the investigation of claims. Last year he gave us some figures for Scotland as to the claims of farmers in regard to these grants, which were almost infinitesimal. I hope that if he has any figures for England and Wales they will be as small as the Scottish figures. For the good of the industry, I think it is as well if claims should not be made by farmers for money to which they are not entitled. Personally, I favour the payment of these grants, in the present circumstances, and I support the Orders.
2.52 p.m.
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, I certainly do not want to oppose the payment of these grants, because I feel strongly that the agricultural community, as a whole, needs this £10·9 million in its general income. I may add that. personally, as a recipient of part of this sum—last year I received £1,359 under the scheme—I should be extremely happy to see it continue to come my way. Do not let me give the impression that I am being feather-bedded or that any of my fellow farmers are being feather-bedded. All that I am trying to put across to your Lordships is that I do not feel that this is necessarily the best way of paying out that money. We need the money—we need a lot more money but that is not up for discussion to-day.
390
But is this the right way of spending this considerable sum? Are we as taxpayers, and is the country as consumers, getting the maximum value from nearly £11 million? The noble Earl, Lord Waldegrave, said (I wrote down his words) that he and his right honourable friend have been investigating this problem and their experts have advised them —and I am sure that he himself is sufficient of an expert in this respect not to need advice—that this production grant, as it is called, encourages rotational farming, keeps the land in good heart and cheapens the cost of subsequent crops. That may sound a most impressive list of benefits, but what are they? What is the point of rotational farming? The point of rotational farming is to keep the land in good heart. And what is the point of keeping the land in good heart? It is simply in order to cheapen subsequent crops. So all those three points which are brought forward in support of this production grant add up to one and the same thing: that it helps farmers in their production.
I think we should look back a little to what happened originally with this ploughing-up grant. It started, so far as I can remember, either in 1939 or 1940, and I think the payment then was £2 per acre. That was a reasonable and admirable idea, because in those clays farmers had been brought up to believe that it was a crime to plough up old grassland; and there were, as your Lordships know, penalty clauses in agricultural leases. So some incentive had to be given to farmers to break with this old tradition. Not only did they need the incentive to get away from what they had been brought up to believe was the right way to farm, but they also needed, and particularly the grassland farmers in the Midlands and the West, quite reasonably, an actual cash payment to enable them to carry out the relatively expensive operation, to buy tractors and so on in order to do this ploughing up; and that needed a certain amount of insurance against the risk of ploughing up old grassland, which was then a new technique. But that has now been going for twenty years. Surely in that time farmers, who are not particularly slow at learning, will have learned the right techniques of how to plough up grass.

391
Why should we now need any particular incentive in order to encourage us to do something which not only all the experts but which all leading farmers and, indeed, the rank and file farmers accept as being the correct agricultural procedure in normal circumstances? I suggest to your Lordships that there is to-day no need to give special financial incentive to farmers to do what good farming practice tells them to do and what practically all good farmers throughout the whole country do to-day, and would in fact, in my opinion, do if they received no particular production grant subsidy, or whatever you like to call it, in order to encourage them to do so.
Having said that, I want to reiterate my firm belief that if in the Review which is likely to take place in the next twelve months these production grants were abolished and the money were removed completely from the total amount received by agriculture, I should be extremely unhappy and worried. It should undoubtedly remain in the payments made to agriculture—and, in fact, I think it should be increased, although, as I say, that is another story. I believe it is not too difficult to find different methods, even if it is purely direct payment of a higher price for the actual produce produced by the farmer. That is a simple form of subsidy, which I would remind your Lordships is a subsidy for cheap food to the consumer and not a subsidy to the producer. It might be made use of in this way, rather than in these indirect ways, the original reasons for which over the passage of years become masked and forgotten, and the original objectives for it no longer exist.
2.58 p.m.
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, I am grateful to the two noble Lords who have spoken for generally supporting the schemes. The noble Lord, Lord Wise, asked me a specific question, and I can tell him that, so far in the cross-checking
392
we are doing, we are finding only some 0·5 or 0·6 per cent. (I am not sure which percentage it is) of cases which we investigate to be incorrect. I would point out that cases which are incorrect are not necessarily fraudulent. It is therefore a very small amount. The figures for Scotland and England, the noble Lord will be pleased to hear, are very much the same.
I am grateful for the support of the noble Lord, Lord Walston, and I would say only this. The points that he has raised are very much the points under consideration in the current review which we are carrying out of these grants. It is not an easy subject, and the basic thought must be that we should continue to support British agriculture by the two main methods of production grants and deficiency payments. It has been thought right so far that we should have these production grants, of which the ploughing grant has always been one of the major grants, and it is universally agreed that it cannot do any harm. Up to now it has been universally agreed that it does good. Therefore, as long as we are injecting into the industry money which is needed, by means that up to now have universally been thought a desirable way of doing it—nobody has ever suggested it was a harmful way—I do not think we are far wrong. But I cannot anticipate what will come out of this thorough-going review which we are now undertaking on the whole subject of grants.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

PLOUGHING GRANTS (SCOTLAND) SCHEME, 1961
EARL WALDEGRAVE: My Lords, I beg to move that the Scottish Order be approved.
Moved, That the Draft Ploughing Grants (Scotland) Scheme, 1961, be approved.—(Earl Waldegrave.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE BILL
3.2 p.m.
Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee read.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The LORD MERTHYR in the Chair.]
Clause 1:
Conditions for and term of sentence of borstal training
1.—(1) The minimum age at conviction which qualifies for a sentence of borstal training under section twenty of the Criminal Justice Act, 1948, shall he fifteen instead of sixteen years.
(2) The power of a court to pass a sentence of borstal training under the said section twenty in the case of a person convicted as therein mentioned shall be exercisable in any case where the court is of opinion, having regard to the circumstances of the offence and after taking into account the offender's character and previous conduct, that it is expedient that he should be detained for training for not less than six months:
Provided that such a sentence shall not be passed on a person who is under seventeen years of age on the day of his conviction unless the court is of opinion that no other method of dealing with him is appropriate.
(3) Before passing a sentence of borstal training in the case of an offender of any age, the court shall consider any report made in respect of him by or on behalf of the Prison Commissioners, and section thirty-seven of this Act shall apply accordingly.
LORD SILKIN LORD SILKIN moved to add to subsection (1):
"Provided that a magistrates' court shall not commit a person under the age of sixteen years with a view to a sentence of borstal training unless paragraph (a) of subsection (4) of section twenty-eight of the Magistrates' Courts Act, 1952 (which provides for the notification of the availability of remand centres) applies to him."
The noble Lord said: I beg to move the first Amendment which stands in my name on the Order Paper. This is an Amendment which relates to the lowering of the age, from 16 to 15, at which young persons can be recommended to be sent to borstal. On the merits of that change I am going to express no opinion. There are divided views as to whether young persons between 15 and 16 should be sent to borstal or not. I personally cannot pretend that I am sufficiently
394
acquainted with the workings of borstal, or its results, to express any opinion worth while. But I will assume, for the purpose of my argument, that it is the right thing to do.
I should like to draw the attention of the Committee to what will be the con- sequences of carrying this out at the present time. A person who is recom- mended by the magistrates' court for borstal cannot be sentenced to go to borstal there and then—it has to be a recommendation to another court. In the meantime, the young person is kept in custody—certainly so far as young persons between 15 and 16 are concerned—until the court (usually, I imagine, it will be quarter sessons) has given a decision as to whether or not they are to go to borstal. This will involve the person being kept in custody for sometimes a substantial period. I suppose it will be a minimum of two or three weeks, but I am told that in an extreme case it could be as much as three months. At the present time there is no place to which such a young person could be sent except prison, so the effect of reducing the age to 15 at the present time will be that during the period when the young person is waiting for the recommendation to be confirmed, or otherwise, he will be kept in prison.
The condition of our prisons is such that in the majority of cases there are no facilities for separating the young persons from those who are there serving a sentence. So while we express belief in the principle that young people should not be contaminated by mixing with older and hardened criminals in prisons, in fact the effect of bringing this proposal into operation at once would be that we should be doing the very thing we are setting out to prevent. One of the first things Mr. Butler said, in introducing this Bill on Second Reading in another place, was that its object was to prevent young people from going to prison. Yet the effect of what the Government are now proposing will be that these young people will inevitably go to prison for a certain period. I know that it is not the case that in all prisons they will be mixing with actual prisoners, but in a large number of prisons they will be, because there are no other facilities available.
The ideal thing would be that they should be sent to a remand centre or

395
remand home, but these do not exist at the present time; so there is no possibility at the moment of sending them to any such place. These are children who, admittedly, are difficult children, for whom the magistrates are of opinion that a period in borstal is really the only solution. They are presumably children who have been in approved schools, and have not been successful. They have been difficult, and the magistrates, at any rate, are satisfied, or are of opinion, that no other course of treatment is suitable. I would remind the Government, however, that in a great many of these cases where the magistrates take that view quarter sessions take a different view. Not every recommendation for borstal treatment is approved. Therefore, under the Bill as it stands, a considerable number of young people between the ages of 15 and 16 who have been recommended for borstal pending a decision by a higher court, will, of necessity, be sent to prison. That is something the Home Secretary and all of us deplore—that these young people should be contaminated by being sent to prison, and then, possibly, some other form of treatment might be prescribed.
This Amendment, or one very much like it, was actually passed by the House of Commons in Committee. It was carried by one vote, though I forget the figures. It was carried with the help of a number of supporters of the Government. It was not treated as a Party measure, but the merits of this particular Amendment were such that it appealed to the Committee. An Amendment to put back the original provision was moved by the Home Secretary at the Report stage, and was accepted by the House on his assurance that he had changed his programme by giving a higher priority to remand homes and remand centres than he had done hitherto, at the expense of detention centres. Maybe that was one of the reasons which appealed to the majority of the Members in another place; or it may be, as was said there, due to the efforts of certain officials of the Government. But the fact remains that the situation we have now disturbs everybody who is at all concerned with this matter.
If it be true that these remand centres will be completed in, say, three years—
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some of them may be completed earlier —what is wrong with the suggestion that, until there are remand centres available to which these young people between 15 and 16 may be sent, the provision about sending to borstal shall not apply? In other words, they should not go to borstal if it would mean their being sent to prison for a period of weeks, ranging, as I have said, from two or three to perhaps twelve, and some other means of dealing with them should be preferred, even though it might not be the best method of dealing with them. It might mean that, for the first three years or so, many young people who might be regarded as being suitable for borstal will not be sent. I hope the Government will see the wisdom of what I suggest; and I think it is the right course. In your effort to do good you may be doing incalculable harm in sending these young people to prison. Would it not be better, in cases where a remand home or remand centre is not available, to leave things as they are; and that, until these places become available—perhaps a portion of an approved school where they can be separated from the other inhabitants; but at any rate until we have some alternative to prison—this provision should not operate? That is the purpose of this Amendment, and I hope that it will commend itself to the Committee generally. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 1, line 11, at end insert the said proviso. —(Lord Silkin.)
LORD HAWKE: The noble Lord did not make it quite clear for what purpose they would be remanded. Are they awaiting a vacancy in borstal, or further consideration of their sentence, or what?
LORD SILKIN: Under the law as it stands, the magistrates' courts cannot themselves decide that a young person should go to borstal: they can only recommend. The matter then has to go to a higher court. There is in fact an Amendment, No. 3, which is to be moved by my noble friend Lady Wootton of Abinger, which would provide that the magistrates should be able directly to send a person to borstal. If that Amendment were carried, it would be the answer to the problem. But at the moment the other course is the law.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): As the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, has pointed out, this is an Amendment which was passed in another place by, I think, a majority of one in the Committee, and was deliberately expunged again on the Report stage, on further consideration, for reasons which I hope the Committee will find wholly acceptable. Indeed, although I do not want to prejudice the other Amendment to which the noble Lord has just adverted, if it was essential to deal with this situation in any way I am not sure that the other alternative would not be a good deal more acceptable than the one proposed by the noble Lord.
LORD SILKIN: Perhaps the noble Viscount will forgive me. If in fact he were proposing to accept the other Amendment, I would immediately withdraw this one.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: Obviously, we should have to do something about it, but perhaps we can defer the discussion of the other Amendment until we come to it, because it is something which merits discussion upon its own merits. But this one, in my submission to the Committee, does not really make sense. It points to a very real deficiency of the present situation and to that extent it must command sympathy, but by a curious and, in my view, wholly circular argument it provides a remedy which is little better than the disease.
If I may first of all deal with the fundamental point raised by my noble friend, the position, of course, is that you start with the proposition that the petty sessional court cannot commit to borstal; it can only send the accused to quarter sessions, who have the jurisdiction to send to borstal, to exercise that jurisdiction. That is to say, after conviction of an offence for which borstal treatment can be prescribed, the petty sessional court has a night only to send the case on for sentence: it cannot itself prescribe the sentence. At the moment, as the noble Lord said, it can do so only from age 16. The Bill, if passed, will reduce the minimum age to 15 instead of 16—that is effected by subsection (1) of Clause 1, to which this is an Amendment. But if you then look at the proviso to subsection (2) you find that
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nobody under 17—that is, either of 16, the lowest year of the existing age group who can be sent, or of the additional year 15 to 16—can be sent at all
"unless the court is of opinion that no other method of dealing with him is appropriate."
That is to say, you are dealing only with people for whom the court which despatches the prisoner is of the opinion that nothing else but borstal will do. It is true, as the noble Lord, Lord Silkin says, that it does not follow that quarter sessions will take the same view, but we start with the assumption that the despatching court says that nothing but borstal will do for the young person concerned.
The question then arises: what is to be done with the young person between the time he is sent to quarter sessions and the time when he gets there to be sentenced? The noble Lord's Amendment would say that nobody can exercise this right in relation to those between 15 and 16, although they can exercise the right in relation to those between 16 and 17, as at present; nobody can exercise the right as regards the first year, a person under 16, unless the intervening time is spent in a remand centre. That, at first sight, looks very reasonable, and undoubtedly it would represent the policy of the Government, if there were such a thing as a remand centre in existence. But there is not; there are no remand centres at the moment. The problem, therefore, is to know what to do in the interval of time before the remand centres are built.
The effect of the Amendment, therefore, is that in dealing with people who ex hypothesi are considered, rightly or wrongly, to be such that only borstal will do, nobody will be sent to borstal at all. That is the situation: that a group of people, for whom ex hypothesi it is thought borstal is the only sentence, will never be sent to borstal at all; that is the result of the circular argument that, unless these people spend the time in the remand centre—though there is no remand centre—they cannot be sent to borstal.
Lotto SILKIN: Would the noble Viscount make it clear that I am referring only to people between 15 and 16? When he said nobody at all that is rather too sweeping; it is between 15 and 16.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: The noble Lord is mistaken. I did, in fact, make that very clear indeed. It is, of course, perfectly clear those are the people we are dealing with, those in the first year, between 15 and 16, although the evil, such as it is, would be permitted to continue between 16 and 17. That is the rather circular argument. I had originally thought it was such a circular argument that the noble Lord was using it in a laudably Machiavellian way to bring pressure on the Government to produce enough remand centres, which I think would be laudable, although the means would be open to criticism. But of two unattractive alternatives of how to deal with young offenders of whom, ex hypothesi, it can be said that only borstal will do, far better sentence them to something which, ex hypothesi, is acceptable, that they should be imprisoned for two or three weeks or a short period pending the time when they are dealt with at quarter sessions. I should have thought it was fairly clear that it is better to take the right course and submit them to this evil for a time as regards the one year, than to take the wrong course altogether. That, I would say, is the answer to the Amendment.
But I think it is fair to the Committee to say that there is a genuine deficiency in our system, and to tell the Committee what is the situation as regards the provision of remand centres. I think there is every prospect of their being available fairly soon, despite the difficulties to which the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, referred, including that of the building programme, and despite the fact that that programme has many other urgent needs and needs no less urgent than remand centres—for instance, the completion of the detention centre system, the construction of new borstals and the construction of new prisons, all of which are equally important as the need that we are now discussing.
Good progress has been made in meeting these essential needs and, as the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, said, it has been decided that in the further development of the programme high priority should be given to the provision of remand centres for young offenders. Until recently the policy has been to provide a series of remand and observation centres, each of which would take remand prisoners, of all ages and both
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sexes, in separate wings. One centre has been designed and practical work already begun at Risley, near Warrington. The provision of all-age centres of this kind to cover the whole country will, of course, take a long time, and therefore it has been decided to provide in the first place centres for young offenders only. As my right honourable friend informed another place on the Report stage, the first of these, covering the London area, will be set up in premises at Ashford which were intended for a borstal allocation centre. This will be opened as a remand centre about next July.
It is estimated that about a further seven centres will be required and they will of course have to be purpose built, as the current phrase has it. Sites for all seven are in view, five on the Prison Commissioners' property and two on other Government land. As the noble Lord correctly said, the building programme will take about three years. Three of the centres will adjoin, but will be entirely segregated from, local prisons. In the other four cases the intention is to site and design the centre in such a way that it can be extended later for adult offenders if that is thought desirable.
Women and girls on remand outside London will be accommodated in the all-age centre at Risley and three other centres to be built as annexes to the young offenders' centres. The accommodation of women and girls in London depends on the future of Holloway, and this depends, in turn, on the success of the efforts which are being made to provide an alternative security prison for women within reach of the London area. I therefore hope that the noble Lord will accept that we realise and sympathise with the situation to which he has drawn attention, but the particular remedy which is proposed in the Amendment is not one to which we can give our adherence.
LORD SILKIN: The noble and learned Viscount has really not applied himself to the particular point. He has confirmed the facts which I have given, and I am most grateful that we are in agreement about that. But the real issue is: what is to happen to these young people between 15 and 16 who will inevitably have to be sent to prison if this provision comes into operation at once? All I am

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suggesting is that until these facilities, which I am happy to hear are being provided rapidly (I make no criticism of that), become available, we should not send anybody to prison but should carry on as we are now. This is an entirely new thing, sending people under 16 to borstal. Why not carry on for a year or two longer until we have the remand centres available? That is the suggestion, and I can see so little objection to it that I wonder why the Government are so adamant about it. I do not want to bring in irrelevancies, but it is quite on the cards

CONTENTS

Airedale, L.

Iddesleigh, E.

Rea, L.

Alexander of Hillsborough, V.

Kilbracken, L.

Silkin, L.

Amwell, L.

Latham, L.

Sinha, L.

Burden, L.

Listowel, E.

Stonham, L. [Teller.]

Colwyn, L.

Longford, E.

Summerskill, B.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Lucan, E. [Teller.]

Uvedale of North End, L.

Exeter, L. Bp.

Macpherson of Drumochter, L.

Walston, L.

Faringdon, L.

Meston, L.

Williams, L.

Fraser of North Cape, L.

Raglan, L.

Wise, L.

Harvey of Tasburgh, L.

Ravensdale of Kedleston, B.

Wootton of Abinger, B.

Henderson, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Ailwyn, L.

Freyberg, L.

Merthyr, L.

Allerton, L.

Geddes, L.

Mills, L.

Ashton of Hyde, L.

Gladwyn, L.

Milverton, L.

Astor, V.

Grenfell. L.

Montgomery of Alamein, V.

Auckland, L.

Hailsham, V. (L. President)

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Baden-Powell, L.

Hamilton of Dalzell, L.

Newton, L. [Teller.]

Bathurst, E.

Hampton, L.

Robins, L.

Buckinghamshire, E.

Hastings, L.

St. Aldwyn. E. [Teller.]

Casey, L.

Hawke, L.

St. Oswald, L.

Cohen, L.

Howard of Glossop, L.

Salter, L.

Courtown, E.

Jellicoe, E.

Somers, L.

Croft, L.

Killearn, L.

Spens, L.

Crookshank, V.

Kilmuir, V. (L. Chancellor.)

Strang, L.

Dynevor, L.

Limerick, E.

Teviot, L.

Ferrers, E.

Margesson, V.

Thurlow, L.

Fortescue, E.

Merrivale, L.

Twining, L.

3.35 p.m.
LORD RAGLAN: The Bill provides that nobody shall be sent to Borstal under seventeen:
"unless the court is of opinion that no other method of dealing with him is appropriate."
I have a little experience of courts and, to the best of my knowledge and belief, no court ever does pass a sentence on anybody unless it considers that that sentence is the most appropriate. The effect of this provision, if it is left in the Bill, will be to suggest to the courts throughout the country that they are under no sort of obligation to consider what sentence is the most appropriate unless it is a sentence of borstal training. I think that would be most unfortunate,
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that this Bill will not go through at all this Session. If it went through next Session the difficulty would hardly apply. Therefore, I cannot see why the Government should not concede this point. The noble and learned Viscount has really not applied his mind to the objection to conceding it.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 31;
Not-Contents, 48.
and so I propose to leave out the words referred to and to insert those suggested by the Howard League: namely, the court shall not pass sentence unless it
"has first considered a full social and medical report on him"—
that is, the person under consideration. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 6, leave out from ("court") to the end of line 7 and insert ("has first considered a full social and medical report on him.")—(Lord Raglan.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (VISCOUNT KILMUIR): I should like, with your Lordships' approval, to examine my noble friend's Amendment, first from the point of view of the actual wording—because, with great respect, I do not think that my noble friend has appreciated the full force of the wording as it exists. If

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your Lordships remember, I listened carefully to what my noble friend said on Second Reading. He then said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol 230 (No. 72), col. 1099]:
"I should have thought that that was the duty of every court in every case."
He went on to say that he had been for 33 years chairman of a bench of magistrates, for which I am grateful to him, and then continued
"and in no case did I pass sentence, or be a party to the passing of a sentence, unless I was satisfied that there was no way of dealing with the case that was more appropriate."
I want to point out to my noble friend —and I think he will appreciate that this is important—that what the proviso requires is not simply that the court should consider no other method more appropriate; that requirement must be understood to apply in every case, as my noble friend said on Second Reading. But the proviso goes further and requires the court to be of opinion that no other method is appropriate or in other words that every other method is inappropriate. Therefore, the proviso is not an empty form of words, but imposes a real restriction on the powers of the court. I should like to assure my noble friend that it is not unprecedented. There are already similar provisions in the Statute Book: for example, Section 54 of the Children and Young Persons Act, 1933, in its present form, or if my noble friend has a copy of the Bill in his hand and would be pleased to look at page 37, lines 13 to 15. he will see the amended version:
"the court may, if it considers that no other method of dealing with him is suitable, commit him to custody"—
in that case, in a remand home.
Now I would turn to the other point of my noble friend's Amendment with regard to obtaining a report on the offender. I entirely agree with my noble friend that it is certainly important that the court should have before it all the information it needs to make a decision. In some cases the offender is found guilty by a juvenile court, or occasionally by an ordinary magistrates' court, and sent to quarter sessions with a recommendation for a borstal sentence, as we heard in the last Amendment. I should like to point out to my noble friend that juvenile courts are required by Rule 11, sub-rule (ii), of the Summary Jurisdiction (Children and Young Per-
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sons) Rules of 1933, except in cases of a trivial nature, to obtain such information as to the general conduct, home surroundings, school record and medical history of an offender as may enable it to deal with the case in his best interests.
Now the Committee presided over by my noble friend Lord Ingleby have recommended that a similar rule should apply for offenders under the age of 17 who are dealt with by magistrates' courts other than juvenile courts, and that the information obtained should be transmitted to the court to which an offender is committed for a borstal sentence. In other cases the offender will be convicted at assizes or quarter sessions. The Streatfeild Committee, on which the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, was good enough to serve—and I have already expressed my gratitude for the work of that Committee—have recently put forward proposals for ensuring that these courts are provided with fuller information about the offenders with whom they have to deal, and have urged that no sentence should be passed without the court considering comprehensive and reliable information about the offender which is relevant to their objects in sentencing him. The Government hope in due course to arrange for the implementation of these recommendations of both Committees—that is, of the Ingleby Committee and the Streatfeild Committee—and the result will be that in a wide range of cases, and not only in the category to which this proviso applies, the court should have before it adequate information of the kind my noble friend Lord Raglan has in mind.
The Government and I myself sympathise with the object of the proposed Amendment, but I doubt whether, by itself, it would achieve its object. Arrangements for providing the superior courts with appropriate information—and, in particular, for providing it in time to avoid the post-conviction adjournments that the Streatfeild Committee considered injurious—have still to be worked out. Noble Lords who have considered the matter will realise that they will require some working out, and that that will not be time wasted. It would be better to deal with the matter as part of the much wider provision that the Government hope to make in pursuance of the recommendations of the

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Ingleby and Streatfeild Committees. With this assurance, with the sympathy I have expressed for the wording that my noble friend would like to see, and with the course which we hope to follow, I hope that, on this occasion, my noble friend will see fit not to press his Amendment.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
3.44 p.m.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER moved, after subsection (2) to insert:
"() In dealing with a young person who has attained the age of fifteen years, a court of summary jurisdiction shall have power to order borstal training."
The noble Baroness said: I hope the noble and learned Viscount who leads the House has not already damned this Amendment with faint praise by indicating that it appears to him slightly less unattractive than that moved by my noble friend Lord Silkin. I prefer to think that, in making that observation, he was coming to meet my Amendment at least half way. The importance of this Amendment is, I think, greatly increased by the proposal in this Bill to reduce the borstal age to 15. There would be much to be said for an Amendment on these lines, even apart from that change but if the age at which a borstal sentence may be passed is to be reduced to 15, the case for this Amendment becomes very much stronger still—and very must stronger, too, since the defeat of the Amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Silkin. For unless this Amendment is passed, young boys—and, it may be, young girls—of 15 years of age will have to be remanded in custody in prison while awaiting a sentence of borstal to be determined at quarter sessions. Surely, nothing could be more contrary to the spirit of this Bill.
Later in the Bill it is proposed to raise the minimum age for a sentence of imprisonment from 15 to 17; but by the reduction of the borstal age to 15 (which, of itself, I do not oppose), and by requiring borstal sentences still to be imposed only by quarter sessions, we are compelling children of 15 to spend a number of weeks on remand in prison. I do not think, even, that remand centres would be a complete answer to the objections to that, because it is not merely the prison environment which is indeed the worst evil: it is the fact that there is a long delay before anything at all is done
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for the rehabilitation of these young people. They appear before a magistrates' court—or, if at the age of 15, normally a juvenile court—and if it appears to the magistrates' court that a sentence of borstal training is called for, they are obliged to remand in custody for a period which may be, and which has been, as much as twelve weeks, and which is always a matter of several weeks. These young people, as a rule, have already been remanded in a remand home for two or three weeks for the purposes of obtaining information.
I know that the Advisory Council on the Treatment of Offenders expressed itself as opposed to this change, but the grounds which they gave are not, I think, relevant to the present situation. They said, first of all, that they did not think it right that a magistrates' court should have the power to deprive persons of their liberty for such long periods as a borstal sentence would involve. Are children of 15 persons or not?—because magistrates' courts already have the power to deprive children of 15, and younger, of their liberty for periods much in excess of any borstal sentence. In sending them to approved schools, magistrates' courts are already depriving them of their personal liberty for longer periods than a borstal sentence—particularly the borstal sentence as reduced under this Bill. Secondly, the Advisory Council said that they did not contemplate with satisfaction the consequence that if magistrates' courts could commit direct to borstal, the only appeal would lie to quarter sessions; but they gave no reason for this rather surprising distrust of the efficacy of the appeals committees of quarter sessions. Most important of all, the Advisory Council were not thinking of candidates for borstal of an age as young as 15.
I find it difficult to believe that your Lordships would willingly contemplate that children of 15 should spend several weeks in prison, or even in a remand centre, waiting until they can go before a higher court, labelled as convicted persons and with nothing whatever being done for their rehabilitation. Those precious weeks taken out of their lives will never come again. The proposal contained in this Amendment was put forward unanimously by the Ingleby Committee, and the reasons which they gave in support of it were very much

407
the reasons which I have tried to put before the Committee this afternoon. I would add, as the Ingleby Committee pointed out, that in about 80 per cent. of the cases the sentence which the magistrates recommend is in fact confirmed at quarter sessions.
It is on those two grounds, and most particularly because of the conflict between raising the minimum age for imprisonment on the one hand, and providing for children of 15 to spend periods in prison awaiting borstal on the other hand, that I ask your Lordships to support this Amendment. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Clause 1, page 2, line 7, at end insert the said subsection.—(Baroness Wootton of A binger.)
LORD RAGLAN: As the noble Lady knows very well, an approved school is a school, whereas a borstal is a kind of prison. I think it would be most undesirable that children of 15 should be sent to borstal at all. It is very difficult to imagine that any court will consider that a child of 15 would be better off at borstal than at an approved school. I very much oppose any attempt to extend the powers to sentence to borstal children so young.
3.53 p.m.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: This is a question which has been debated between criminologists for a very long time. I think one can say, after that very long time, that finality is not likely to be achieved. Two schools of thought, of a very highly reputable kind, have existed, and all I can ask the Committee to do is to take account of the arguments on both sides, and to come to the conclusion which I beg them to do on the balance of argument.
The Amendment proposed by the noble Lady would give, at any rate in respect of a young person who has attained the age of 15 years, power to a court of summary jurisdiction to order borstal training. As will be remembered from my discussion of the first Amendment, in answer to a question by my noble friend Lord Hawke I said that the essence of the present situation is that a court of summary jurisdiction has not at the moment the power to order borstal training the proposal is that it should have the power,
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but limited to a young person—that is a person between the ages of 14 and 17 years—and not to defendants otherwise within the borstal range. This was the proposal of the Ingleby Committee, as the noble Lady has said. It was equally hotly rejected by the Report of the Advisory Council on the Treatment of Offenders, who said that it would not be appropriate for magistrates' courts to deprive persons of their liberty for a period perhaps as long as two years, and that the higher courts are subject to direct appeal to the Court of Criminal Appeal.
In order to show how evenly balanced opinion has been (there are two advisory bodies, who have taken directly the opposite point of view to each other), I would point out that the same recommendation that the noble Lady now makes, or a similar one, was contained in the Report of the Departmental Committee on the Treatment of Young Offenders in 1927. It was therefore included in the Criminal Justice Bill of 1938, which was ultimately withdrawn on the outbreak of war, but the proposal in that Bill had already failed in Committee in the House of Commons and had been withdrawn by the Government. In the 1948 Bill, an Amendment to the same effect was moved in the House of Lords by my noble friend Lord Raglan, but was not carried. So one can really show that opinion is very evenly divided, and nobody can be condemned for differing from other authorities about it, because both schools of thought have a very solid basis of authority.
However, I think that two or three things need to be kept clearly in the forefront of one's thinking. The first is that of those who are sent to quarter sessions by petty sessions for sentence to borstal, between 20 and 30 per cent. receive some other form of punishment when they get there. The noble Lady put it perfectly fairly, as she always does, but she put it the other way round. She said that the House ought to accept this Amendment because in 89 per cent. of the cases borstal training is in fact imposed. It is at any rate for the consideration of the Committee whether the opposite conclusion is not the right one. If, in fact, in 20 to 30 per cent. of the cases sent by petty sessions to quarter sessions borstal is not inflicted by the

409
court in whom the noble Lady rightly has such admiration as a court of appeal, I should have thought the argument was that the petty sessional court ought not to be given the absolute power of sending an offender to borstal for that very reason.
Secondly, it is true that in every decision of the petty sessional court you have a court of appeal in the shape of quarter sessions, but some thinking has been on the other side— and personally it is that which I think, on balance, is the better—that quarter sessions, sitting as a court of first instance, is superintended by the Court of Criminal Appeal. There is a very great safeguard for human liberty in the power of the Court of Criminal Appeal to superintend sentences. One of the reasons why certain sentences—whether it is prison for a certain length of time, or other sentences—cannot be imposed by petty sessions is precisely because certain kinds of punishment are considered to be a sufficient infringement on human liberty to make it desirable that the court of appeal should not be a court of magistrates sitting in quarter sessions, admirable as they are, but the Court of Criminal Appeal itself. That right would be taken away, and taken away irreparably, if the noble Lady's Amendment were passed.
Then the noble Baroness says (and again, says with great force, as she always does) upon this difficult question: "Ah!, but the petty sessions have the right to deprive a child or a young person of his liberty for an equally long period in the case where they send him to an approved school." That is a perfectly fair argument to put; I am not criticising it as unfair in the least. But it is a question of the inference you draw from it. The inference that we draw is that which my noble friend Lord Raglan drew: that, on the whole, with the approved school the emphasis is upon the schooling rather than the punishment—although there are in fact, as we all know, elements of both in sending a person to an approved school —whereas in the case of borstal, which is quite a tough kind of place, the emphasis is at least as much on the punishment as on the education. Borstal approximates, therefore, a little more to prison than does the approved school.
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I should have thought myself that the arguments which I have presented were, on balance, superior to those of the Ingleby Committee and those of the noble Lady. There are a number of other arguments, some on each side, which have to be taken into account but which I should personally have thought were of less importance. The first is the purely temporary argument about the delay in prison which may take place, and indeed must take place at present, after the decision has been taken by the petty sessional court to remand a person to quarter sessions for sentence, and before the defendant is dealt with at the quarter sessions by being sent to borstal, or by some other treatment. That, of course, is the point we discussed in the first Amendment, and I fully agree that is a great disadvantage. But it is, after all, purely temporary, if what I said on the first Amendment is correct, as I hope and believe it is—namely, that the remand centres will be provided within a period of three years. I should not think it was right to come to what was otherwise a wrong conclusion simply because of this which will happen as an evil over an interim period of two to three years.
The noble Lady then says that this is not the whole case. The delay, she says, is always bad, whether there is a remand centre or not. Of course, this is true. It is undesirable to take two or three weeks— "precious weeks", as the noble Lady says—out of a person's life, whether he be a young person or not. The question is how much importance you attach to that argument in relation to the disadvantages I have put forward. I do not think that this is an unfair argument. Whether it is conclusive or not depends on how much weight you attach to it. I put it before the Committee that the right conclusion is that on the whole the important thing is to get a right sentence rather than to avoid delay. Undesirable as delay may be, the rightness of sentence and the safeguard of the Court of Criminal Appeal are sufficiently important to outweigh that particular disadvantage.
There is another argument of a countervailing kind that can be put on the other side. Again I do not put it forward as conclusive. It is very much a question of how much weight you attach to it. While I think that there

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is a genuine disadvantage in this Amendment in that it proposes, and inevitably proposes, to give this power only in respect of young persons in a range less than that of the total borstal range—that is, between the years of 14 and 17: that is the proposal of the noble Lady and of the ingleby Committee—it would not be practicable or sensible, at any rate so the Government think, to confer power only in relation to some age groups in the borstal range and not in relation to others.
Apart from other questions—and I should have thought that there were other questions—there is the complication of offenders of different ages convicted jointly of the same offence. Where the magistrates' court consider a borstal sentence appropriate for both, it would have power to impose borstal on one immediately and commit the others to quarter sessions where a borstal sentence may or may not be passed. I should have thought that it was desirable that one court should deal with both cases, otherwise there might be divergencies of views as to the way in which an actual offence was regarded, leading to different types of sentences arising out of the same circumstances. Again, it is a question of how much weight you attach to this argument in relation to others. For this and other reasons I have given, and recognising that there is a very respectable body of opinion on both sides of this particular fence an that ultimately your Lordships will have to decide between one view or the other, I should have thought that on balance the Government's view, which is against the Amendment, would prevail. But I do not want to treat this Amendment as one for which powerful arguments cannot be advanced.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: The noble Earl's arguments are so finely balanced on this occasion that I cannot help thinking that it would take only a small puff of wind to blow them over on to the opposite side. I appreciate the point put by the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, that a borstal sentence is a deprivation of liberty and that an approved school sentence means being sent to a school, but I think that this distinction is increasingly one without a
412
difference. There are open borstals and closed borstals and in either case the person who receives a sentence is required to stay in the institution, willy nilly, for the prescribed period.
The argument which the noble and learned Viscount gave, that if a case has to go to quarter sessions, quarter sessions may decide differently, seems to me to be rather a strange one. Any sentence which is passed by a lower court may be reversed on appeal to a higher court. In this instance, what it comes to is that there is, so to speak, an automatic appeal from the magistrates' court—I know that it is not so in law but it is in substance. If a similar automatic reference to a higher court took place in other cases, there might well be as many as 20 to 30 per cent. of differences. The argument seems to me to be specious.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I am afraid that the noble Lady has not quite got my argument. I was dealing with the case of two or more persons charged with offences arising out of one crime.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: I think that the noble Viscount made the other point at an earlier stage. There is nothing new in the question of two or more offenders sentenced together. This already happens. Two or more offenders are tried together in an adult court and if one of them is under 17 the normal practice is to remit him to a juvenile court for sentence, and, because of the differences in age, there are two different court sentences and the sentences may indeed express different views of the same offence. But the most serious omission from the noble Viscount's remarks is that he did not take into account the fact that the Advisory Committee on the Treatment of Offenders was thinking of offenders from 16 to 21 and was not thinking of borstals for which the age would be brought down to 15. It is that which I think makes all the difference. I would ask the noble Viscount whether the Government would accept a restriction of the scope of this Amendment to offenders between 15 and 16, if we cannot persuade them to accept it as it stands.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: Of course, this is a new question put to me, and all I can say to the noble Lady is that I will consult my right honourable friend whether this would be acceptable and let

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her know the result. I do not want to give her the conviction that I am likely to be able to give a favourable answer. I have not been in consultation with my right honourable friend on the particular narrow point, which is not the point contained in the Amendment but which certainly arises out of it, but I will endeavour to give her an answer before the next stage of the Bill. That is as far as I can go on this last question.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: On the assurance that this point will be considered before the next stage of the Bill, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
4.9 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: moved, in subsection (3), after "court" to insert:
"shall be, required to obtain and consider a report as to his home surroundings, school and work record, health and character and".
The noble Lord said: I hope that it will suit your Lordships' convenience if I discuss with this Amendments No. 7 and 9, which, although they amend different clauses of the Bill are essentially on the same point. We on this side of the House did not intervene to support the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, in his Amendment asking for a full social and medical report, certainly not because we were opposed to it, but because these three Amendments are wider in scope, deal with the whole age group, and not only with those under 17, and are more specific in their requirements. I was disappointed and somewhat surprised to hear the noble and learned Viscount who sits on the Woolsack say that the Government accept the recommendations of the Ingleby and Streatfeild Committees on this point and that they hoped to implement them in due course. Why cannot they implement them now, by accepting this Amendment and putting these words into the Bill? No doubt the noble and learned Viscount will make that point clear afterwards.
We are extremely concerned lest there should be what we regard as an unnecessary and quite dangerous delay, because the present requirement of the Prison Commissioners to supply a report on the suitability for borstal training is quite inadequate, being frequently made after the most cursory interview with the boy by the prison governor or the medical officer. In
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our view, it is only if the court is provided with a report on the home surroundings, the school and work record, the health and character of an offender, on the lines of reports made to juvenile courts, that it will be in a position to decide whether he is physically and mentally suitable for borstal. The reports, in our view, should be made by qualified social workers, or, where a psychiatric report is required, by a medical practitioner with psychiatric qualifications or experience. I understand that there are only six medical officers, out of a total of over 100 listed in the Prison Commissioners' Staff Directory, who have psychiatric qualifications; and then it is the Diploma in Psychological Medicine. The Prison Commissioners, therefore, with the best will in the world, are not in the position to make the kind of full report which is necessary if the court is to make the right decision.
This is a decision which is going to affect the young person's whole future life. The Prison Commissioners' report on an offender's physical and mental condition is usually based on a superficial examination, with no psychiatric examination. There may be a brief police report on the home background, but seldom one from a probation officer or a social worker; in fact, if the offender has been out on bail, the prison officials will not have seen him at all, and therefore there is virtually no report of any kind. This clause already insists that no sentence of borstal training should be passed on an offender under the age of 17 unless the court is of opinion that no other method of dealing with him is appropriate. But how can the court know that borstal is the only method appropriate if they do not have a full report about the young person? However important it is to make the punishment fit the crime, it is supremely important, if we are not to turn the delinquents into criminals, that the punishment should fit the delinquent.
The Home Secretary must exercise his own judgments on the reports that have been submitted to him, but on this particular point the Ingleby Committee and the Streatfeild Committee are quite unanimous and extremely firm. The noble and learned Viscount said that the Ingleby Committee made this recommendation only in respect of young persons up to the age of 17, but that was the age group with whom they were

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dealing: they did not have a remit to make suggestions in regard to older people I heir recommendations on this are most impressive, and in about half a dozen paragraphs they come to this point again and again. For example, paragraph 356 says:
"No order removing a child from his home should be made unless the court has received and considered full reports on the child's personal and social history, including medical and, where necessary, psychiatric reports…"
That observation was made with particular reference to orders for borstal training. In paragraph 269 the Ingleby Committee note that, under Section 35 of the Children and Young Persons Act,
"…when a child is to be brought before any justice or justices in respect of any offence that he is alleged to have committed, or is to be brought before a juvenile court in need of care or protection, the local authority is obliged to prepare reports about his school record, health and character; and either the local authority or a probation officer, to prepare a report about his home surroundings, to assist the court in dealing with him; and the rules that govern juvenile court procedure provide for these background reports to be received and considered."
It seems to me extraordinary, since that was laid down so long ago—28 years—in the Children and Young Persons Act, and is approved by everyone, that people of the same age can come before a variety of courts where there is no requirement for a report at all other than the one from the Prison Commissioners. For example, a young person may appear before the appeals committee of quarter sessions, before the Court of Criminal Appeal and at assize courts, yet there is no absolute requirement for a report of the kind for which we are asking.
The Streatfeild Committee made a very decisive comment on this point, although in their case it was extended to the age of 30. Their recommendation was
"that, where practicable, a probation officer should prepare a pre-trial report on every defendant…"
What is the difficulty about? Is it that the Government are of opinion that there are not sufficient probation officers or social workers; that the machine cannot be ready for the Bill amended in this way by the time it comes on to the Statute Rook? If that is the real reason for non-acceptance of these Amendments, then I should hardly think that my noble friends and I would regard it as a tenable one. We have already been told by the
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Lord Chancellor, and welcomed it, that the Government accept these recommendations and propose to implement them. Apparently, the only point at issue between us is, when? We ask for them to be implemented statutorily in this Bill, and I hope that the answer will be, Yes. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 9, after ("court") insert the said words.—(Lord Stonham.)
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I would say at once that the reason for not accepting the Amendment is not the physical reason which the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, mentioned, and I shall try and develop the reasons in the course of my argument. I should like to say this preliminary word. Although I have said that we accept the recommendations by the Ingleby Committee and the Streatfeild Committee in this regard, I should not like the public to gather from the noble Lord's speech that the information given to the court that is sentencing is inadequate in a large number of cases. I take his point about the difficulties of the Prison Commissioners' report, but I should have thought that before a court sentences a prisoner, in the vast majority of cases it ensures that adequate information is available. If I may tell the noble Lord my personal experience, I was recorder of a Lancashire industrial town for six years, and during that time I received information from the various sources available to me. In that six years only one man whom I put on probation, and did not send to prison, let me down and committed another offence. I think the noble Lord will say that that is not a bad test for the information that was given to me. I say nothing about my own part.
LORD STONHAM: I should say it is much more a tribute to the noble and learned Viscount's judgment of his fellow men than to the excellence of the report submitted. My point was that there are good reports, but that in many cases the reports which are received have little value because they are not, and cannot be, compiled by experienced people.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I can only say that it is not mock modesty which makes me say that I received

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very good reports and, of course, obviously a very good prognosis as to what would happen to the man. I say that only because I do not think it is fair to the Judiciary of this country that it should go out that they themselves would be content with inadequate information before imposing a serious sentence.
I want to come to the other point. The noble Lord, Lord Stonham, dealt with the Ingleby Report, and I am sure that he has in mind, as I have, paragraphs 269 to 271 and 355 and 356, one of which he quoted. The Committee recommended that the magistrates' courts rules should be assimilated to those relating to juvenile courts, and should provide that an adult magistrates' court should be required, except in cases of a trivial nature, to obtain and consider background reports in any case where an offender below the age of 17 appears before them, unless they remit the case to a juvenile court. But, as the noble Lord pointed out, the Committee were concerned only with the procedure in relation to children and young persons, and their recommendation is of much more limited effect than that in the present Amendments.
But there are some objections that go deeper than that argument as to whether the Committee is covering the same ground. The Streatfeild Committee have made a thorough survey of the whole question of providing the superior courts with reports on the background of offenders to enable them to select the most appropriate treatment when passing sentence. They have made, if I may say so, a comprehensive set of recommendations suggesting what these reports should contain and the cases in which they should be made. In principle, they think that every sentence should be based on comprehensive information about the individual offender; and in particular they have recommended that probation officers should make inquiries before the trial about the background of all accused persons under 30. But I would point out to the noble Lord that that is subject to an important qualification: that the accused should consent to the inquiries being made. It is a fact that, however unjustifiably, some accused persons might think that such inquiries would be prejudicial to their case. Where
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inquiries are not made before the trial, either because the accused objects or because there is no time, there can be a remand for them to be made afterwards.
As I pointed out on the previous occasion when I addressed your Lordships, it must be kept in mind that justice should be dispensed speedily, and that sentence should follow as soon as possible on conviction. There will therefore be, even under the Streatfeild recommendations, straightforward cases in which, in the interests of speedy justice, courts will feel able to pass sentence without waiting for a report. As I said, the Government welcome the Streatfeild Committee's approach to this subject. They believe that it is a practical and significant piece of pioneer work. They are at present considering how best the recommendations and the related proposals by the Ingleby Committee can be implemented. When they have made the necessary arrangement, and if, as they hope, the courts act in the spirit of the Streatfeild recommendations, the evident aim of these Amendments will be secured, since in no case should sentence be passed on a young offender without a full report on his background being obtained, where that is necessary to enable the appropriate sentence to be passed.
I should like to raise two particular points of objection to the Amendments. First, by requiring reports in every case, as they do, they may create a pressure for pre-trial inquiries in cases where the accused person is reluctant to consent. The Streatfeild Committee as the noble Baroness is well aware, dealt with this issue with great care, if I may say so, and were anxious, on grounds of fairness to the accused, that he should not be put under any pressure. It is understandable that a young offender should not want inquiries to be made of his employer about this character before his guilt has been established At the other end of the scale, the effect of the Amendments would be, where inquiries are not made before the trial, to necessitate delays between conviction and sentence to enable the inquiries to be made after the trial. In clear cases this delay, which is always undesirable, may be quite unnecessary.
The second objection is this. The requirement on the courts, fettering their

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discretion to act as the differing circumstances of each case demand, is in principle undesirable and should be avoided unless it can be shown to he essential. Your Lordships will observe that these Amendments would not only bind the courts to obtain and consider reports, but would require the contents of the reports to conform to the prescribed pattern. This, in turn, would fetter the discretion of the probation officer preparing the report. The Amendments are much more restrictive in this respect than their model, Section 35 (2) of the Children and Young Persons Act, 1933, which requires the authority submitting a report only
"to make such investigations and render available.to the court such information … as appear to them to be likely to assist the court."
In short, the Amendments would introduce a rigid and inflexible procedure for the courts and their officers in a field where the exercise of discretion is highly desirable. In this field, the Streatfeild Report has given an admirable and clear lead to the courts, and there is no reason to suppose that they will not follow it and so achieve the objects which the sponsors of these Amendments have in mind.
I realise the anxiety of the sponsors of the Amendments, and I have tried to consider them as carefully as I can. It might be that some people think that there is a particularly strong case for the second of these three Amendments, which would apply to the most serious cases in future where imprisonment of a young offender is contemplated. For those who have approached it in that way, may I point out that Section 17 (2) of the Criminal Justice Act, 1948, already obliges the courts, before imposing imprisonment on a person under 21, to
"take into account any information before the court which is relevant to his character and his physical and mental condition."
That seems to me to go as far as is necessary, and it substantially covers the points. I hope that the noble Lords and the noble Baroness who have sponsored this Amendment will see, on consideration, that there are a number of difficult points which have to be considered before what they desire can be applied or, to put it in other words, before the recommendations of the Ingleby Committee and the Streatfeild Committee can be implemented.
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I do not think it is unreasonable that we should consider these matters very carefully before they are passed into law. I am willing to consider any points, but I should suggest, with diffidence, that the arguments I have put forward are serious and important arguments. The noble Lord might consider between the stages whether he thinks that they have all the weight which I attach to them. If he feels they are not conclusive he can put down an Amendment again. I want him to know that this is not simply a question of time for physical arrangements. There are real difficulties, in our view, but, of course, if we can be reassured on those difficulties we will consider the matter again.
4.32 p.m.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: It would seem that the two noble and learned Viscount opposite are not wholly synchronised in what they are singing in the same duet. In reply to an earlier Amendment, the noble and learned Viscount who leads the House laid great emphasis on the importance of getting a right sentence; indeed, he argued that it was worth while keeping young people, sometimes of an age of as little as fifteen, if necessary in prison for periods of two or three or even up to ten or twelve weeks in order to arrive at a right sentence. The noble and learned Viscount who has just spoken takes the opposite view. He points out, as indeed the Streatfeild Committee recognised, that some defendants may be reluctant to give information in response to pretrial inquiries. I myself, having had my magisterial experience in London, where pre-trial inquiries are taboo, have great difficulty in accepting pre-trial inquiries, but I have come to recognise that the conditions which prevail in London are not comparable to conditions in the rest of the country, and if information is to be obtained, a great deal of it must be got pre-trial. But the Streatfeild Committee recognised that if a defendant has the faintest reluctance to give information before trial then it may be necessary to remand him for information after trial. The remand for this information after trial is unlikely to be comparable in length with the remand which the noble and learned Viscount who leads the House dismissed so cheerfully when replying to a previous Amendment.

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The noble and learned Viscount who has lust spoken also said, and I think we all accept it, that in the majority of cases the courts are supplied with sufficient information, or at any rate as much as they can use. But we have no wish to legislate for the majority of cases where this already happens. We are well aware there is a minority of cases where it does not happen and where only the most exiguous information is available to the courts, and it is for that minority we want the legislation. Your Lordships must remember that unless some Amendment on these lines is passed, boys and girls of fifteen may be deprived of their liberty—in the full sense, not merely sent to an approved school—for periods between six months and two years, with practically no information available about their homes or families or mental condition or ability, the only information available being that which relates to their offence. This is not a situation which we can contemplate with equanimity.
LORD STONHAM: I am most grateful to the noble and learned Viscount, the Lord Chancellor, for his very careful reply, but I would ask him to appreciate, as I am sure he does, that my concern is not to insert a particular form of words into this clause but to try to secure a way whereby those presiding over courts which are trying young people shall be placed in possession of all the information that is necessary for them to assess the character, the background and the home circumstances; in other words, to make some kind of assessment of the disease which afflicts the young person in order that the court might be able to decide which of a variety of treatments they might give would be most likely to effect a cure. I am sure that is the objective of all of us. My difficulty is that the form of words we have proposed in this Amendment is, by and large, what is necessary in the reports which are conveyed to the juvenile courts. I find it extremely difficult, therefore, to see why it should be so difficult to accept the same principle, if not the words that I have put forward, in the three Amendments we have under consideration.
I must confess that I am rather concerned, because during discussions on this Bill in another place the right
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honourable gentleman the Attorney-General, when these points were being considered and the recommendations I have made were being proposed, said that the Government must consider these reports as a whole—for example, in the reorganisation of the whole system of the higher courts. I find that most alarming, because it might he years before these higher courts have the kind of reports which I am sure all of us feel they ought to have. I listened carefully to the suggestion made by the noble and learned Viscount. If I might be allowed to put somewhat less weight on the first of his objections about the compulsory pre-trial reports and more weight on his objection to the precise form of words, I should then feel—if he would think about it, and my noble friends and I will also think about it—that we might between us arrive at a form of words between now and Report stage which would achieve our objective and, at the same time, not be open to the objections which the noble and learned Viscount put forward. If that is the general understanding he tried to make, I would be in agreement, and I am sure my noble friends would agree that I should withdraw this Amendment.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: As the noble Lord knows, I cannot go further than say I will give most careful consideration to these points, and if he cares to suggest any modification I will consider that, and so will my right honourable friend. I want to say only one other word, because this came in incidentally: the noble Lord used the expression, in eloquence rather than because it was part of his argument, that it might be years before the reorganisation of the courts took place. I should like to make clear to him that it is my intention and the intention of my noble and learned friend, the Lord Chief Justice, that there should be no such delay, and the noble Lord will realise that that is one method of meeting the points that have been worrying the noble Baroness, the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, and himself, that if we can reorganise the courts there will not be the occasions for these long delays before cases come to quarter sessions or assizes. I want him to believe that we consider that that is an urgent matter, both from Ole aspect of the crime we are considering at the moment and from every other. I should not like it

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to be thought that we would treat that as a matter that might be delayed for years.
LORD STONHAM: I am most grateful to the noble and learned Viscount. I can assure him it was not eloquence, but honest belief, when I said it might be years; it might be never. I take the point. I realise that there is no rigid assurance. We will look at it in the OFFICIAL REPORT, and if he will look at it, in the light of what he has said I hope we may come to an agreement; and on that I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2 [Serious offences by children and young persons]:
4.40 p.m.
LORD SILKIN LORD SILKIN moved to insert as a new subsection (1):
"() In subsection (1) of section fifty-three of the Children and Young Persons Act, 1933, as amended by subsection (3) of section nine of the Homicide Act, 1957 (which prohibits the sentence of death on a person under the age of eighteen years), for the words ' eighteen years" there shall be substituted the words 'twenty-one years '."
The noble Lord said: I beg to move the Amendment standing in my name. The purpose of this Amendment, although written in somewhat obscure language, is to ensure that nobody under the age of 21 can be sentenced to death or hanged. At the outset, I want to make it quite clear that in raising this matter I am not raising the general question of capital punishment. That is not an issue at all; nor would it be in order under the terms of this Bill, which is substantially confined to offenders under the age of 21. So it is quite consistent for people who take the view that capital punishment should be retained, nevertheless to agree with me that, even if it is retained, it should not be retained for people who are under 21 years of age.
This question of the age at which capital punishment should be imposed has a long history. It will be familiar to most of your Lordships, but I will refer briefly to it. Until 1908, I think, there was no age below which capital punishment could not be imposed. Theoretically, it could have been imposed at any
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age at all. But although, in fact, for a number of years it had not been imposed on very young people, the Children Act of 1908 provided that there should be no capital punishment for anyone under the age of sixteen. In those days that was regarded as a great advance. It was one of the first actions that the Liberal Party took, and we are most grateful to them. No doubt the age of sixteen represented the then climate of opinion. I do not know whether ally noble Lords in this House will remember that there was considerable objection taken even to that course. It was thought to be a dangerous innovation; that it was removing what the Attorney General in another place described as a "unique deterrent", and that there would be an enormous increase of capital crimes in people over sixteen.
In 1931 a Select Committee reported on the same subject, and they recommended that the age should be raised to 21. It was not; and it was not until we had the. Criminal Justice Act, 1948, that the age was raised to 18. In 1949, the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment were appointed and they reported in 1953. Among the matters they considered was this same question of the age below which capital punishment could not be imposed. They recommended by a majority that the age should be 21. So we have advanced in stages—1908, sixteen; 1948, eighteen; and I submit to the Committee that the time has arrived, when we are considering a Bill which distinguishes clearly between persons over 21 and those under 21, that the age for capital punishment should be raised to 21.
The arguments for this step are familiar, and the arguments against are equally familiar, and I will merely summarise them. Those who support my proposal take the view that a person under the age of 21 has not reached maturity—physically, perhaps; but mentally, emotionally, spiritually, no: that normal people of 21 and under are in an emotional state, activated by emotion, and are not likely to be influenced by deterrents, whether it be the deterrent of the birch (which we are going to discuss later), long terms of imprisonment or capital punishment. Moreover, 21 is the age which the law accepts as the age at which a person is regarded as responsible. Up to 21 he has no vote; he is not

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entitled to get married without consent; he cannot make a will; he cannot be sued, or sue, except through a personal representative, and he suffers many other legal incapacities. Further, there is the question, which is a general one, of the possibility of mistake. I admit that that is not particularly confined to people under 21; the possibility of mistake can arise at any age, and hanging is irrevocable. It is not only a unique deterrent, it is an irrevocable mistake.
Those are the arguments that have been put forward in one campaign after another for the abolition of capital punishment under the age of 21. The objections are the same. I have seen three lots of objections put forward at different times. They really amount to the same thing—namely, that this is not the time. Before the Royal Commission one witness (he was the Under-Secretary of State for Home Affairs) said that the arguments for raising the age to 21 were perfectly logical, but not in present circumstances. It never has been the right time; and, from the point of view of objectors, it never will be the right time. If it be regarded as wrong to deprive a young person of his life at a time when he is not fully responsible for his actions, when he has not reached, emotionally and spiritually, the age of full responsibility, then the right time is any time. There is no such thing as the wrong time for doing the right thing.
It is suggested that owing to the increases in crime this is the wrong moment; that it might encourage further crimes. But those who take that view have to establish—I think the onus is on them to establish it—that capital punishment really is a deterrent. I have seen no evidence whatever that capital punishment is a deterrent. I recognise the argument that has been put forward, that you cannot establish a deterrent because the people who are deterred do not commit the crime of murder and you cannot set them out. But over a long period—I beg your Lordships not to look at the short term, but to take a long-term view over this—it has been established quite conclusively, that the lowering of the age and the abolition of capital punishment for certain crimes has not had the effect of increasing the number of capital crimes at all, and that, whereas one would have expected the number of such crimes would increase when you
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reduce the age to 18 or when you reduce it to 16, that has not turned out to be the case.
It is said that those who advocate this course are soft, are sentimental, sympathise with the criminal rather than with the victims, and, to use the eloquent language of one noble Lord, that those who take this view are a lot of "Cissies". The noble and learned Viscount looks up; that was a statement actually made in this House. However, I can assure noble Lords it is nothing of the kind; of course not. We have every sympathy with the victims of murder. But hanging the murderer does not help the victims. It does not bring back to life the person who has been murdered. If it is arty compensation to the: family, it is really an unworthy compensation to feel that another life has been lost in exchange for the life of the member of their family. We really cannot take the view that we do this out of revenge. The only reason for hanging a person under 21 would be that it is a deterrent and, as I say, that has not been established.
This course has been supported at the various inquiries by large numbers of members of the medical profession, including four prison medical officers; by representatives of the Institute of Psycho-Analysis, and by a considerable number of people in public life, including a number of former Home Secretaries, although I recognise that a number of ex-Home Secretaries have been against this. I recognise also that where the Royal Commission has reported in favour it has been by a small: majority. Nevertheless, I think that the trend of events is towards taking a deadline at the age of 21. Twenty-one is regarded as the age of responsibility, although I would admit that there are people under 21 who are responsible and mature, just as there are people over 21 who are irresponsible and immature. I feel that, by and large, we should be justified today in taking 21 as the age and in recognising that no one under 21 should suffer capital punishment.
That is not to say that punishment should not be inflicted. One honourable Member in another place asked what the alternative would be, and I think he was prepared to accept the abolition of capital punishment under 21, or he rather hinted so much, if the alternative was a long term of imprisonment. Well,

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that is a matter which might be considered. I certainly have not the same objection to a long term of imprisonment if it is thought that that is the right thing to do as an alternative. But, at any rate, it is for the Government, if capital punishment under 21 is abolished, to consider what is the right thing to do with people who commit capital crimes below that age. But I hope the Committee will recognise that we have now reached the time when we can take a step forward in the direction in which we have been moving for over half a century, the logical and reasonable step which the introduction of this Bill gives us the opportunity to take. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 2, line 22, at beginning insert the said subsection,—(Lord Silkin.)
4.55 p.m.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: It will be 37 years next Sunday since a foul and brutal and entirely senseless murder was committed by two young men of the age of 19 and 18. These youths were tried for their lives, but in their country the death sentence is not obligatory. They were, in fact, not sentenced to death but sentenced to imprisonment for life. Ironically, one of these young men died some years later by the violence of a fellow prisoner. The other still lives. He is now a man of 56, and I should like to read to your Lordships what he said at the age of 30:
"I am now 30 and I have spent 10 of my 30 years in prison. The central fact of my psychology is remorse, regret for the terrible thing I have done. The thought that I have cut off a Young life haunted me. I have done an irreparable wrong. I could not restore the life I had taken. If you have stolen something you can at least repay it. Even if you have injured someone physically, there is always the possibility to make up to him, however inadequately. What, then, could I do? Nothing, I just had to live with it as best I could. Right or wrong, I decided that the best thing I could do by way of expiation was to try to be useful in whatever small ways were open to me."
For the remaining years that this man spent in prison he tried to do that very thing. He was a man, he is a man, of great intellectual gifts. He set to work to teach his fellow prisoners. He taught the illiterates to read; he taught those with a better equipment foreign
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languages. He taught them mathematics. He even engaged in some important work, subsequently published under another name, on the subject of criminology prediction. He qualified himself to be a laboratory technician to assist in medical research, and when volunteers were wanted to try some prophylactic against malaria during the war he would not rest until he had himself been inoculated with malaria in order to test the efficacy of this prophylactic.
This man, now at the age of 56, has enjoyed freedom for a matter of a year or two, and he works as a laboratory technician in a hospital and public health service run by a religious foundation. What has 'happened once can happen again. There could be even now a second Leopold under sentence of death and in our own country. But so long as we continue to hang boys of 18 we not only deny them life but we deny them the opportunity of this practical repentance. I know no argument which compares in force with this, and I do not propose to elaborate it further.
5.0 p.m.
LORD PARKER OF WADDINGTON: The noble Lord who moved this Amendment was at pains to say that he was dealing with only the case of the under 21, and not intending to raise the question of general principle as to the death penalty, but as he proceeded it seemed to me that it was quite impossible to divorce the two. I for one oppose this Amendment because it seems to me that it is tinkering—and I do not use that word offensively—with the great problem with which we are all concerned and the problem which I venture to think will be debated in this House next year: at any rate, next year will have seen the Homicide Act in force for some five years. I say "tinker" because, quite apart from the fundamental issue as to the death penalty, this Amendment will leave and preserve the serious anomalies that arise under the Homicide Act.
Thus, whatever age is taken as the age below which a young man cannot be hanged, there will always be the cases (and we have had them) of two prisoners: the one, and the less culpable, one month over the fixed age, whatever it is, and the other, far and away the most culpable, one month 'under the fixed

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age, who will go to prison and not hang. Those anomalies offend one's reason. Nor do I believe that this Amendment can he validly advanced on the ground that a youth who is just over 21 is, and a youth just under 21 is not, to be held responsible. We all grow to maturity at different ages; and again it seems to me to offend against reason that you should take any fixed date of that sort and say that above it a man is responsible and below it he is not.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: Could I interrupt the Lord Chief Justice for one moment? At present we have the age of 18. Surely he will agree that some date must be taken.
LORD PARKER OF WADDINGTON: Certainly some date must be taken so long as the death penalty is in force. All I am saying at the moment is that the general principle of the death penalty will be debated in this House very soon. When the time does come to debate it, I shall myself feel bound, in duty to the House, to point out the grave anomalies and the grave difficulties which are raised by the Homicide Act.
Whatever the result of the debate may be, and whatever may be the feeling in the House as regards abolition, I certainly should oppose abolition except it be on the terms of a life sentence being more like a life sentence. In other words, I feel that ultimately this comes down to a question of abolishing, if it is to be abolished, not merely the death penalty but the life sentence as we have it now. A life sentence today, we are told, is a mere average of nine years; and if imprisonment is the proper way to deal with these people—and there is, I appreciate, a very strong argument in favour of that, and of the death penalty —then it must be a life sentence which approximates more to life, and a sentence which will have to be, as it seems to me, subject to the Prerogative, fixed by the judge who tries the case. At least, he can indicate whether, in his view, he looks upon it as a very bad case or not. Therefore, I oppose this Amendment on the ground that, in the words of the noble Lord who moved it, this is not the time, though not for the reasons he gave. I say this is not the time for it because the whole matter must he debated within the very near future.
LORD MESTON: I wish to support this Amendment in every possible way. I understand that Her Majesty's Government take the view that the Homicide Act, 1957, has been in operation for only four years, and that they are unable, in that time, to form a concluded opinion upon it. By the process of capital execution it takes a quarter of a second to launch a person from this world into eternity, from which there is no return; and I submit to your Lordships, as strongly as I possibly can, that it is absolutely erroneous and farcical to say that it takes four years to form an opinion upon this barbaric practice. I am going to call a spade a spade. I say that, whether a person is under 21 or whether he is over 21, the practice of capital punishment is absolutely barbaric. It will be regarded so in years to come, and people will look back on this practice with horror and disgust.
Now, whether a person is under 21 or over 21, there are always three arguments advanced in opposition to the abolition of capital punishment. It is said, first of all, that it is a deterrent. That is a very serious argument and one that we should regard very seriously. I have great admiration for everybody in this country who is responsible for the administration of justice, and for those who administer justice in courts of law, but I feel that heavier sentences should be passed in cases of violent assaults, cruelty to children and, I may add, cruelty to animals. I feel that if heavier sentences were passed in all these cases we should get a greater degree of deterrence than we do at the present time. At the present time, when a person goes out to commit a crime he does not intend, generally, to murder a person; he intends merely to get his own way in any circumstances. If he shoots at a person and that person is severely injured, then indeed it is a very serious crime. If he shoots at a person and that person is not only severely injured but dies from his injuries, then, of course, a different state of affairs arises altogether. I feel that if the whole temptation to commit acts of violence was deterred in the earlier stages, there would be a larger degree of deterrence than there is to-day.
The second argument is that the police forces would not be safe. Exactly the same arguments which I have already

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advanced under the previous heading apply here. I have never heard it said in the Scandinavian countries, or in West Germany, that the policemen go about in terror because there is no capital punishment. The third argument beats me altogether. I am informed by some of your Lordships—I see that the noble Lord who generally advances the argument is not here to-day, but somebody may take his place and advance it—that if we abolish capital punishment we shall be thinking more of the person who has committed the crime than of the wretched person who has been killed. I am quite unable to understand how anybody can advance that argument.
There are certain absurdities which arise to-day which I should like to mention. Some time ago, in the Midlands, a young man—I do not know whether he was under 21 or over 21—killed a girl by stabbing her fifteen times. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. The whole case took only a couple of minutes: there was simply nothing in it. If that young man had stabbed the girl only the once and had then taken half-a-crown out of her handbag, quite different considerations would have arisen. I can only say, in conclusion, that I think the whole practice of capital punishment, whether the person be under 21 or over 21, is absolutely barbaric. I have a completely clear conscience on the subject, and T only hope your Lordships have an equally clear conscience which coincides with mine.
LORD RAGLAN: I entirely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Meston, that capital punishment is barbaric, but I cannot see that it is more barbaric to hang a murderer of 18 than it is to hang a murderer of 21. The Act of 1957 was intended to delay the abolition of capital punishment by restricting its incidence. This Amendment is intended to further restrict the incidence of capital punishment, and I feel that if it were passed then it would still further delay abolition.
5.10 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: I do not intend to talk about the abolition of capital punishment, which is outside this Amendment, and I think it would be useless to do so this afternoon. In my view, most people, because of certain inherent characteristics, are either opposed to hanging or are
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in favour of hanging. I am hopeful that, as there sometimes is, there is a movement of opinion toward those who are opposed to it. On the particular point we are now discussing, whether the minimum age at which a person can be hanged for a capital crime should be raised to 21, I believe that a very large number of people in the country, generally speaking, would be prepared to have adults hanged but are very seriously troubled indeed about these younger people under 21. The noble Lord, Lord Menton, dealt with the point of the deterrent. These people between 18 and 21 are minors. They are children in law, and, so far as my experience of them goes, they are children in fact. Anyone who is the father of a teen-age son will be well aware that, however tough his exterior, when it really conies to it he is a child in fact.
What we are now deciding, or shall decide if we go to a Division on this Amendment, is whether or not we shall continue to hang children: it is just that blunt point. If you examine some of the cases which have occurred in the past, cases in which young persons have been convicted of capital murder, and examine the kind of people they were, it would be fantastic to suggest that the death penalty would have deterred them from their horrible actions. There is a young man under sentence of death now. If do not know him, but I have read about him and what he has done, and I have no doubt at all that there have been times in the last few months when he has regarded his present position as his finest hour—a miserable individual of that kind. There is no deterrent there whatsoever, and we cannot pretend that, in allowing the law to stay as it is, we shall really be protecting innocent people, because that is not so.
The noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chief Justice, gave as one of his reasons for opposing this Amendment that it was "tinkering". If by this bit of "tinkering" we could, in the next year or so, save the national conscience from one or more of the tragedies which happened when Bentley was hanged, then it would be very well worth while indeed. It is the case, as the Lord Chief Justice said, that there are grave anomalies in the present law with regard to hanging, and that if this Amendment is accepted it would create more

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anomalies which, as he said, offend one's reason. That may be true. But whether it is or is not true does not matter. What I am far more concerned with is that the law as it stands offends humanity and offends one's conscience.
This is the kind of subject, generally speaking, which you are either for or you are not. There is probably no amount of argument which will convince. But there is this one section, this small age-group of 18 to 21, which is a special case. It is quite true, as the noble and learned Lord said, that you might get another case where an offender was 21 years and one month old and another was 18 years old, and they would both be dealt with separately. I do not think that, of itself, is an answer to our case, because one would then have to say: "Well, where do you fix the age? There will always be some over and some under". The plain fact of the matter is that in this Amendment we are dealing with children, and we are asking your Lordships to say that we shall end the hanging of children. I do not think there is anyone here, whatever his general views may be about the death penalty, who, if there is another case of another child being hanged, would not feel that it is utterly wrong and something (however his vote may go on this Amendment) that he cannot support.
5.15 p.m.
LORD DENNING: If it be permissible to retain capital punishment at all, which I gravely doubt. I suggest that it should be retained for the present age group. Because the ultimate justification of any punishment is that it is the emphatic denunciation by the community of a crime. It is said that in the present state of public opinion there are some crimes which demand the most emphatic denunciation of all—namely, capital punishment. What are the crimes we are considering? We are considering those for which capital punishment is now retained—killing by shooting, murder in the course of theft, murder of a policeman. We are not considering sex crimes at all. When a person takes out a gun or a revolver and commits a robbery, when you are going emphatically to denounce a crime can you draw any real sensible distinction between the ages of 18 and 21? Some persons are more mature than others at that age. Is
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it not right, and I suggest correct, to leave it to the prerogative of the Home Secretary, so that he, in those circumstances, can judge aright the conscience of the nation? Such, I suggest, is the present position, leaving aside for the moment the great question whether or not we should abolish capital punishment altogether.
VISCOUNT ASTOR: I think we can all agree that the present situation as regards capital punishment is wholly anomalous and produces nothing but anomalies. It was the result of a most unsatisfactory compromise engendered by the political situation of the day. You can be hanged for poisoning a person painlessly, but not for boiling them slowly; and a person a few days older than another can be hanged, but a person a few days younger cannot. There are bound to be these anomalies so long as we retain capital punishment; indeed, that is so in any system in which certain punishments are imposed at a certain age. It will always be anomalous when, if you do something a month earlier, instead of a month later, the treatment which may be imposed upon you is variable. Therefore, so long as there must be these anomalies, surely we must try to reduce them and put them on the most logical basis possible. If we say that a person is not responsible enough to vote at art election of a rural district council, is not responsible enough to make a will to provide for the small savings he may have, is not responsible enough to marry without permission, surely it is equally logical to say that 21 is the age at which the full criminal responsibility of the death penalty should come into operation. It is because I hope that by raising the age to 21 we shall reduce the anomaly, and put this matter on a more logical basis with other parts of our national life and our legal system, that I beg support for this Amendment.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: It is difficult for any convinced supporter of the abolition of capital punishment to argue this matter with, perhaps, complete candour, because there is no doubt that many of us who will vote for this Amendment regard capital punishment, as the noble Lord, Lord Meston, said, as utterly barbarous and totally incompatible with civilised or Christian life

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as we try to live it in our imperfect way in this country to-day. But, as my noble friend Lord Silkin has said, the case to-day must be argued in a slightly different fashion, because, however much the supporters of full abolition may regret it, the argument for it would be outside the terms of the Bill. None the less I would make it plain that those who are supporting this Amendment regard it not only as worth while, but also as a kind of moral minimum, even if we are told that no other form of abolition could ever be introduced. On its own merits, this Amendment is imperative to-day. It would save human life from judicial murder, even though in a much smaller number of cases than we could have wished to make possible.
The history of this matter has been described by my noble friend Lord Silkin, but there is one point which he did not mention, which I think is interesting. He mentioned that as long ago as 1931, a Select Committee recommended that as 21 is the age when full civil responsibility is assumed, it should also be the age below which no one should be sentenced to death. They said that, were capital punishment to be maintained, they would urge the adoption of that age limit. That was 30 years ago, when our ideas were supposed to be a good deal less advanced, and when certainly the Churches were far less hostile to capital punishment than they are to-day, judging by debates in your Lordships' House.
It is interesting to observe that this attitude was taken up by representatives of the Home Office 30 years ago. I hope that the Home Office is not found to go backwards, though it does not go forward as fast as some of us could wish. I think that this is a point which should be placed before the distinguished representatives of the Home Office. It shows that this is not a bright idea which has occurred to us in connection with this Bill. We are repeating what was said by learned people and, on occasion, said on behalf of the Home Office.
I do not think that anybody could have failed to be moved by the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, when she pointed out that, if
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we did not pass this Amendment, we should deprive some young people of any chance of earthly repentance. I have known young men who have been convicted of murder. I knew one, not very well; but I met him more than once. His name will be known to your Lordships—Craig, who shot a policeman. As he was under 18, under the present law, he was not sentenced to death, and he is now making good, as anybody can find out by inquiring at Wormwood Scrubs. We must think of the fact that a young man like that, if he had been over 18 years of age, would have been liquidated by the State. Another young man, Forsyth, was executed the other day. I had a letter from the master of his approved school, who said that he liked Forsyth very much and that he had received a brave letter from Forsyth before his execution. Forsyth did as brutal a thing as anyone could well imagine, yet there was much good in that boy. But we have taken his life and removed from him any chance of repentance.
We can argue whether people under 21 are more unstable than people over 21, and I think that most of us would agree that they are. Obviously, they are more immature, otherwise we should confer on them responsibilities which we deny them until they are 21. If we take the one point of violence, we have seen schoolboys and undergraduates beating up their fellows and doing violent things, sometimes under the influence of drink, which, if done by their fathers, would shock us; but if they are done by our own sons or nephews, we make excuses for them. In other words, we do not condemn a violent action on the part of a boy of 18 in the same way as we condemn such an action on the part of a man of 30 or 31. Whatever words we use, we do not pass the same condemnatory judgment. I think we shall all agree with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, that in punishment there should be condemnation, but if we are honest with ourselves we cannot pass the same degree of condemnatory judgment.
Finally, we shall be told perhaps something about the deterrent effect. We argued this aspect at great length in our general discussion about capital punishment some years ago, and I cannot help wishing, when it comes to these arguments about

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deterrence, that we could go, not into Committee but into sub-committee. It is impossible to explore statistics even in a relatively small body such as your Lordships' House. I defy anybody, coming dispassionately to the figures and facts, not to draw the conclusion, which must seem very probable if not irresistable, that capital punishment is not a unique deterrent. Certainly no one could argue from any collection of facts that capital punishment is a unique deterrent. It is possible to say that the facts are indecisive, but I think that no one, looking at them dispassionately, would deny the possibility is that it is not a unique deterrent—and some of us would put it much higher than that.
But in this case deterrence hardly comes in. Since the Homicide Act was passed two young men under 21 have been executed, and a third may be executed, so that we are asking the Committee to avoid committing judicial murder on that scale. Perhaps we shall be told in reply that it is necessary to take that action as a deterrent. Is it seriously argued that to execute two or three men in four or five years can really make all that difference? Is it really going to restrain other young men from violent acts of this sort? And if there are a few more reprieved, you have only a handful, and no one can seriously say that capital punishment has a deterrent effect.
I recognise that the sincerity on this side is equalled by the sincerity and depth of feeling on the other side. That goes without saying in this House. But I believe, with the noble Lord, Lord Meston, that years hence the time will come when we shall say (or it may be said of us by our children) that it is unbelievable that we could have hanged young men of 18 or 19—as unbelievable as that we once hanged children of 8 or 9 years old.
5.30 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I think your Lordships will appreciate that, although the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, disavowed the intention of the general argument, it has been raised by every other speaker who has spoken in favour of this Amendment, except the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, with whose argument I will deal separately. Even so, I do not think your Lordships would wish to hear from me a repetition of the general argument.
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Your Lordships have already heard that on two occasions: when I moved rejection of what is known as the Silverman Bill five years ago, and when I introduced the Homicide Bill some eighteen months later.
I want to say this to your Lordships. The general arguments have been advanced that mistakes may arise; that hanging is no deterrent; and that a belief in capital punishment is incompatible with a true view of the Christian life. I have considered these arguments over and over again. I have rejected them during all the time that they were put to me for consideration, and I reject them equally strongly to-day. But I do think we ought to try, however difficult it is, to focus our minds on the present Amendment, and not on our general feelings. I think it is convenient, in so doing, to start from the argument of the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment on this very subject. As the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, indicated, the Commission were unable to reach agreement; six members were in favour of the present Amendment and five against it. I want your Lordships to believe that this matter has been given careful consideration, and I should like to summarise, I hope fairly and objectively, the points each way.
The first argument that has been repeated to-day is that youthful immaturity is so general among persons who have not attained the age of 21 that they ought to be classed not with adults, but with those under 18, whose youth is considered a sufficient reason to substitute another punishment. The second argument is that almost all young people under the age of 21 are in a state where the process of mental and emotional development is still active; that that produces a condition of instability, and that their judgment is defective, as is their self-control. It is to that argument that support is advanced, and has been advanced to-day by the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, and my noble friend Lord Astor, by taking: the use of the age of 21 in other spheres, such as that of voting, of making a will or the like.
The majority of the Commission said that the argument that 18 is the age for compulsory military service is irrelevant. Their view was that it did not follow that, because at that age most persons are physically fit for military duties, they

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are necessarily capable of exercising full responsibility in all spheres. It is more difficult to put that argument on one side so easily, when one remembers those between the ages of 18 and 21 who had charge of the lives of 30 men, at least, and probably many more, and performed that function not only with the greatest courage but with the greatest skill. So I do not think it can be put aside so easily. But I mention it because the Commission did. Then the next argument is that, as I appreciated it, of the noble Baroness: that as character is not yet set, there is a chance of improvement—I put it quite generally; but that was, I think, the moral of her speech. Finally, it has been advanced by all the speakers for the Amendment that the repugnance to the death penalty shows itself all the more when we are thinking of these earlier years.
Let us consider these arguments. "Immaturity" is an ambiguous term. If a particular offender under 21 is immature, in the sense that he is less mature and responsible than the average person of the same age, that may well be, and often has been, a proper reason for use of the prerogative of mercy. But not all persons under 21 are less mature than adults, and it would not be right in this group to exclude the operation of the death penalty by a rigid rule attached to a particular age. In my view, each case should be considered individually on its merits. But I do repeat that the youth of the offender is an important factor to be taken into account in considering whether the prerogative of mercy should be exercised. One of your Lordships referred to a case in which I had to consider that. Whilst I do not intend to go into that particular case, I do say that every Home Secretary I have known—and I myself—has always regarded youth as an important matter for consideration before he made up his mind.
We come now to the other aspect of the position. Even when the Royal Commission were dealing with the matter (and I have already supported their argument), and when they reported in 1953, the grave increase in violent crimes committed by persons aged between 17 and 21 did not appear to have passed its peak. So the minority took the view that, although the deterrent
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value of capital punishment could not be measured or precisely evaluated, it would be wrong to raise the age limit. Such action, they believed, would inevitably be regarded by public opinion as both dangerous and inopportune. I was a member of the Government of the day, and we accepted the minority view, mainly on the ground of the prevalence of crimes of violence among young people. And attempts to raise the age limit were resisted.
I come now to the question of the number, to which the noble Earl, Lord Longford, has drawn attention. The first point we have to remember is that the number of persons between 17 and 21 convicted of offences of violence against the person, including murder and robbery, has continued to increase. Would it be desirable (I cannot see how it could be so considered at the present time, when there is so much public anxiety and concern about the prevalence of violent crime by young offenders) to remove this sanction against the gravest form of such crime—a sanction which the vast majority of people, like myself, believe has a deterrent effect?
Let us consider the position since the Homicide Act was passed. Only four persons under the age of 21 have been convicted of capital murder in England and Wales. Of these, two were executed, and two were reprieved. The noble Earl, Lord Longford, said, "That is a very small number." But the one thing that is perfectly clear in consideration of this matter is that it is impossible to tell how many young criminals may have been deterred from using excessive violence, or from carrying weapons, by the existence of this penalty. I remember that when I made this point on the Silverman Bill, the most reverend Primate the Lord Archbishop of York said. "But that can only be your opinion." Of course, on this subject it can only be one's opinion. All I can say is that I have observed ordinary criminals for a period of 30 years, and as Home Secretary I have considered them from another angle. To brush this argument aside is, in my view, a very frivolous proceeding.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: May I interrupt the noble and learned Viscount? I do not know whether he was referring to me as having brushed it aside, but I have, I hope, studied all the

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facts we have about this matter as closely as anybody, even perhaps as closely as the noble and learned Viscount.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Yes, but one comes, in the end, to one's assessment of the mind of the criminal; and my assessment of the mind of the criminal is that the housebreaker or burglar would either carry a gun or would take a chance of hitting an old lady over the head much more readily if there were no death penalty. That is my assessment of the criminal mind. I do not resent anyone else having a different assessment, and I should be the last—
LORD NIESTON: May I ask—
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: May I deal with the noble Earl, Lord Longford, for a moment, and then I will give the noble Lord every chance. I should be the last to denigrate in any way the noble Earl's assessment. All I can say is that from my experience and observation it is not my assessment, and I cannot help being human enough to believe that my own assessment is right.
LORD MESTON: May I ask the noble and learned Viscount whether he could tell us what his assessment is of the human failings and human mind in the Scandinavian countries, in West Germany and in other countries where they have successfully abolished capital punishment?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: We have argued these figures over and over again. The noble Lord, Lord Silkin, especially asked us not to argue the general point to-day. As I have said to your Lordships, I have examined all these figures and I do not believe that they give a conclusive argument. I do not want the noble Lord to think that I am avoiding him. I have argued this point in both Houses of Parliament over and over again, and I would ask him to look up my old speeches rather than ask me to repeat them on this occassion, because I think we ought to keep to the point.
I should like to deal with the matter from the point of view of the limitation of capital punishment that was made under the Homicide Act. As my noble and learned friend Lord Denning reminded us, the main effect of that is to
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confine capital punishment to murders committed in the course of theft, or in the course of an attack on the agents of law and order, or by the use of firearms. I told your Lordships, when I introduced this measure into your Lordships' House, that in my view these are the types of murder which strike especially at the maintenance of law and order, and on which the deterrent effect of capital punishment is most likely to operate—for the very reasons I gave your Lordships a short time ago. It is important to deter young persons from carrying firearms. If they were exempted from the death penalty, not only would there be likely to be an increase in the use of firearms by young men acting on their own, but criminals would be able to arrange that on any joint enterprise one of their number should be a person under the age of 21 who could carry a gun which he could use, in the sure knowledge that he would not be liable to the death penalty.
Your Lordships might make the obvious riposte to me that that might occur with someone below the age of 18. All I say is that it becomes the less likely to occur as one descends in the age. The risk would be greater if immunity from the death penalty were extended to those between 18 and 21. Undoubtedly to raise the age limit would seriously weaken the safeguards against armed criminals which the Homicide Act sought to retain.
I should like to assure your Lordships again that every consideration is given, and will continue to he given, to the factor of youth in deciding whether a person convicted of capital murder shall be reprieved. But there are, in our view, no sufficient grounds to justify the Government in changing their view that persons under 21 ought not in all circumstances to be free from liability to the death penalty. Apart from these specific objections, the Government remain of the opinion that it is too soon to draw conclusions from the results of the Homicide Act, 1957. As I said to your Lordships, my right honourable friends the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Scotland are taking into account the statistics and the happenings, and they will continue to give the working of the Act the most serious consideration. But we believe that the amendment of the law of murder generally would

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not at present be justified. I respectfully agree with my noble and learned friend the Lord Chief Justice, that it would be undesirable to single out this particular aspect of the law of murder for amendment. For these reasons, I ask your Lordships to reject the Amendment as proposed.
LORD TEVIOT: My Lords, I should like to intervene for one moment. The word "deterrent" has been used a great deal. But has not the noble Lord, and other noble Lords who have spoken so much about "deterrent", ever thought that these people we are talking about are so brutal, so wicked, that "deterrent" means nothing to them? I think that is worth considering. "Deterrent" is a word which would affect same people, but not those who commit these appalling crimes. I hope that some noble Lords on the other side of the House will appreciate that. Because of the brutality and wickedness of these people, they sweep aside a deterrent as being nothing of interest.
5.50 p.m.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I hope that we can now come to a decision on this matter, because, as my noble friend Lord Longford says, it is most improbable that anybody has been very much influenced by the speeches that have been made. I just want to say two things about the debate that has taken place. The first is on the question of deterrence. I hope that it can be agreed, at any rate, that those who think that the retention of capital punishment is a deterrent are saying this subjectively, without any evidence that they can produce statistically. Indeed, the noble and learned Viscount who has just spoken said two things which I thought rather confirmed this. He said, first of all, that it was impossible to say how many young people have been deterred, and he said that there was no conclusion that could he drawn, no conclusive argument on the question of the number of crimes, and so on.
If that is so, is it not wrong to assume that hanging is a deterrent? Those who
want to retain hanging surely have to establish that it is a deterrent, and a unique deterrent. As it is, I imagine that both the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chief Justice, and the noble and learned Viscount who has just spoken, have not seriously assessed this question of a deterrent. It is a hunch on their part, a general feeling that it must be a deterrent. On the other hand, the noble Lord, Lord Teyiot, thinks that people who commit these crimes are not deterred at all. I would only say further that the increase in the number of crimes that have taken place must surely cause one to doubt whether there is a deterrent at all. An increase in crime is certainly not evidence that the existing punishments operate as a deterrent.
The only other thing I want to say, having listened to the arguments put forward against this Amendment, is that every single argument could have been made equally well, and no doubt was made equally well, equally forcibly, against the raising of the age to 18, and no doubt was equally made against the raising of the age to 16. They were both put forward as dangerous innovations which would increase the number of crimes and do all the things the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chief Justice, feared that this would do. I have no doubt, also, that it was said, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Denning, said, that, after all, we can leave it to the Home Secretary; that in proper circumstances he will recommend the right thing about these people; that if the men sentenced to death were immature, well, he would know and he would recommend a reprieve. That argument, of course, is not new; and I believe that the case for raising the age to 21 remains quite undisturbed, so far as I can see, and without prejudice at all to the general question as to what we should do about people over 21. For these reasons, I hope that the Committee will see its way to accept this Amendment.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 35; Not-Contents, 63.

Faringdon, L.

Lucan, E. [Teller.]

Sinha, L.

Harmsworth, L.

Merthyr, L.

Stonham, L.

Harvey of Tasburgh, L.

Meston, L. [Teller.]

Summerskill, B.

Henderson, L.

Morris of Borth-y-Gest, L.

Terrington, L.

Latham, L.

Ravensdale of Kedleston, B.

Walston, L.

Lawson, L.

Rea, L.

Williams, L.

Listowel, E.

Shackleton, L.

Wootton of Abinger, B.

Longford, E.

Silkin, L.

NOT-CONTENTS

Ailwyn, L.

Fraser of North Cape, L.

Merrivale, L.

Albemarle, E.

Freyberg, L.

Mills, L.

Allerton, L.

Grenfell, L.

Milverton, L.

Ashton of Hyde, L.

Guest, L.

Montgomery of Alamein, V.

Auckland, L.

Hailsham, V. (L. President.)

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Baden-Powell, L.

Hampton, L.

Newton, L. [Teller.]

Bathurst, E.

Hastings, L.

Parker of Waddington, L.

Birdwood. L.

Hawke, L.

Perth, E.

Blackford.L.

Howard of Glossop, L.

Radnor, E.

Brand. L.

Iddesleigh, E.

Raglan, L.

Carrick, E.

Jellicoe, E.

St. Aldwyn. E. [Teller.]

Carrington, L.

Jessel, L.

St. Oswald, L.

Chelmsford, V.

Killearn, L.

Somers, L.

Chesham, L.

Kilmuir, V. (L. Chancellor.)

Spens, L.

Colyton, L.

Kinnoull, E.

Strang, L.

Cork and Orrery, E.

Lansdowne, M.

Swinton, E.

Denning, L.

Limerick. E.

Teviot, L.

Devonshire, D.

Lucas of Chilworth, L

Thurlow, L.

Dynevor, L.

McCorquodale of Newton, L.

Tweedsmuir, L.

Exeter. M.

Mancroft, L.

Twining, L.

Ferrers. E.

Margesson, V.

Waleran, L.

Resolved in the negative, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.
Clause 2 agreed to.
6.3 p.m.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER moved, after Clause 2 to insert the following new clause:
Age of criminal responsibility
". In section fifty of the Children and Young Persons Act, 1933 (which fixes the age of criminal responsibility) for the words 'eight years' there shall be substituted the words 'twelve years'."
The noble Baroness said: The minimum age of criminal responsibility is not a precise term. It can have several meanings. It can mean the age at which a person can be brought before an ordinary criminal court such as judges adults. It can mean the age at which a person is liable to all the penalties which may be imposed by a criminal court on adults, or it may mean the age at which a person can be the subject of any criminal process of any kind. It is in the third sense that the term is used in the Bill which this Amendment proposes should be amended, and it is the third sense to which I wish to direct your Lordships' attention.
It is, of course, true that where there are no special courts for dealing with juveniles the age of criminal responsi-
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bility, in the sense of the age at which a person comes before the criminal courts, tends to be higher than where special courts, as in this country, are provided for juveniles. Nevertheless, the first point I want to put before the Committee is that the minimum age at which a person can be the subject of a criminal charge is most strikingly much lower in this country than in most of the countries of Europe and, indeed, a great part of the civilised world. In this country children of 8 can be brought before what is, after all, a court of summary jurisdiction and made the subject of a criminal charge. The corresponding age in Israel is 9; in Greece it is 12; in France, 13; in Poland, 13. In West Germany, Austria, Belgium, Italy, Norway, Switzerland, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia, it is 14. In Sweden, and Denmark it is 15, and in Finland it is 16. I will not weary you with a further recital. I am asking only for 12, and, as your Lordships will see, from the countries I have named the age of 14 is very much more common.
It will, of course, be said that some provision must be made for unruly children under the age of 12 who break the law. I would submit that provision is made. May we remind ourselves of the really formidable apparatus which is

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already provided in this country for difficult children of school age? First of all we have child guidance clinics; then, under the Education Act, provision is made for children to receive boarding-school education if for any reason their education in an ordinary day school is undesirable. Provision is made under the Education Act for special schools for maladjusted children, and also for children who are educationally subnormal. This Act has been on the Statute Book for seventeen years, and if its provisions are still a dead letter we ought to ask ourselves what is the value of legislation. But even that is not all. Under the Mental Health Act passed in 1959, a child can be diagnosed as mentally ill, can be diagnosed as subnormal, can be diagnosed as severely sub-normal or can be diagnosed as psychopathic. With boarding school education, with schools for the educationally sub-normal, with schools for maladjusted children, with child guidance clinics, with hospitals for the mentally ill, severely sub-normal, sub-normal and psychopathic, one would really think we had sufficiently provided, without criminal process, for little children between 8 and 12 years of age.
Nor, I think, can it be argued that it is for the protection of the public that we should bring these children before the criminal courts. The number of children who are brought before these courts and are actually sent away to remedial institutions, to approved schools, is very small indeed. With regard to children under 14 years of age—not under 12 but under 14 years of age—in the last year for which figures were available, some 1,250 children were sent to approved schools. Much less than half that number would have been children under the age of 12—if it were more than one or two hundred, that, I think, is putting it very high. And that is out of a total population of that age group of something not far short of 3 million. We are not asking for protection against thugs of 16, 17 and 18; we are considering what protection is necessary against children under 12 years of age.
It is also our experience that these children only exceptionally commit offences on their own; they are nearly always parties to some group escapade. If the courts were to apply as strictly as perhaps they should the rule of doli
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incapax, a high proportion of these children (perhaps a higher proportion than actually are acquitted) would be acquitted, because when children under the age of twelve engage in some joint escapade in my experience they seldom appreciate joint common responsibility. The usual type of escapade is a thieving excursion. If you see these children afterwards—perhaps they come to court again for some further offence—and you ask them what happened on the previous occasion, they will say, "Oh, I was with some boys who took some things." They are unable to appreciate the fine point at which being with people who break the law involves guilt for yourself as well.
A small proportion of children who have broken the law—as, indeed, I suppose a large number of children between 8 and 12 have—never appear in the courts at all. Most of us manage to cope in our families and in schools with the tendency of young children to ignore rather, as they see them, curious adult rules about property, about what you may do, about when you may hit somebody and when you may not. Most of us manage for our own children, but for a small number of other people's children we apparently still think the criminal process to be necessary. I have seen many hundreds of these children and I have dealt with them—I should say that I have dealt even with thousands of them by now—and I have become strongly convinced that by bringing them before courts, even the best of juvenile courts, we probably create far more offenders than we cure or deter, because what we do is to introduce them to a delinquent community. They become something apart, from the moment that they enter the waiting room at the juvenile court. They become part of a community which has its own hierarchy: it begins with probation, it goes on perhaps to an attendance centre; for those who rise higher in the hierarchy it leads to a detention centre; it may lead to borstal and it may lead to prison. It is a community of children who are aware of their difference and whom we label as different.
In the light of my own experience of these children, I would say that, even if we did nothing about them at all but what their ordinary schools and their families do, we should probably diminish, rather than increase, juvenile delinquency by taking them out of the

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courts. But, as I have already said, we do not need to do anything about them; we have large apparatus for dealing with difficult children under 12, either through the educational system or, in the most difficult cases of all, through the mental health institutions. The essential factor is that what these children get from a court experience is initiation into a delinquent community, not deterrence—their minds do not work in this simple, material, calculated way—from what they see and hear in court. As we know from our own children, children learn from those whom they know and whom they see day in, day out, and whom they come to respect and perhaps to love; they do not learn by being paraded before strangers.
I would ask your Lordships again to consider whether it may not be true—it is an experience which I know is shared by many people who have served as juvenile court justices—that the sense of apartness, of a certain distinction, of association with the other delinquents, far outweighs in effect any homily that may be read by the courts or any penalty that may be imposed. I am speaking not of children even up to 13 or 14; I am speaking of children of the age of 8 to 12 who, in other civilised countries, would not be the subject of criminal processes. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 2 insert the said new clause.—(Baroness Wootton of Abinger.)
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: This is one of the subjects that the noble Baroness has made her own, and I think it would be simpler for me to say "Ditto" and to leave it there, because she has put the whole thing so much better than I could attempt to put it. But it seems appropriate that others who feel strongly in her support should make use of one or two additional points in argument. I hope that the noble and learned Viscount, who I know will consider this with great human sympathy, because obviously it is a human point which will appeal to him, will not tell us that it is too early this afternoon to make up our minds about it. Of course, I must leave him to make his own speech, upon which then it will be possible to comment. But there is no doubt that we have, in a broad way, the Ingleby Report on our side, we have the experience of foreign countries, and I think
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we have the general opinion of almost anybody who has given much attention to this subject.
Indeed, I think that the retention of the age of 8 for criminal responsibility in this country is one of those things which most people in England simply do not believe exists. If they are told, they think about it, and conjure up reasons why it exists, and think that perhaps it is a good plan. But most people not familiar with the courts would not believe that this country lays it down that the age of 8 is the age at which criminal responsibility commences. Yet there it is. In the eyes of most of us, it is quite unrelated to any psychological or moral judgment that we are likely to apply in the case of our own children.
I suppose most of us, more readily perhaps than most of the population, have means of keeping our children out of the courts, in the sense that they are under the care of schoolmasters and others. But if any or many of us had children who found their way into the courts at 8 or 9 we should simply refuse to regard them as criminals. I hope I shall not make a class point—it is a piece of inverted snobbery if it is anything at all. I would say that if the House of Lords had many children who strayed into the courts, then the whole procedure we adopt in the country would be altered to-morrow. But this is something that has grown up in the past, and there it is.
I agree entirely with what Lady Wootton of Abinger has said: that these are not criminals who are in between the stages of maturity_and immaturity. Nobody pretends that a child between 8 and 12 is very mature. We shall be told, or may be told, and have been told, that they know the difference between right and wrong. That, I think, is so. They may have a different conception of what is right or wrong from that possessed by an older person. I do not think a child knows the moral significance of breaking a criminal law. If a child of 8 or 9 goes and steals, I simply do not believe that any of us regard that at all as being something equivalent to a similar theft on the part of a young person or an adult. It is quite a different psychological thing, or whatever words we may like to apply to it. None of us really calls a little child of 8, 9 or 10

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a criminal, or whatever the word is. I do not believe that anyone would ordinarily use those words of a child.
I agree very much with what my noble friend Lady Wootton of Abinger said (she put it much better) about the label put on the child, which does more harm than the deterrent. The child tends to be tainted. I have invoked the Ingleby Report on our side, but I cannot pretend I feel that it handles at all happily the question of what use is to be made of reports on a child's criminal conduct. It treats that, it seems to me, in a very clumsy and ineffective way. The simple fact is that if a child acquires any sort of record it is extremely hard to shake it off later in the eyes of the world and in the eyes of all sorts of future employers who may find out about it. More seriously—and I think this was more serious in Lady Wootton of Abinger's eyes—the child tends to be tainted inside. It tends to join the delinquent group, to see himself or herself belonging to that little part of the community, and to come to the conclusion that that little part of the community is not such a bad little part either. More harm is done that way than externally.
It has all been said better than I am saying it now by my noble friend Lady Wootton of Abinger. I hope that the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor, or the noble and learned Viscount the Leader of the House, or whoever is to reply to this Amendment, will express sympathy and do rather more than express sympathy. I hope he will tell us that after mature reflection the Government agree with my noble friend Lady Wootton of Abinger and the Ingleby Report that the time has come to abolish this extraordinary and rather discreditable anomaly in the British system.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: Although I have not the experience of my noble friend Lady Wootton of Abinger, may I just add to the picture she has given us and remind your Lordships that we are talking about a child who is regarded as so immature that in some crowded main streets the police and street wardens stand at certain stated intervals to help it across the road, to take it by the hand, because it is known that a child of this age is an irrational creature? Its actions are un-
452
premeditated, and it may well rush across the road, risking its life, and perhaps adding to the casualties of the country. This is the child we are talking about, a child who demands our maximum protection, because it cannot possibly anticipate the effects of its actions. In this country this child is regarded as a person who is fully capable of understanding its actions and must be brought into the criminal machinery. It is said that as the twig is bent, so the tree inclines.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: Who said that?
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: Edith Summerskill.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: What on earth did she say that for?
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: If she had said it of the noble Viscount's child it might help a little. May I just remind your Lordships of this? The noble Lady, when she describes her great experience in the courts and the fact that we in this country are allowing a child of eight to come into the machinery of the law, is giving a picture of what actually happens in the courts. But the child who lives in a crowded street has a background which is not a secret to the family. Within two or three days hundreds of people in the street, and in the next street, know that this child is marked; that here is, as they might whisper, a potential criminal. I would say that the reaction of a child of this kind may well be, "Well, they treat me as a naughty boy. It's rather exciting. I'm marked out as having done something exciting. Now, what else can I do?" I would say that some of these children are almost dared by the community to do worse.
Therefore, when those of us with children think of our own children at the age of eight and of the things they did in their childhood, and that they have developed into normal, well-balanced citizens, we might ask what would have happened if our child had been treated like this; generally marked among its fellows; generally known at school to have done something which was considered outrageous and which could be spoken about only in whispers. What would have happened to our children?

453
I ask the Committee to treat a child of eight in these crowded streets, who needs our help so much, as we would have our own child treated.
LORD AUCKLAND: I have a great deal of sympathy with this Amendment. I can speak with a little experience because my children are both well under the age of eight. I think that the parents of children of this age who misbehave seriously should themselves, in certain cases, be liable to some form of punishment. May I qualify this? Only the other night, when I was returning home from your Lordships' House at quite a late hour, I saw two children, both under the age of 10, playing near the railway bridge in my village. When I looked at them in a rather old-fashioned manner, they looked hack at me as if to say. "Mind your own business." Had I tried to remonstrate with them because they were up late I should probably have received a very "dusty" answer, as indeed my wife did some months previously when she herself saw two children playing in the road late at night. She was promptly told by the parents of these children to mind her own business.
I agree that children under 12 should not have to face the full force of the juvenile court. I think sometimes the village policeman or police sergeant could be called in to give a child a good talking to. He is probably the father of three or four children himself and can do a lot more good, perhaps, to the child, and even possibly to the parents, than could a magistrates' court. I do not think the onus can be placed on the teachers. There is already a shortage of teachers and existing teachers have enough problems as it is. I support the Amendment which the noble Baroness has so ably moved, but I should like to see some kind of legislation for punishment for the parents of the more wayward and constantly wayward children of these age groups.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: The noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, really treated this Amendment, if she will forgive my saying so, as part of the perennial war between light and darkness in which she is always anxious to fight on the side of light—which is as it should be. The noble Baroness who proposed the Amendment speaks on the subject of children and their treatment with very
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great authority. I must say that I was impressed with all she said; but I do not think she succeeded in conveying, to either of her noble friends who spoke exactly what is involved in this Amendment which she proposed. It is quite likely that I have it wrong, too; but if have it wrong too, it is very much better that the extent of my error should appear in the light, and then at any rate we shall know what we are arguing about.
I shall have to tell the noble Baroness, and I may as well tell her now, that apart from any other troubles we may be in the advice I have received is that this particular Amendment is outside the scope of the Bill. This, I am afraid, will give very small comfort to anybody, and it is always an unpopular line to have to take; but it is, nevertheless, the advice I have received, and I hope that my other arguments, which will be directed much more to the merits of her Amendment, will give her some food for thought as well.
VISCOUNT ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: May I ask a question? It is very important on these legal points— and, of course, the noble Viscount has all the necessary qualifications to deal with it. When we are dealing with a Criminal Justice Bill, I cannot for the life of me imagine what other legislation would be the right place in which to get the very urgent and necessary reform that the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, has asked for.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: Let us discuss, first of all, whether it is urgent or necessary, because I think it is rather important that we should know what we are talking about first. I start with this proposition. We all know that children between the ages of 8 and 12 quite frequently take part in conduct which, if it was done by persons of fully adult age, would amount to a crime. Indeed, younger children than that do also, but they are treated as conclusively incapable of any form of crime. It is also common ground, I think, between everybody, that they sometimes have to be dealt with by the public authorities in some way. The noble Baroness who proposed the Amendment recognised this as much as anybody else. She wants them dealt with solely by family or social agencies, and not by the courts at

455
all—child guidance clinics, under the Education Act, sent to boarding schools, special schools or, if sub-normal, perhaps treated in another way or under the Mental Health Act. Of course, all those agencies exist and are suitable. Whether they are suitable in all cases is a matter of doubt.
I have known a case—and I do not say more than this—when the child said that it had not done it, and it turned out to be right. I remember I had to defend a child in a juvenile court before the war, and they were going to send the poor little thing away under these lovely social agencies. The only thing was that the child said that it had not done the conduct for which it was going to be sent away. Of course, it would never have been discovered whether this was true or untrue if the ordinary social agencies had been left to it, because there would have been no proper investigation. Fortunately, that child was tried by a juvenile court, as the noble Baroness now proposes it never again shall be, and it was found out that its own story of complete innocence was true, and that the very plausible case which was made against it was being invented by adults. That child would have been permanently damaged if this Amendment had been carried out. So, if one is going to fight this war of light and darkness, one has to be very careful that one is fighting on the right side.
Now it is common ground that there are occasions when conduct has to be dealt with by public agencies. The question is: what is the public agency, and in what circumstances and how should it act? It seems to me that the noble Earl, Lord Longford, was blissfully unaware of the extent to which the noble Baroness—who speaks, as I say, with the utmost authority, and to whom I listened with the greatest respect—was out on a limb in this matter, and how radically she differs from the proposals of the Ingleby Committee in the same matter.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: May I interrupt? That. I am afraid, is quite incorrect. I am sorry, as always, to have failed to convey my meaning. The noble Baroness, as the noble Viscount may or may not know, wrote an article in the Spectator criticising the Ingleby
456
Committee quite sharply, and I hope I thoroughly drank in the wisdom of that article.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I was going to make the same observation myself; but in that case I find it all the more difficult to understand why the noble Earl led your Lordships to suppose that he was entitled to call the Ingleby Report in support of the noble Baroness's proposal. It is, in fact, quite inconsistent with the noble Baroness's proposal, and if the noble Baroness's proposal is accepted we shall have rejected the Ingleby Committee's Report. As a matter of fact, the situation is really this—and this is what led me to say of the noble Baroness, with all her great authority, that she really had failed to convey to her noble friend what this Amendment is about: it is quite true that the Ingleby Committee made proposals which verbally appear rather similar to this—that is to say, one of the three proposals they were going to make would have involved the proposition that in law, and as a matter of substantive law, a child between 8 and 12 would not be held morally guilty, or would not be found guilty of an offence under, say, the Larceny Act—but what they proposed was radically different from what the noble Baroness is proposing here.
What the noble Baroness is proposing is that such children should always be dealt with by family or social agencies and never by the courts. This is not what the Ingleby Committee wanted, and, in fact, it is radically inconsistent with it. It is true that, as the first of three proposals, the Ingleby Committee recommended that a child under the age of 12 should no longer be liable to be prosecuted for, and found guilty of, a criminal offence; but they went on to say, secondly, that a child under that age—that is, under the age of 12—who (and here I quote)
"acts in a manner which would render a person over that age liable to he found guilty of an offence should be liable to be dealt with as in need of protection and discipline".
It goes on to explain that this would be a category which would also include those who would now be found—and here I am again using a phrase which will be familiar to those familiar with the Children's Act—to be in need of care and protection. In other words, under

457
that category people who would be found guilty of, say, larceny under the existing law would still be dealt with by the juridical apparatus and not solely by the social agencies. In other words, they would be brought before the court, but not for the kind of reasons that the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, was putting forward. They would not be treated as criminals: they would be brought before the court and found in need of care and protection, and no conviction would be recorded against them.
It went on to say, as a third proposition:
"The methods by which a court might deal with any child who is found to he 'in need of protection or discipline', whether or not as a result of having committed what would now be a criminal offence, should include all those now available for a child found guilty of an offence except fining and conditional or absolute discharge".
In other words, what the Ingleby Committee was saying, although for reasons which may or may not be adequate, was that although the offenders ought not to have a conviction recorded against them, there ought to he a proper investigation before the existing court and the offenders ought then to be liable to be dealt with by various methods which the existing court would now use.
There is, in fact, a very great deal to be said for these three recommendations. It is quite true that, in a letter to The Times, I think, and it may be in an article in the Spectator as well, the noble Baroness wrote saying that the Ingleby Committee was quite wrong and that you ought to confine yourself entirely to social agencies. This is not a proposition which I would accept without more thought on it, because my experience has been that children are sometimes telling the truth when they say they are absolutely innocent of the conduct of which they are accused. It may be that people do not attach importance to the word of a child, but, personally, I do. However, whether the noble Baroness is right or whether the Ingleby Committee were right, there is one thing which was abundantly clear: the noble Earl, Lard Longford, was utterly wrong when he suggested that you could call the Ingleby Committee in support of the noble Baroness's Amendment.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: Am I allowed to interrupt or not? Since I am
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being referred to, I suppose one may occasionally. The Ingleby Committee Report said that the minimum age of criminal responsibility should be raised to 12, with the possibility of its becoming 13 or 14, at some future date, and the Amendment which I was seeking to support says:
"In section fifty of the Children and Young Persons Act, 1933 (which fixes the age of criminal responsibility) for the words 'eight years' there shall be substituted the words 'twelve years'."
I will not interrupt the noble Viscount again—at least, I hope not to—but that is what I was trying to say.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: The noble Earl was, as I was trying to explain (I will not repeat it, except in a sentence), entirely wrong and was really misleading the Committee in calling the Ingleby Committee in support of the noble Baroness's proposal. Because that Committee's recommendation, as I tried to show, was not that you should do what the noble Baroness proposes, but that you should continue to carry out the existing procedure, with the solitary exception that you would not record a conviction against the child. In other words, it was a proposal for a radically different kind of handling of this kind of case. It went on to point out that the reason for the figures, with which the noble Baroness began her speech, showing that in other countries the age of criminal responsibility is different from, and higher than, that in this country, was that the phrase "the age of criminal responsibility" had in other countries a meaning which was radically different from that attached to it in this country; in other words, that in other countries the age of criminal responsibility means the age at which a person is liable to be dealt with in the ordinary criminal courts and exposed to the full penalties of the law, which in this country is, for some, 14 and not 7, and for others 17 and not 7. Our comparable figures are exactly the same as, anti not different from, those of other countries.
All this only leads me to say this. What the noble Baroness proposes is, of course, a matter which needs very careful consideration. It means that large numbers of children who are now charged with offences would be left to he dealt with by their parents or by social agencies, of one kind or another, without express

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powers to treat delinquency as such. The numbers involved would be of the order of 30,000. That is the number of boys and girls under 12 years of age who were known to have committed during 1959 what would at a higher age be categorised as offences, and were either cautioned after admitting their guilt or were found guilty by the courts. At the moment this subject would obviously, in the light of what I have said, raise important issues. The Ingleby Committee proposed a radically different course, linking their recommendations about the age of criminal responsibility with recommendations about "care and protection" proceedings and the provision of a new procedure for dealing with children who are at the moment charged with offences. The Ingleby Committee's recommendations are certainly beyond the scope of this Bill, and they are still the subject of consultations.
I should have thought everyone would agree that it is far to soon, despite what was said by the noble Earl, Lord Longford, to reach a firm conclusion on this, and much too difficult, even if the recommendations were within the scope of the Bill (which they are not), to implement them in this context. I think this debate has done a very great deal of good in drawing attention to what is a difficult problem and in ventilating opinions about it. It is far too early for me to say that my right honourable friend will not ultimately come down on the side of the noble Baroness and against the Ingleby Committee—I do not know. But, he will certainly study the views that have been expressed to-day, and I am sure he will be greatly helped in reaching his own conclusions in due course. Therefore, I would ask the noble Baroness, in view of the fact that her own suggestion, among others, is being considered in what I would suggest is a far more appropriate context, not to press her Amendment this afternoon.
6.44 p.m.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: The noble and learned Viscount has given us a very learned disquisition on the contents of the Report of the Ingleby Committee. I think your Lordships may be under the impression that we are discussing the Report of
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the Ingleby Committee, not discussing the Committee stage of the Criminal Justice Bill. I do not propose to pursue the matter of the Ingleby Committee, if only because the noble and learned Viscount dismissed out of hand a recommendation of the Ingleby Committee in support of a previous Amendment. It is therefore obvious that the Ingleby Committee is a stick which the noble Viscount can raise when convenient to him, and can lower when it is inconvenient.
So far as I can see, the noble and learned Viscount gave only one substantive argument against the raising of the age of criminal responsibility, and that was an argument which I admit has great weight, and by which, at one time in my long and inglorious career as a magistrate, I was disposed to be convinced. That is the argument that appearance before a court gives an innocent child—using "innocent" in the technical sense—a chance of acquittal. I have come to the conclusion that although, in the technical sense, this is true, it is exceptional; that there are also many occasions on which the acquittal is wholly contrary to substantive justice, and I cannot feel that this fact outweighs the arguments in favour of dealing with these children through their homes or through social agencies.
After all, innocent children run the risk of being punished for things they have not done in other contexts. They run this risk at school; they run this risk at home. And although parents and schoolteachers doubtless do their best to ascertain whether the child has in fact done the act complained of, they do it by their own crude methods, but with sympathy, with understanding, and by getting as near to the truth as they can. I think, on the whole, they do it quite as effectively as the formal courts of justice which deal with juvenile delinquents.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: Is the noble Lady really arguing in favour of this position: that a child of 9 in fact innocent of an act which, with adults, would be stealing, should be sent away to a boarding school against the consent of its parents on the hypothesis that it has stolen, when in fact it has not?
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: I should never argue in favour of sending a child of 9 away to a boarding school because it has stolen on a single occasion.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: That would be the effect of the Amendment.
BARONESS WOOTTON or ABINGER: Not at all. I was arguing purely the question of a finding of guilt on a particular occasion. A child of 9 should be sent away only in very extreme circumstances, when it is quite obvious that the home, or the day school, and perhaps the child guidance clinic, are unable to cope with it. Children of 9 are not sent away for single acts of stealing, but only if they are thoroughly maladjusted. If they are not capable—
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: It may be that I did wrong in putting the emphasis on a child of 9. But is the noble Lady trying to say that whether the child is 9, 10, 11 or 12, it would he right to send it away to a boarding school on

CONTENTS

Alexander of Hillsborough, V.

Harmsworth, L.

Ravensdale of Kedleston, B.

Arran, E.

Henderson, L.

Shackleton, L.

Auckland, L.

Latham, L.

Silkin, L.

Burden, L.

Longford, E.

Stonham, L. [Teller.]

Carrick, E.

Lucan, E. [Teller.]

Strang, L.

Crook, L.

Merthyr, L.

Summerskill, B.

Faringdon, L.

Raglan, L.

Wootton of Abinger, B.

NOT-CONTENTS

Abinger, L.

Ferrers, E.

Milverton, L.

Ailwyn, L.

Grenfell, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Albemarle, E.

Hailsham, V. (L. President)

Newton, L. [Teller.]

Allerton, L.

Hastings, L.

Perth, E.

Amwell, L.

Howard of Glossop, L.

Radnor, E.

Ashton of Hyde, L.

Iddesleigh, E.

St. Aldwyn, E. [Teller.]

Bathurst, E.

Jellicoe, E.

St. Oswald, L.

Blackford, L.

Killearn, L.

Selborne, E.

Carrington, L.

Kilmuir, V. (L. Chancellor.)

Spens, L.

Chesham, L.

Kinnaird, L.

Swinton, E.

Chester, L. Bp.

Lansdowne, M.

Teviot, L.

Colyton, L.

Limerick, E.

Thurlow, L.

Crawshaw, L.

McCorquodale of Newton, L.

Waldegrave, E.

Devonshire, D.

Merrivale, L.

Waleran, L.

Exeter, M.

Mills, L.

Resolved in the negative and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.
Clause 3 agreed to.
Clause 4 [Detention of offenders aged 14 to 20]:
LORD SILKIN: In view of the assurance which has been given on a similar Amendment to an earlier clause, I do
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the hypothesis that it had stolen, when it had not?
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: I had already answered the exact point just repeated by the noble Viscount in identical terms. I am not dealing with the single offence of stealing. I think this is the only substantial argument in favour of the present position, and I would once more put to your Lordships the view that the rare occasions on which a child is blamed—not sent away, but blamed—and is punished in some way—put on probation, perhaps—for something it has not done (and there are miscarriages of justice) are not so important as to outweigh the damage that is done to a far greater number of children who are brought before the courts and treated as delinquents in the community.
On Question, Whether the said new clause shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 21: Not-contents, 44.
not propose to move Amendment No. 7, but I reserve the right to put it down again if we cannot come to an understanding.
6.58 p.m.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD THE EARL OF LONGFORD moved, after subsection (2), to insert:
"() The staff at each detention centre shall include one or more social workers".
The noble Earl said: I hope that this Amendment, which I regard as highly desirable in itself, will draw from the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor, or whoever represents the Government, a much clearer statement than we have yet had, either here or in another place, about the policy behind the detention centres. Detention centres are all the fashion nowadays. They are the only large addition, I suppose one can say, to our penal equipment, despite all the discussions that have been going on in recent years; and some people are inclined to hope for the best and simply assume that the detention centres are going to do a great deal of good and have already started to do a great deal of good. I have nothing but esteem for those who are in charge of detention centres, or are starting totem, but I have a completely open mind as to whether, a few years from now, we shall feel that these detention centres have proved a valuable experiment. I think that it is far too early to say. But one thing is certain: we shall not succeed in this experiment of detention centres unless those in charge of them are given much clearer guidance than I imagine they have been given up to the present time.
We are told by some people that the main purpose is to be punitive, as compared with the purpose of reform. I regard that distinction, drawn in this way, as highly dangerous. It seems to me quite wrong to punish young people—and often they have to be punished—without a great deal of attention to the effect of that punishment on their characters. I do not think that anybody in your Lordships' House, and certainly not the noble and learned Viscount, would seriously justify an inhuman kind of treatment which was supposed to be so frightful that nobody would ever dream of offending again if he had either experienced it or heard of it, and which at the same time made no effort to improve the characters of the people. I hope, therefore, that we may take it from the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor that, while the purpose is punitive, in the sense that it is intended to bring home to the people that they have done wrong and to dissuade other people from doing likewise, the purpose is also reformative.
I do not want to go over the ground I covered the last time, when I dwelt at
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great length on the errors contained in a particular television film. The Lord Chancellor took a great deal of trouble on that occasion, and at the end of the day explained that the film in no way represented the ideas of the Prison Commissioners or the policy being followed in the detention centres. But I think it is strange that that film should have been perpetrated; that some excellent producers, and others associated with television, who have, on the whole, run a very good series in "Probation Officer", should have made this one extraordinary error in the case of detention centres. I do not think that it could have been a coincidence. I believe that the truth has got about that these are pretty brutal establishments.
I hope that I do not do the Government an injustice (Governments, collectively speaking, sustain injustices every day without actually disintegrating) if I say that it has been rather convenient for the Government and the authorities generally that there has been this fairly widespread misapprehension about the nature of these places. Because the "hanging and flogging school", if I may speak of them in that way (that may be offensive; I mean, to put it more politely, and perhaps more sensibly, the people concerned mainly with the more severe punishment) are happy to think that here really is a very rough sort of treatment indeed. And at times it may even be that those who advocate forms of corporal punishment are held at bay by the news that corporal punishment is really nothing to the sort of thing that is being "dished out" in a slightly different way —not in the form of physical violence—and nothing to the sufferings which these young people are undergoing in the detention centres. I do not think it would have been possible to make a film like that without some widespread misunderstanding of what goes on.
The truth is that these establishments are in the care of those who are very much concerned with improving the character of youth; and that, indeed, is brought out by something that is said in the Report of the Advisory Council on the Treatment of Offenders. On page 10 the Council say, talking about the detention centres:
"The system has already shown some flexibility in expanding the original conception of a

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régime based primarily on deterrence to include elements of positive personal training".
So from that Report it does seem that these detention centres are undergoing a change in the right direction. I readily concede that, and I believe it to be true. But we are entitled to ask: if one of the main purposes is reform, can we expect the full purpose of reform to be served without some addition to the existing staff? I have not the details of every detention centre, but I think one will usually find a warden in charge (an excellent man in the case I know best, and I expect in every other case); then a principal officer and various other members of the subordinate staff. You will not usually, or perhaps ever, find a housemaster under the warden; and you will not usually, so far as I know, find a social worker attached.
Without more ado, therefore, I ask the noble and learned Viscount the Lord Chancellor to tell us whether reform is a leading purpose of these establishments; whether he feels that a social worker would be of material assistance in serving the purpose of reform; and whether he will consider favourably the idea of accepting an Amendment of this kind. What we do about it to-day will partly depend on his answer. It may be that he will not be able to give a definite answer to-day but that before the next stage he will be able to favour this proposal. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 10, at end insert the said subsection.—(The Earl of Longford.)
THE EARL OF IDDESLEIGH: I hope that we are not going to make the mistake that we made during the war. Before the war, and in the first year of the war, a man's welfare was the responsibility of his company commander. The company commander knew the man, and with the help of his platoon commanders knew the background of the man. He was responsible for his welfare problems and could well attend to them. Then the War Office started a Welfare Department, and in battalions a welfare officer had to be appointed. Theoretically this officer became responsible for the welfare problems of the troops. The good company commander carried on much the same as before: he continued to deal with the welfare problems of his troops, and he expected his platoon commanders
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to help him. But the slack company commander, when a man brought him a problem—it might be a financial problem or a marital trouble—was under a temptation to say: "This is welfare. Go to your welfare officer and he will deal with it". I am all in favour of a detention centre—or a housemaster, if the place is so large as to require smaller groups—having some assistance from social workers where it is needed by the boys under his charge; but I am anxious that it should remain quite clear that these social workers are not there to administer a specialised department of work, but are there purely as assistants to the head of the establishment, whose work should and must include final responsibility for the social welfare of his young people.
LORD RAGLAN: I should like to say to the noble Earl, Lord Longford, that these social workers do not exist. I can say that from experience.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: I know one or two.
LORD CROFT: I should like briefly to support this Amendment. I believe that social workers would be extremely useful in collecting material about the background of the offenders, with a view to helping the implementation of the compulsory supervision and after-care for which the Bill provides in Clause 13. I agree also with the noble Earl, Lord Iddesleigh, that their rôle should be that of welfare officers.
7.10 p.m.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (EARL BATHURST): The noble Earl, Lord Longford, in moving his Amendment asked me to say something about the principle of these detention centres, but my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor in his speech a little while ago gave a considerable description of them. It is quite true that these centres are for punishment—those who go there are wrongdoers—but they are also for the training of young people. I dare say that one of the worst punishments which a young offender will undergo in these centres will be in meeting the requirement to keep up a high standard and the requirement that he should do his best. That is one of the cardinal principles

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laid down throughout the syllabus in the short term (it is only a few months) spent at such establishments. I am not going to say that there is no punishment element in these centres, but at the same time there is a high standard of training and I think that that training is reformative. I can tell the noble Earl that the housemaster principle is operated in practically all these centres, if not all.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: What does the housemaster principle mean? Can you have a housemaster principle without a housemaster, which is the case certainly in some of these places?
EARL BATHURST: I understand that there are houses, or the equivalent of houses, in these centres, and that the housemaster is responsible for a given number of boys. That is my information, but I will certainly look into it if the noble Earl disbelieves me. I am informed that the housemaster principle is used in almost all these centres.
Offenders have to keep clean and tidy, which is a considerable punishment to such youths. They have also to be punctual, and they must tell the truth. That is a considerable effort for some offenders, and is not always a pleasant phase of the training, as most of us have found out at one time or another when under discipline. But I assure the noble Earl that it is the responsibility of all the staff at these centres to look after the rehabilitation of the offender. I do not think that the noble Earl would like it to be thought that these places are brutal establishments just from seeing one film. These films are meant to be entertaining, and I do not think the noble Earl would wish us to draw a conclusion from that film. I do not think it would be right to say that the inmates in these places are undergoing great suffering, as I think the noble Earl to a certain extent suggested.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: I did not quite hear. Could the noble Earl repeat that? I never said they were undergoing great suffering.
EARL BATHURST: The noble Earl definitely mentioned—I have it written down—suffering, presumably for these young offenders in such establishments.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: I am afraid that some noble friend of the noble Lord's must have distracted his attention, or it may be my incurable inarticulateness. I was making it plain that there was a widespread impression that there was suffering, which did not exist, and I was asking for clarification.
EARL BATHURST: I quite agree. I am also asking that that impression should cease to exist. It would be wrong for people to think that it does, simply after seeing one film about which we had a great deal of discussion last time.
Can we now get back to the Amendment in the name of the noble Earl? I should like to tell him straight away that the experiment at Kidlington, a junior establishment, about which I am sure he knows, has been considered a great success, and it is definitely the intention to increase the numbers of social workers, and, when possible, to see that social workers are attached to these centres. The noble Earl, Lord Iddesleigh, mentioned that a social worker might be regarded in the same light as the welfare officer of one's Service days. That is not really a correct synonym at all. These social workers, when they are available—and I note what my noble friend Lord Raglan has said—are specially trained in their activities, and they deal particularly, as the noble Earl knows, with home life and the problems that are mentioned in the later clauses of this Bill, of resettlement and supervision. That is the reason for having these social workers. It is true, of course, that they look after many problems which the boys may have in the centre. It could be said that they are in some way a buffer: they are the person to whom the boys should turn. Nevertheless, I do not want your Lordships to think that that will in any way detract from the responsibility that is laid upon the staffs for rehabilitation. There is no reason why a boy should not go with his problems to any member of the staff of the establishment. I wish to make it quite clear to the noble Earl that it is the headmaster, or the manager, of that establishment who is responsible.
The effect of the Amendment the noble Earl is putting before your Lordships would be to lay down in an Act of Parliament who was to be employed in such a detention centre; indeed, one

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would probably have to lay down exactly what those people would have to do. It would be a difficult precedent, and it might be unwise to legislate for this. I assure the noble Earl that it is the policy to extend the work of the social workers to all these centres. The experiment in the junior centre at Kidlington has been a great success, and it is hoped to go forward to the senior establishments as well. With that assurance I hope that the noble Earl and his noble friends will see fit to withdraw their Amendment.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: I am obliged to the noble Earl. It seems to me that he has conceded, in effect, what we were asking for. He says that the policy is to extend the employment of social workers to all the detention centres. As that is what we are asking for, I think it would be rather churlish of me not to thank the noble Earl and the Government for doing what seems to be in our minds. I will not take a moment, but I should reply to the noble Earl, Lord Iddesleigh. I know that he was in a "crack" regiment, and it may be that he did not require social workers to the same extent that delinquent young people do. If you take normal people (if one can call Members of the House of Lords "normal"), I do not think we need a social worker to attend on us. But if you take a disturbed population, or a delinquent population, then the role of the social workers becomes more urgent. I place that thought before the noble Earl.
I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Raglan, said, if he was referring to the number of social workers. That raises another colossal problem. Here we are talking of comparatively small numbers, and I do not think it should be difficult to find them. I will not get into an argument with the noble Earl (although I should be glad to have an argument privately) about the housemaster principle without housemasters. There might be a difference of fact there, but to the best of my belief they will not always be found to he housemasters. Some of these are borstal housemasters, and would he applying the same methods. In fact, I should say these detention centres were understaffed at the top level. I do not think that you will find a housemaster in a detention centre of 80 people. If I am completely wrong, I
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will of course apologise, and put down an Amendment especially to give me the opportunity of apologising. I am grateful to the noble Earl and the Government for the way they have received this Amendment, and I beg leave to withdraw it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
7.20 p.m.
LORD STONHAM LORD STONHAM moved, in subsection (4), after "training" to insert: "or a previous term of detention in a detention centre." The noble Lord said: I beg to move this Amendment. Your Lordships will see that under subsection (4) of Clause 4 an order for detention shall not be made in respect of a person who is serving or has served a sentence of not less than six months imprisonment or a sentence of borstal training. The Amendment seeks to insert the words about a second sentence of detention, to prevent a second sentence of detention from being served, because the Government obviously accept the view that it is no use ordering a sentence of detention for anyone who has already served six months' imprisonment or a borstal sentence. The argument behind the Amendment is that, equally, it is useless or almost useless to order or allow a second sentence of detention if the first one has not proved effective.
There has been a good deal of research into this matter, and all the authorities are in favour of the Amendment. The noble Earl, Lord Bathurst, rightly quoted with considerable approval the work that has been going at Kidlington, and I have in my hand the figures which are the result of research at Campsfield House undertaken by Dr. Max Grunhut and published early last year for the British Journal of Delinquency. This was a study of 434 boys, received into the first junior centre of Campsfield House, at ages of 14 to 17. Of that number, 329 boys who had not previously been in a penal institution had not been reconvicted two years after discharge, which is very high percentage; whereas, of the 105 junior boys who had had previous experience in an institution, 65 were reconvicted—about two-thirds. The point I am making with regard to these junior boys is that the effect of the detention centre service was excellent. In two cases out of three they did not come back, or at least they did not come

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back over a period of two years. They were not reconvicted. But in cases where the boys had served a sentence of detention, then, two-thirds of them did come back for more, showing that to give them more was useless.
The position in the senior centre at Blantyre House with the older boys was almost exactly the same. There 144 cases were studied, and the figures show that two-thirds of those who had not had any previous institutional experience were not reconvicted after they had served their term, but where they had already served a term, then, two-thirds were reconvicted. In fact, the Prison Commissioners' report for 1957 quotes this conclusion which Dr. Grunhut wrote:
"The original proposition is confirmed that punitive detention appears suitable for boys with a more or less substantial criminality not due to deep-rooted personal factors or seriously adverse home conditions, for whom detention is the first experience of any form of institutional treatment."
Since detention centres were first opened, the Prison Commissioners' reports have shown persistently a much higher rate of reconviction for boys and youths with previous borstal or other institutional experience. It is the case that wardens of detention centres who, after all, should know a great deal about the prospects of success, are opposed to having boys or youths sent for a second term of detention to a detention centre. I think that is understandable.
The whole idea behind the detention centres is of a short, sharp sentence, a shock if you like, with the hope of awakening in the boys an answer to the challenge of discipline, awakening in them a sense of responsibility—even, if you like, of esprit de corps and some pride in physical achievement, however unwillingly they first of all undertake it. It is the case that there is a high degree of success, about two-thirds, but if they have their dose and come back it does not work a second time, and quite understandably so, and obviously other methods must be tried. Therefore we seek to insert the words on the paper to add, after borstal training, "or a previous term of detention in a detention centre". We feel that, if those words are accepted, it will save unnecessary applications for a second time of
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treatment which, having failed, is then unlikely to succeed. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 4, line 20, after ("training") insert the said words.—(Lord Stonham.)
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: I think the essence of my noble friend's argument is incontrovertible. It is that two failures are more than twice as bad as one.
LORD RAGLAN: I should just like to say I support what Lord Stonham has said.
EARL BATHURST: I think it can be said that I come out to bat on a somewhat sticky wicket, in view of what the noble Lord, the noble Lady, and my noble friend with expert knowledge have said, but I ask the noble Lord who has proposed this Amendment to remember that, when the power of the courts to impose short sentences of imprisonment is eventually abolished, detention will he the only alternative to an indeterminate sentence of between six months and two years, or a longer sentence of imprisonment. The whole point of this Bill is to try to train and to rehabilitate—we have used that word before—the young offender. I know that the noble Lord opposite, and his friend the noble Baroness, claim that a second try in a detention centre is not as useful as the first one. He has mentioned figures which he believes will prove his case, but I do not think they can be used as an argument about the sort of offenders who should now go to the detention centres; and to say that after they have had one spell in a centre, those offenders should then be arbitrarily sent for one of these longer and indeterminate sentences, either in borstal or in prison, is entirely wrong. It is, of course, up to the discretion of the court. An offender may be so bad that such a sentence for a second time is wrong. But we do not believe that this will be so in all cases. We hope that courts will take advantage of their power to send an offender for a second short, sharp treatment in a detention centre, as the noble Lord has described it.
We do not see that there is any reason to delay the proceedings. There could be a report from the Prison Commissioners, and so forth; but we see no reason for that in the case of an offender

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who, clearly, could be suitably punished by attendance in a detention centre. We do not believe that there will, in fact, be the difficulty the noble Lord and the noble Lady envisage with regard to these offenders going into a detention centre for the second time, because already there are plenty of second offenders in these detention centres.
Although possibly the results are not so impressive as the noble Lord has quoted, nevertheless, there will be no great difficulty in the organisation of the detention centre. It may, of course, be necessary, when these schemes have really got under way, that there should be special categories of detention centres, possibly for second offenders or even third offenders, or there may be special categories for certain types of offender. That would to some extent look after the problem which the noble Lord envisages.
BAROYESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: Is the noble Earl envisaging continuous and progressive failure in detention centres?
EARL BATHURST: If the offender is so bad and shows no sign whatever of taking advantage of the training in rehabilitation at a detention centre, then the court might have to send him up to the next higher sentence. But, in fact, there is no intention that the detention centre should be the bottom rung of an escalator of punishment. The detention centre should be sufficient punishment for a particular type and age group of offender. He may go there a second time; I should not like to say he would go a third time—one would hope not—but the court has a discretion then to send him to a more serious form of punishment. We can see no reason why the courts should not have this discretion to send an offender a second time to the detention centre, and for that reason I am afraid I cannot accept the reasoning of the noble Lord's Amendment.
LORD STONHAM: I find the noble Earl's reply both disappointing and somewhat difficult to understand. He said that he could see no reason why boys should not go to a detention centre a second time, and, although he hoped it would not be necessary, even a third time. But the Bill as it now stands prohibits the award of detention to a boy who has already served a borstal sen-
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tence or a sentence of six months imprisonment. There we have the case where the lad in question must have been convicted more than one. It is extremely unlikely he would have gone to borstal on a first offence; almost certainly the boy would not have gone to prison on a first offence. So we are considering people who are second or third offenders already, and in the one case the Government has decided that they shall not be sent to detention for the obvious reason that they think it would not do them any good. That is in the clause already. I know there is the qualification unless there are special circumstances.
What we are asking for in our Amendment is that the same philosophy shall be followed. It is unlikely that the first time a boy conies before the magistrates he will be sent to a detention centre. He will have been convicted of an offence more than once before he goes to a detention centre, and he is sent there only in the hope that the shock will do him good. We are saying that when a young person has already had one sentence of detention the Government should be logical and consistent and apply the same thinking they have already applied to those who have served 'a borstal or prison sentence. They should not waste any more time in the probably overcrowded detention centres but should leave them for first-time people who might get some good from them. That seems to me common sense. I rather feel that perhaps the noble Earl had not previously considered the full implications of what he said, and I wonder whether the point could be looked at again before we reach the next stage.
EARL BATHURST: With great respect to the noble Lord, he is asking me to say that a second sentence at one of these detention centres is comparable to a second offence which has been punished by a term in either borstal or prison. Our view is that it is a very different affair indeed. We hope, too, it will be a very different type of offender, whether it is a boy or girl. In fact that is really the whole point of this Bill, as was explained by my noble and learned friend. We believe that by keeping the real and hardened young criminals out of the detention centre the sort of training that will be received by the offender

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in a detention centre will enable him to rehabilitate himself and take up a useful life afterwards, as well as provide punishment for his offence.
But when the noble Lord says that the Bill is inconsistent, I must beg him to remember that a sentence of borstal or prison will be for a very considerable time, whereas the detention centre sentence may be quite a short time and at maximum only six months. I ask him to consider that argument. I will, of course, as always, look at what he has said. I assure him that all he has said in this debate and in all debates is always most carefully looked at. But naturally I cannot give any assurance that my views could be changed.
On Question, Amendment negatived.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I understand from those who convey information of this kind that it would be convenient to noble Lords opposite if the House now resumed. If that is so, 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.

HOME SAFETY BILL
House in Committee (according to Order):
Bill reported without amendment.
Then, Standing Order No. 41 having been suspended (pursuant to the Resolution of May 11) Bill read 3ª, and passed.
House adjourned at twenty minutes before eight o'clock.