Sitting of 4 July 1963

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

OFFENCES RELATING TO MOTOR VEHICLES
Address for Return,
"showing the number of offences relating to motor vehicles in England and Wales, the number of persons prosecuted for such offences, statistics of the proceedings in magistrates' courts, and the number of alleged offences in respect of which written warnings were issued by the police, together with the number of persons concerned, during 1962."—[Mr. Woodhouse.]

ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  EDUCATION

    Obsolete Rural Primary Schools
    Mr. Clive Bossomasked the Minister of Education if he will institute a separate building programme designed solely for the replacement of obsolete rural primary schools.
    The Minister of Education (Sir Edward Boyle):No, Sir. I hope that the resources available for school building will enable steady progress to be made with the replacement of obsolete primary schools, including rural schools. It would not help, however, to have a separate programme.
    Mr. Bossom:Would it not take about 10 years for a county like Herefordshire to catch up with its primary school building programme? Will there not be nearly 800,000 new places required in primary schools in England and Wales by 1972? Could not my right hon. Friend put much more emphasis on the building of these primary schools, especially in rural areas?
    Sir E. Boyle: I have never made any secret to the House of the fact that I know a great deal remains to be done,
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    both in the country districts and in the towns. During the five years between 1960 and 1965 we are concentrating on completing the reorganisation and making a considerable start with secondary school replacements. But I quite accept the fact that there is a measure of work to be done on primary school replacements in later periods.
    Mr. Hilton: Will the right hon. Gentleman have another look at his hon. Friend's suggestion? Is he aware that in many rural areas, such as Norfolk, where many of our schools are completely outdated, there could be a tremendous saving both in money and teacher-manpower if new village schools were built and many of the old slum schools done away with? Will he seriously look at the matter again?
    Sir E. Boyle: The hon. Gentleman will realise that the Question relates specifically to the idea of having a separate programme. I believe that in drawing up the building programmes of authorities it is wise practice to give attention, as I try to do within the resources available, to the order of priority given by the authorities themselves.
    Mr. P. Browne:Is not my right hon. Friend aware—I am sure he is—that we have this problem all over the country? Is not his answer rather odd when he says that there will be sufficient resources, in view of the fact that the Devon Education Committee has had a cut from £902,000 to £63,000 in its building programme for 1963–64?
    Sir E. Boyle: I said that a great deal remains to be done. I did not use the words"sufficient resources". I said that I thought that within the total resources available it was important to give attention to the priority given by the local authorities themselves, and that I doubted whether a separate programme, as proposed in the Question, was the right idea.

    Primary Schools
    Mr. Lubbockasked the Minister of Education if he will order a sample analysis to be carried out to discover what correlation there is between age of transfer from infants to junior sections of primary schools and subsequent performance in the 11-plus examination; and if he will publish the results.
    Sir E. Boyle:As I announced in answer to a Question from my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge (Mr. Hornby) on 17th June, I have asked the Central Advisory Council for Education to consider primary education in all its aspects and the transition to secondary education. I cannot commit the Council to detailed projects of the kind suggested, but I am sure that it will make a thorough study of all aspects of selection for secondary schools.
    Mr. Lubbock:Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this Question is concerned not with selection for secondary schools but with the transfer from the infants to junior sections of primary schools? Is he aware that many parents feel that because there can be a variation of as much as a year in the age of transfer from infants to junior sections, this can set back the progress of a child so that he is not on an equal footing with his competitors who were transferred at a later age?
    Sir E. Boyle:I do not deny that the hon. Gentleman has a point here. I think he is on to a real problem. There have been investigations, such as the one in Durham, into the proportion of children born in the summer found in the lower streams of primary schools. My point was that the subject of the Question is so closely related to the organisation of primary education generally that I doubted the wisdom of having a separate inquiry over and above the major inquiry which the Central Advisory Council will shortly be carrying out.

    Training Colleges (Libraries)
    Mr. Boydenasked the Minister of Education, in view of the increased expenditure on libraries in training colleges, if he will provide more funds for clerical assistance in running these libraries.
    Sir E. Boyle:I assume that the hon. Member is referring to voluntary colleges. I am ready to consider on their merits proposals from these colleges for this purpose.
    Mr. Boyden: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for sending me that list and for the progress being made. But does not he think that it is a waste of scarce college staff to concern them with a very
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    onerous chore and that one of the best ways of using auxiliaries would be to employ them in this service?
    Sir E. Boyle: I hope that the voluntary colleges will take note of the very reasonable and constructive suggestion of the hon. Member. However, no request has been received from voluntary colleges for staff in addition to those on the list. If requests are received, I will consider them on their merits.

    Foreign Language Assistants
    Mr. Boydenasked the Minister of Education why more Austrian, Belgian and Swiss assistants are not employed in English schools.
    Sir E. Boyle: We take all the candidates put forward, and the authorities know that we would gladly take more. In spite of the small numbers from these particular countries, however, the total number of foreign language assistants in our schools is growing each year.
    Mr. Boyden: The obvious places to get assistants from are these three countries. Cannot the right hon. Gentleman do something through our embassies to encourage recruitment there? Our local education authorities want as many as they can get.
    Sir E. Boyle: I have made known to the authorities concerned that an increase would be welcome. The Austrians have told me that it would make the matter easier for them if their assistants were allowed to return home at the end of June instead of at the end of the school year in July. I am considering allowing this.
    It seems—and I am only surmising this—that in the three countries concerned it is not at present part of the accepted pattern for students of English to spend a year in Britain during or immediately after their university course. I am considering practical ways of getting more assistants from all these three countries.

    Packaged Sweets (Picture Cards)
    Mr. Milneasked the Minister of Education what representations he has received from educational leaders in the North-East about undesirable picture cards in packages of sweets; and what reply he has made.
    Sir E. Boyle: I have received a letter from the Blyth Teachers' Association which requests my assistance in suppressing the issue of these cards. In reply I have drawn the attention of the Association to the Answer given by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary to the hon. Member's Question on 2nd July, and I have explained that I have no powers to suppress the production or distribution of these cards. I hope, however, that parents will support teachers in helping their children to discriminate against shoddy material.
    Mr. Milne:Whilst thanking the right hon. Member for that reply, may I ask whether he is aware that it simply does not go far enough and that, while we appreciate that he has no power to introduce legislation, the Home Secretary has? Will he discuss this with the Home Secretary with a view to some action being taken? The question of moral protection of children in schools is the right hon. Gentleman's responsibility.
    Sir E. Boyle: I am bound to say that I doubt whether legislation would be the right way to do this. I think that this is a matter rather for the pressure of public opinion. These cards are absolutely deplorable, but what struck me about them was not so much that they were frightening or corrupting as that they were so utterly shoddy and contemptible. I would rather see this sort of thing dealt with by force of public opinion.
    Mrs. Slater: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that his answer will not get the withdrawal of these cards? Does not he think that, particularly in the circumstances in which we are living, something should be done by the Government themselves?
    Mrs. White: This Government?
    Mrs. Slater: Well, they are in power at the moment. It is the right hon. Gentleman's responsibility to see that our children are protected. We had to do something about horror comics. Why cannot we do something about these terrible cards?
    Sir E. Boyle: I ask the House seriously to consider whether it would be right to try to frame legislation about the types of pictures which go into packets
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    of sweets. I accept fully that these are absolutely lamentable pictures. In taste, in style and everything else one could not imagine more lamentable cards. However, I cannot but feel that it would be best if the children, so far from buying these sweets because they contain cards, came to realise how bad the pictures were and stopped buying the sweets. I think that pressure of public opinion is better than legislation in these cases.
    Mrs. White: Does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that, if the Government are to take action in matters of this kind, they should start a little higher up?
    Mr. Milne: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall seek to raise this matter later.
    Sir E. Boyle:Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. Surely this question is about whether there should be legislation. Would that be in order on the Adjournment?
    Mr. Speaker: I will consider that if and when it arises on the Adjournment.

    School Leaving Age
    9. Mr. Fitchasked the Minister of Education if he now intends to raise the school leaving age to 16 years before October, 1964.
    Sir E. Boyle: No, Sir. This would be quite impossible, but I intend before the end of this Parliament, as my predecessor promised, to make a further statement on the Government's attitude to this important reform.
    Mr. Fitch: Can the right hon. Gentleman be a little specific? Can he tell us the year in which he intends to raise the school leaving age to 16? Or is this to be a major item in Conservative Party policy for the next General Election?
    Sir E. Boyle: I deeply regret the way in which any statement I make on this subject—I am not specifically blaming the hon. Member—is invariably greeted, sometimes even in the educational Press, with a reference to party politics. We are facing a population explosion in the schools. The figure of prospective school

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    population is now quite markedly different from any imagined at the time Lord Eccles made his original statement. It is for that reason only that I am not able to make a definite statement now.
    Mr. Willey: Is the right hon. Gentleman now going back even on what Lord Eccles said? The failure of the Government to implement theCrowther Report will be a major black mark on their education policy. Is it not becoming increasingly clear that they will not make a statement until the eve of the General Election?
    Sir E. Boyle: I am not going back on what Lord Eccles said. I will fulfil exactly the pledge he gave the House. It is worth remembering that there will be a step forward in the next education year when Christmas leaving at the minimum age will be abolished, and that this will make a reality of the fourth year in all secondary schools.
    Mr. Dudley Smith:Is it not the case that there is an ever increasing and encouraging number of children attending secondary modern schools after the age of 15?
    Sir E. Boyle: That is correct. Voluntary staying on has risen in this Parliament from about one-third to nearly two-fifths. But that does not alter the fact of the pledge by my predecessor that a further statement would be made in this Parliament, and I certainly intend to fulfil it.

    School Building Projects, Blackburn
    Mrs. Castleasked the Minister of Education why he has refused to allow Blackburn local education authority to proceed with any major school building projects in 1964–65, in view of the urgent need to replace some of the outworn schools in the town, particularly the St. Mary's Roman Catholic Secondary School for Boys.
    Sir E. Boyle: The 1964–65 school building programme consists mainly of projects needed to keep pace with housing developments and to complete the reorganisation of all-age schools. Blackburn had no projects in these categories. It was possible for me to include only a relatively small number of proposals to replace and improve existing schools. The proposals put forward by the Blackburn authority for this category were less immediately
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    urgent than others, which were included, from other parts of the country.
    Mrs. Castle: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Blackburn education authority submitted six major proposals to him, all of them urgent, for 1964–65 and that he has turned down every one? Is he also aware that the authority gave top priority to the rebuilding of St. Mary's Roman Catholic School for Boys, and that his own Department is in no doubt that this should take place as quickly as possible because the school is housed in the worst education buildings in the town? Is he further aware that the Roman Catholic authorities have their plans already made, and that they have played their part very fully in the reorganisation of all-age schools? Yet they are now being penalised. Will he reconsider this matter?
    Sir E. Boyle:I am aware of what the hon. Lady has said. I wonder whether she is aware that an adjoining authority, Lancashire, was given four major replacement projects. It is difficult to allocate these things absolutely fairly, but I would point out that this is only the second occasion since 1952 that Blackburn has had a blank programme, which is not a bad record for an authority of that size. Altogether, 15 major projects have been approved there in the last 13 building programmes.
    Mr. Fletcher-Cooke:Has my right hon. Friend seen photographs of this school? If he has, would not he agree that it was worn out many years ago and is now a scandal?
    Sir E. Boyle: I have seen photographs. I accept that it was extremely difficult, particularly in the North, to decide the exact order of priorities for replacements. Without any reference to this particular school, it is my hope to make a further statement shortly about the school building programme.
    Mrs. Castle: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I shall seek to raise this matter on the Adjournment.

    Hornsey College of Art and Crafts
    Mrs. Butlerasked the Minister of Education why the Summerson Council has not granted all areas of art study to Hornsey School of Art.
    Sir E. Boyle:The Hornsey College of Art and Crafts was approved by the National Council for Diploma in Art and Design to offer courses leading to the Diploma in Art and Design in the fine art and graphic design areas of study. The National Council was not satisfied that the courses proposed by the college in the two remaining areas, namely three dimensional design and fashion/textiles, measured up to the exacting standards required for the new diploma.
    Mrs. Butler: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the condition of the buildings entered into the Council's decision at all, and whether it took into account the fact that this is the Middlesex College of Art, covering a wide and densely populated area of Middlesex and the northern Home Counties? Since there is a very strong argument for making Hornsey and similar colleges in different parts of the country centres of art for their regions, with all areas of study, will the right hon. Gentleman bear the geographical aspect in mind when fresh applications are made to him by Hornsey and other colleges?
    Sir E. Boyle: Certainly I will. With regard to the first part of the hon. Lady's supplementary question, I can assure her that, in reaching its decision, the National Council was fully aware of the projected rebuilding of the college. As the hon. Lady knows, there is a £200,000 instalment in the 1964–65 programme. The Council made every allowance for present accommodation difficulties.

    Diploma in Art and Design
    Mrs. Whiteasked the Minister of Education what steps he is taking to alleviate the position of students at colleges of art who have been taking the preliminary course for the new Diploma in Art and Design, but for more than 50 per cent. of whom no places for the diploma course will be available.
    Mr. Willeyasked the Minister of Education whether he will make special provision for those suitably qualified students at present unable to find places in Diploma in Art and Design courses this autumn to complete such courses.
    Sir E. Boyle: There are at present about 2,900 students taking pre-diploma courses whose age and educational quali-
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    fications make them eligible for a course leading to the new Diploma in Art and Design. It is not yet known how many will complete the pre-diploma course successfully. Diploma courses approved by the National Council for Diplomas in Art and Design will provide approximately 1,400 places next autumn. Arrangements were announced last January for shortened courses leading to the existing Intermediate examination and National Diploma in Design to provide for those students who are unable to obtain places in the new diploma course.
    Mrs. White: In the first place, does not the right hon. Gentleman agree that there has been a most deplorable lack of forethought in this matter, and that it was most undesirable that so many students should have been allowed to enter a pre-diploma course although there is not the slightest chance whatever that they can obtain places in diploma courses, leading to the most severe disappointment and frustration for those concerned?
    Secondly, what consideration has been given to the very serious anomalies which have arisen in this interim period, about which I have had lengthy correspondence with the Parliamentary Secretary and about which I hoped to get a reply this afternoon?
    Sir E. Boyle: I am sorry. If the hon. Lady would like to come and speak to me about the details she has raised, which I think raise issues that are not easy to discuss at Question Time, I should be very pleased to see her, and indeed see a deputation of two or three hon. Members if there is concern about this.
    With regard to the first part of the hon. Lady's supplementary question, I have looked into this matter carefully. It was essential at the inauguration of a new course of first degree standing that stringent standards should be applied, and we have done our best through, for example, special arrangements for 1964, to mitigate the immediate difficulties.
    Mr. Willey: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that we fully appreciate the difficulties of the present situation, but we have to pay regard to two things in particular: One is the calibre of the students who are attracted to these

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    courses, and we ought to avoid being unfair to them if we can possibly do so. Secondly, there is the geographical effect of the implementation of these recommendations.
    In view of these two consequences, will the right hon. Gentleman not so much discuss this with us, but see that there are immediate discussions to discover what steps can be taken effectively to alleviate this problem?
    Sir E. Boyle: I accept what the hon. Gentleman says. If a student wishes to extend his pre-diploma course for a year in the hope of obtaining in 1964 a place on a course which will lead to the Diploma in Art and Design, his local education authority can at its discretion pay a grant for the whole period of the pre-diploma course, and I think that this will be of help to some students.
    As a result of re-applications, it may well be that more courses can be approved to begin in 1964 both at colleges and schools which have been granted some approval, and even perhaps at others which failed to gain any approval for courses to start this year, but I am open to consider any proposals which hon. Members on either side of the House may like to put on this.
    Mr. K. Robinson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many people who generally support the idea of diplomas and even accept the Summerson recommendations feel that he has made an unholy mess of the transitional arrangements and that the steps he has so far announced are inadequate to deal with the very many problems which have arisen? Will the right hon. Gentleman reconsider the whole matter?
    Sir E. Boyle:The hon. Gentleman asks me to reconsider this. We have the report of the Council and I am sure that we cannot go back on the decisions here about stringent standards; but as for the consequences of this and the implications for students, I am ready to discuss and reconsider any concrete ideas that are put forward.

    Exchange of Teachers (America)
    Dr. Kingasked the Minister of Education whether he will increase the number of exchange teachers to be sent
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    to America in 1964–65 under the exchange of teachers programme.
    Sir E. Boyle:I would refer the hon. Member to the Answer which my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary gave to his Question on 11th April. I have now agreed to receive a deputation from the British Interchange Committee on 30th July.
    Dr. King:Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that both he and I agree that these exchanges are not only good for education, but for British-American friendship? Is not the moment now opportune for stepping up the exchanges that we arrange to the numbers that existed before he cut them down?
    Sir E. Boyle:This is difficult in view of the different financial standards on both sides of the Atlantic, but, as the hon. Gentleman said, I attach great importance to the exchanges and I am looking forward to discussing this matter with the deputation at the end of the month.

    School Building Programme, Leyton
    Mr. Sorensenasked the Minister of Education if he is aware of the concern of the Leyton Borough Council about the economies affecting education in that borough; and if he will consult the Essex County Council with a view to reconsidering those economies which affect the Borough of Leyton.
    Sir E. Boyle: I appreciate the borough council's disappointment that none of the Essex projects in the 1964–65 building programme is in its area. I have recently seen a deputation from the Essex education authority to discuss the most urgent of its outstanding proposals, which did not include those in Leyton.
    Mr. Sorensen: May I ask whether the Minister has received a communication or representations from the Leyton Borough Council on this matter? Does the right hon. Gentleman appreciate that this is causing very strong feelings in all quarters of Leyton, and is it not disappointing in the extreme that when he saw this deputation of the Essex County Council it did not include Leyton? Will he see that this is done?
    Sir E. Boyle: The hon. Gentleman must realise that I am in a difficulty. I saw a deputation from Essex. I agreed to the inclusion of one more school that was clearly urgently needed, but the proposals did not include any schools in the Leyton area. It is Essex which is the local education authority. It may be that we could discuss this in the context of the proposals for the London Government Bill, but we cannot do that now. That is my difficulty, and I am bound to have regard to the order of priority which the local education authority puts to me.
    Mr. Sorensen: Is it not shameful?
    Sir E. Boyle: I should not like to express a view about that. It is not for me to dogmatise on the priorities put to me by other authorities.

    Colleges of Advanced Technology (Teachers' Salaries)
    Mr. Willeyasked the Minister of Education whether he will make a statement on salary scales of teachers in colleges of advanced technology.
    Mrs. Whiteasked the Minister of Education why no increase in salary has been offered to lecturers and assistant lecturers at colleges of advanced technology.
    Sir E. Boyle: It is the Government's intention that the salaries of staff in the colleges of advanced technology should be related to those of university teachers with comparable responsibilities. Both sets of salaries are being reviewed simultaneously by the National Incomes Commission. In the meantime it is desirable that nothing should be done to accentuate any divergencies between the two systems. The reason why the increases which have recently been announced for college of advanced technology teachers do not include any increases for lecturers and assistant lecturers is that the existing salary scales for these grades are already comparable with those of the corresponding grades in universities.
    Mr. Willey: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the A.U.T. has described his action as disgraceful, and the A.T.T.I. has described it as a gross injustice? This is not the first time that the right
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    hon. Gentleman has been stigmatised by the bodies with whom he is in negotiation. Is he further aware that they complain that there has not been proper negotiation? As it is clear, that C.A.T.s are to be prejudiced unless action is taken, will he say that we cannot afford to wait for the report from N.I.C. but that some action will have to be taken in view of the fact that junior staffs of the C.A.T.s are the only staffs of the teaching world who will have had no increase?
    Sir E. Boyle:The hon. Gentleman has raised three points. As regards the views of the A.U.T. and the A.T.T.I., I have taken my stand on the point on which I must continue to stand, that C.A.T.s staffs must in future expect their salaries to move in step with university salaries rather than with salaries in technical colleges. C.A.T.s cannot be between the two, part of the range being comparable with universities, and the lower half being comparable with regional colleges.
    On negotiation, I say that negotiating machinery of the Burnham type is no longer appropriate for these institutions. The proposed increases were fully discussed with the teachers association.
    Mr. Shinwell: This is too long.
    Sir E. Boyle: I was asked three questions on this important subject. I personally interviewed both sides. Finally, the starting salary of a C.A.T. lecturer at £1,600 is equivalent to that of a university lecturer after six years' service.
    Mrs. White: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that the staffs of the colleges of advanced technology say that there is no properly worked out system of equivalents and that many of them have had industrial experience, some of it of considerable length, before entering teaching, but that it is not taken into account when they are compared with university staff?
    Sir E. Boyle:Can I assure the hon. Lady that we have tried to take this into account? The starting salary of a C.A.T. lecturer is £1,600, while the basic minimum for a university lecturer is £1,250. After looking into this carefully, I believe that the disparity is wide enough to cover differences in conditions.

    Primary Education (Committee)
    Dr. Kingasked the Minister of Education if he will give the names of the members of the committee which is to study primary education.
    Sir E. Boyle: I hope to make an announcement next week.
    Dr. King: While I would not make any personal criticism of the chairman and vice-chairman of this very important committee, would it not have been better to appoint a primary head teacher as its chairman? As the Minister has not done that, can he assure us that he will appoint to this committee members of the teaching profession who know about primary schools and citizens who have been educated in primary schools?
    Sir E. Boyle:I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the committee, whose membership I hope to announce next week, will include strong representation of all the appropriate sectors of the education service. I must say that I believe that Lady Plowden will make an admirable chairman of this committee.
    Mr. Jennings:While I welcome the decision to appoint a committee to investigate primary schools, may I ask my right hon. Friend whether any member is to be appointed who has direct teaching experience in primary schools? If not, why not? Would it not be logical and practical for my right hon. Friend to do so?
    Sir E. Boyle: I think that when my hon. Friend sees the list he will agree that all the appropriate sectors of the education service, including the practical representatives of the teaching profession, are reasonably represented on the committee.

    Teachers, Wales (Appointment)
    Mr. Boxasked the Minister of Education whether he is aware of widespread concern over the methods used in the appointment of teachers in Wales; and whether he will instruct the Central Advisory Council for Wales to investigate and report on the position.
    Sir E. Boyle: I have seen recent articles and letters in the Welsh Press about this matter but I have received no evidence. The Central Advisory Council for Edu-
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    cation (Wales) is not in any case an appropriate body to which matters of this kind could be referred.
    Mr. Box: May I assure my right hon. Friend that I will let him have copies of the correspondence which has recently been appearing in the columns of the Western Mail? Is he aware that they contain allegations of nepotism, favouritism and canvassing in connection with the appointments of teachers in Wales? Is he further aware that in some parts of Wales it now appears to be more important to be a member of the Labour Party, or a member of the Co-operative movement, rather than to have educational ability, to obtain such appointments?
    Sir E. Boyle: Of course I will consider any evidence which my hon. Friend puts to me but, with all respect to our friends in the Press, I am bound to say that few people would say that"think pieces", as they are sometimes called, either in the form of articles or letters, are necessarily precise evidence. But of course I will consider any points put to me.

    Temples of Abu Simbel
    Mr. Dalyellasked the Minister of Education, in view of the recent adoption of the Swedish plan to save the temples of Abu Simbel, whether he will reconsider his decision not to contribute to the appeal by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.
    Sir E. Boyle: I am giving further consideration to this question in the light of recent developments.
    Mr. Dalyell: Is it not a cause for shame that of all major Western European countries, at present Britain alone has failed to contribute?
    Sir E. Boyle:The original scheme put forward was very questionable from the point of view of U.N.E.S.C.O. resources, but I do not exclude the possibility of a United Kingdom contribution. The point is that this is a matter which must be further considered, and I am perfectly ready to get in touch with the hon. Member, or any other hon. Member, when I have further news.
    Mr. Farey-Jones: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that some very

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    urgent rethinking has been done on this issue? While the building of the reservoir is of dire necessity for the people of Egypt, the preservation of these temples is a challenge to the culture of the whole world. Will he promise to reconsider his decision?
    Sir E. Boyle:I said precisely that I am doing so. As my hon. Friend will know, the decision to proceed with the Swedish plan has already been taken formally by the U.A.R. and U.N.E.S.C.O.
    Mr. Fletcher: Is the Minister aware that the matter has now entirely changed because the cost of the new scheme will be very much less than the original? Will he bear in mind that there is some urgency about this matter and that it would be regarded as most invidious if this country of all the great Powers were the only one which did not make a contribution to preserve these unique temples?
    Sir E. Boyle: I will certainly bear in mind all the points the hon. Gentleman has made.

    Secondary School Selection
    Mr. Fitchasked the Minister of Education how many local education authorities in England and Wales still retain the eleven-plus system of examination.
    Sir E. Boyle: Many local education authorities are experimenting with new selection arrangements, some of which rely more on teachers' assessments and less on formal tests, but so far as I am aware only the Anglesey authority does not operate a system of secondary school selection.
    Mr. Fitch: Is the right hon. Gentleman satisfied that the 11-plus system of examination is satisfactory? Would he consider advising local education authorities to try the comprehensive system?
    Sir E. Boyle:We must distinguish between the 11-plus examination and selection procedures and the pattern of secondary school organisation. These are not the same thing. I hope to have something to say on this subject tomorrow when I address the Association of Education Committees. I should get into trouble with the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) if I attempted
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    to give my views on these two subjects at Question Time.
    Mr. Willey:Before the right hon. Gentleman makes his statement tomorrow, will he appreciate that the next Government will abolish the 11-plus examination? In view of this, is it not time that he took preparatory action?
    Sir E. Boyle: This is exactly the point I am on, because the statement of the party opposite, that it is to abolish the 11-plus, was slightly weakened by the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, that any grammar school would be closed over his dead body.

  HOUSING

    White Paper
    Mr. Spriggsasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs to what extent the policy stated in paragraph 75 of Command Paper No. 2050 represents a change in Government policy.
    The Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs (Sir Keith Joseph):The statements in paragraph 75 of the White Paper are fully in accord with the Government's frequently declared policy on housing subsidies and the cost of housing.
    Mr. Spriggs: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in paragraph 75 of that Command Paper he says that people are prepared to meet the cost of owning a house of their own? Will he remember that hundreds of thousands of people who cannot afford to pay for a home are having to do so, and are in great difficulty, because it is the only way in which they can get a house? As the Minister responsible for local government, will he set up an inquiry to go into the costs of building and to report to the House?
    Sir K. Joseph: I am glad to say that the numbers of houses are in general rising and that the Government are increasing the programme, both public and private, because of the need.
    Mr. Spriggsasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs whether, in his discussions with local authorities, mentioned in paragraph 76 of Command

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    Paper No. 2050, he will give an assurance that he will take into account all proposals made by local authorities in England and Wales for housing subsidies.
    Sir K. Joseph:Yes, Sir. But I hope that any local authority with a suggestion to make will, as a matter of convenience, put it forward through the appropriate local authority association.
    Mr. Spriggs: In the meantime, when discussing local government finance would the right hon. Gentleman consider the fact that interest repayments form a great proportion of the cost of building houses and schools?
    Sir K. Joseph: Interest will, of course, be one of the costs which will be taken into account.
    Mr. M. Stewart: Have not local authorities already laid great stress on that aspect of the matter in their communications to the right hon. Gentleman?
    Sir K. Joseph: Some local authorities have, but this is to be a thorough overhaul of all housing subsidies, all the costs and all the incomes.

    Decontrolled Houses (Improvements)
    Mr. Frank Allaunasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs what steps he proposes to take to safeguard tenants of decontrolled houses, who request the installation of a bath, inside water closet or hot water system, from eviction by their landlords.
    Sir K. Joseph: Details of the scheme for compulsory improvement are now being worked out, and I think it is best to see the whole scheme before debating particular points.
    Mr. Allaun: Does not the danger of tenants being deterred from seeking improvements through fear of eviction point to a serious weakness in the Minister's recent proposals? Would it not be better if the initiative in seeking improvements were placed firmly in the hands of local authorities? Alternatively, would the right hon. Gentleman consider restoring protection, or control to tenants who seek the permission of local authorities for improvements, as under the rent tribunal procedure?
    Sir K. Joseph: I think that the hon. Member misjudges the attitude of very nearly every landlord, but the point he is making will be borne in mind.
    Mr. M. Stewart: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are many tenants who are very worried about repairing serious sanitary defects in their homes because they expect that the result of their so doing will be eviction, and that this fear is widespread?
    Sir K. Joseph: No. I am not aware of that, but the point will be borne in mind.

    Council House Building Programmes
    Mr. Frank Allaunasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs if he will state his estimate of council house building programmes for 1963, 1964 and 1965.
    Sir K. Joseph: I expect to see an increase of about 6 per cent. in the number of houses approved for local authorities and new towns during 1963. I would not wish to make precise forecasts for subsequent years, but I would refer the hon. Member to the steadily expanding programme envisaged in the recent Housing White Paper.
    Mr. Allaun:Surely the totals that the Minister has in mind are quite inadequate to meet the long waiting lists of those who cannot afford to buy houses. Surely, when we could build 190,000 houses way back in 1948, we can do better today, and not far worse?
    Sir K. Joseph:As the hon. Member knows, practically every building craftsman in England and Wales is fully employed on building. Under a Tory Government there is a simultaneous record programme on every side of social investment, including housing.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT

    Betting Offices
    Mrs. Butlerasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs if he will amend the Town and Country Planning Use Classes Order to enable the number of betting offices in an area to be taken

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    into account by local authorities when applications for betting offices are considered.
    The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (Mr. F. V. Corfield): It is for the licensing justices to control the number of betting offices under the Betting and Gaming Act, 1960, and my right hon. Friend thinks that it would be wrong to try to duplicate the control under planning powers. The Use Classes Order would not, in any event, be an appropriate instrument for the purpose which the hon. Lady has in mind.
    Mrs. Butler:Is the Minister aware of the concern of local authorities about the flood of applications for new betting offices which come before them, and about their lack of planning powers to reduce these applications even where the number of betting offices in an area is already excessive? Since this planning aspect is entirely the responsibility of the Minister, will he take whatever action is appropriate to give local authorities these planning powers?
    Mr. Corfield:I have no knowledge of any representations from local planning authorities on this score. I can see no possible objective in duplicating powers that already exist.

    Erith Marshes (New Town)
    Mr. Doddsasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs (1) if he will make a statement on the discussions with the London County Council on the proposed new town for 25,000 people on Erith Marshes; how many meetings have been held; and what further meetings are contemplated;
    (2) what talks have been held, or are contemplated, in respect to the estimated cost of £50 million for the proposed new town on stilts for 25,000 people on Erith Marshes; and what decision has been reached on the share of the cost to be borne by Her Majesty's Government, the London County Council and the Kent County Council.
    Sir K. Joseph: Earlier this year officers of the London County Council and my Department discussed general questions of financial assistance towards the cost of developing the Woolwich Arsenal—
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    Erith Marshes land and of moving industry into the area, in the event that the county council should decide to go forward with such a scheme. In view of the unusual site conditions, I would expect the London County Council to seek further informal discussions with my Department on the availability of housing subsidies, particularly those payable on expensive sites and tall block of flats. No decision is called for from me on any sharing of the cost by the Kent County Council.
    Mr. Dodds:I thank the right hon. Gentleman for what he has said, but can he give an assurance that he is closely watching developments here, in view of the fact that in many ways this is different from and much more costly than anything that has been attempted by a local authority before? Secondly, does he appreciate the impact that this is creating upon local people where the transport system is already working to the maximum capacity, and also where there are difficulties in getting jobs? In view of the special nature of this project, may we be assured that the right hon. Gentleman is keeping all these things in mind?
    Sir K. Joseph: These things are not yet for me, except where local authorities like the L.C.C. wish to consult the Department informally about possible contributions under possible conditions. I am sure that the L.C.C. will study the points which have been made by the hon. Member in his Question.

    Yacht Marinas
    Mr. J. Wellsasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs what steps he is taking to help local authorities who wish to have yacht marinas in their areas; and what advice he has given to planning authorities.
    Mr. Corfield: My right hon. Friend has as yet received no proposals from any local authority to provide a yacht marina itself, and he has no reason to suppose that planning authorities need any advice from him on the subject.
    Mr. Wells: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that many people who are interested in leisure and sailing in all its forms throughout the country, including the Midland area, on occasion find that

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    local authorities at the seaside are somewhat unco-operative? Will he look into this matter closely at all times?
    Mr. Corfield: I can only assure my hon. Friend that as and when applications for planning permission come forward they will be considered on their merits in the same way as any other applications.
    Mr. M. Stewart: In this connection will the Minister bear in mind the letter I have written to him recently about the proposal of the Middlesex authority for a marina—a proposal which is jeopardised by his intention to allow the land in question to be used, instead, by St. Paul's School?

    Smoke Nuisance, Derby
    Mr. P. Noel-Bakerasked the Minister of Housing and Local Government and Minister for Welsh Affairs what reply he has sent to a letter from the Town Clerk of Derby dated 12th June, 1963, concerning the serious nuisance caused by the emission of smoke from the premises of G. E. Baker (Metals) Limited, and Denby Metals Limited, Great Northern Road, Derby.
    Mr. Corfield: The town clerk has been told that my right hon. Friend's consent is not required to the service of an abatement notice. His consent would be required before proceedings could be taken against the company, but as at present advised he would not consider himself justified in giving it.
    Mr. Noel-Baker:Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that I am asking this Question at the request of the borough council? Is he further aware that it is now seven years since the so-called Clean Air Act was passed? This appalling nuisance in Derby has been getting worse ever since. Will he urge upon his right hon. Friend that he should assure the council that he will give consent to proceedings?
    Mr. Corfield: My right hon. Friend is advised by the Alkali Inspectorate that this company is doing all that it can reasonably be expected to do to meet this problem. As the right hon. Gentleman no doubt knows, that would constitute a defence to proceedings. I am bound to say that I cannot think that this would be a very profitable exercise.
    Mr. Noel-Baker:Will the Parliamentary Secretary and his right hon. Friend look at this matter again? It is at least five years since the Alkali Inspectorate told me exactly what it is now saying—and it is too long.

  DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER
  Mr. Wyattasked the Prime Minister if he will introduce legislation to make the office of Deputy Prime Minister a permanent feature of the Constitution of Her Majesty's Government.
  The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Macmillan): No, Sir.
  Mr. Wyatt:Does not the Prime Minister think that it might help him in two ways? First, he would be able to delegate permanently the answering of Questions, that he said in an interview in May he cannot bear doing himself? Secondly, might it not help him in his interesting struggle for survival, which we are all watching with such sympathy—because he would be able to fossilise one of his more dangerous rivals?
  The Prime Minister: Having made his well-prepared supplementary, perhaps the hon. Member will allow me to make an equally well-prepared reply. In several Administrations over the last 20 years it has been the practice of the Prime Minister to appoint a senior member of the Government to act as Deputy Prime Minister. This helps in the efficient dispatch of public business. But it is not an appointment submitted to the Sovereign and in my view it should not be so.
  Mr. Bellenger: Can the Prime Minister, at the same time, say whether the office of Prime Minister is a permanent feature of the constitution?
  The Prime Minister: As the right hon. Gentleman knows, it became so for the first time, as a recognised one, at the time of King Edward VII.
  Mr. Wyatt: Would not the right hon. Gentleman care to expand his views on answering Questions, which he said he found so distasteful in the interview in May?
  The Prime Minister: I did not say that I found them distasteful, but, like any

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  form of public appearance, there is a certain amount of nervous strain. But I do my best.
  Mr. H. Wilson:We are all sure that the right hon. Gentleman does his best, and we all agree with him that the first time his office was mentioned in the Table of Precedence was in 1906, but just to get the record right, would it not be right to say that the first time the title of Prime Minister occurred was on Disraeli's signing of the Treaty of Berlin, in 1878, and that the first time it appeared statutorily was in the Chequers Act? Since he has made his historical statement, should not we get that on the record?
  The Prime Minister:There are so many occasions on which I wish to differ from the right hon. Gentleman that I will certainly accept his historical reminiscences.

  LEGISLATION (DRAFTING)
  Mr. Dalyellasked the Prime Minister if he will ensure that legislation presented to this House is not drafted in obscure language.
  The Prime Minister: I have every sympathy with the hon. Member's objective. However, I am afraid that, in order to achieve precision in legislation which is complex and often technical, it is not always possible to avoid an impression of obscurity.
  Mr. Dalyell:I accept the fact that the Parliamentary draftsmen must try to prevent those who would pretend to misunderstand from doing so, but is it not also important that we laity should understand legislation?
  The Prime Minister: I know that this is a difficult problem. I would remind the House of the very wise words of Sir James Stephen, one of our greatest authorities, who pointed out that since legislation is often the subject of litigation it is absolutely necessary not only that it should appear to be simple to those who read it in good faith, but actually precise. That is a very difficult art. Many things are simple. Let us take the sentence:"When John met his uncle in the street he took off his hat".
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  That is a clear sentence, but it is capable of at least six different meanings. The point about legislation is that the courts have to interpret it in litigation based upon it, and it is therefore essential that it should be not so much simple as precise.

  FINANCE BILLS (EXPLANATORY MEMORANDA)
  Mr. O'Malleyasked the Prime Minister if he will arrange, that when complex legislation is presented to the House, particularly a Finance Bill, a detailed explanatory memorandum is published in the form of a White Paper.
  The Prime Minister:There would be great practical difficulties in producing a detailed memorandum explaining all the proposals covered by a typical Finance Bill to coincide with the publication of the Bill. On the other hand, on the occasion of the Finance Bill, 1962, a White Paper was issued explaining the provisions relating to short-term gains and my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will continue to bear in mind the possibility of publishing, at a reasonable interval after the publication of the Bill itself, a memorandum about unusually complicated sections of the Bill.
  Mr. O'Malley: Is the Prime Minister aware of the criticisms and views expressed by hon. Members on both sides of the House during the recent debates on the Finance Bill? Would not he consider it extremely helpful, to back-bench Members particularly, that such memoranda should be published, and therefore will he reconsider the whole matter so that in respect of future Finance Bills back-bench Members will have the kind of information which they require before they attempt to speak in this House?
  The Prime Minister: I have every sympathy with the purpose of the hon. Gentleman. I think that Finance Bills dealing with a large number of subjects and sometimes fairly simple provisions seem very complicated. What we tried to do in 1962, where there was a fairly complicated provision, was to issue a special White Paper to explain that particular part. Other Finance Bills are

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  fairly simple and involve the raising or reduction of the Income Tax or something of that kind. Therefore, I take account of what the hon. Member has said. Perhaps 1962 sets a precedent which could be followed with the more complicated and legalistic parts of Finance Bills.
  Mr. Gresham Cooke: Does this Question mean that if the Labour Party gets to power it may introduce an explanatory memorandum of its intentions?
  Mr. Speaker: Order. It is no part of the duty of the Prime Minister to answer about the intentions of the party opposite.
  Mr. Callaghan:Has the Prime Minister looked at the Finance Bill this year to see that it took us nearly 20 Clauses and seven Schedules to get rid of Schedule A? Would not that have been a very appropriate subject for an explanatory memorandum?
  The Prime Minister: Perhaps. But happily we got rid of Schedule A.

  NORTH-EAST
  Mr. Jayasked the Prime Minister what action Her Majesty's Government proposes to take arising out of the report of the Lord President of the Council on unemployment on the North-East Coast.
  The Prime Minister: I would refer the right hon. Gentleman to the answer I gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) on 2nd July.
  Mr. Jay: As it is over six months since the noble Lord was appointed to this job, cannot the Prime Minister say whether we are going to have at least some concrete proposals arising out of the report? Is it to be published?
  The Prime Minister: In the first place, many of the concrete short-term proposals have already been implemented on a very large scale, both by separate administrative acts and by the Budget. We are now dealing with the longer-term view of the future of this area. I hope that this statement will be made before the Recess. There has been no delay.
  Mr. Bourne-Arton: I appreciate my right hon. Friend's long-standing and
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  intimate knowledge of the affairs of the North-East. Is he aware that there is some danger of events overtaking us unless there is the utmost urgency in proceeding in this matter? Has it been reported to him that only last week the English Electric Company announced that it was closing a locomotive factory in Darlington and thus throwing a further 900 men out of work?
  The Prime Minister: Yes, I appreciate that. But short-term measures are operating and I hope will be successful and a great advance made. This is a longer-term review and I hope that we shall be able to announce proposals about it before the House rises.
  Mr. Popplewell: In view of his statement that an announcement will be made before the House rises, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he will give the House an assurance that his Government will act and will do something for the North-East? Is he aware that at present only 18 new firms have come to the North-East in recent years and 33 firms have closed down, with a loss of employment to over 2,000, and that the emigrant figures from the North-East are still running at around 12,500 a year averaging over recent years?
  The Prime Minister: There is a considerable improvement already—
  Mr. Popplewell: No.
  The Prime Minister:—by the short-term measures taken on a wide scale. The point we are discussing is something quite different, the longer-term review of the future of this area over a longer period. That is a separate and quite different problem.

  SECURITY
  Mrs. Castleasked the Prime Minister what steps he has taken to satisfy himself that he has now been informed of all the occasions on which warnings of possible security risks were given to Ministers by members of the Civil Service or of the security services of which he was not apprised at the time.
  The Prime Minister: I would refer the hon. Lady to the Answers which I have already given on similar Questions.
  Mrs. Castle: Why is the Prime Minister so evasive? Can he tell the House, simply and precisely for once, whether he is now aware of all those cases in which appropriate action ought to be taken, and that he has taken such action?
  The Prime Minister: I think that the hon. Lady need have no anxiety on this account.
  Mr. Ridley: Can my right hon. Friend, equally, say what reports he has received from the security authorities about any hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite?
  Hon. Members: Oh.
  The Prime Minister: I should not like to add anything more to what I have said.
  Mr. C. Pannell: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. Is not a supplementary question of that kind, containing such an innuendo, completely out of order?
  Mr. Speaker: I should be greatly assisted in ruling on the matter had I in fact heard it. I literally did not hear it. Would the hon. Gentleman the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) be good enough to repeat it?
  Mr. Ridley: I should like to ask my right hon. Friend, in view of the innuendo in the Question—[Hon. Members:"No, repeat it."]—whether he has received any reports from the security authorities about hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite?
  Mr. Manuel: That is not what the hon. Gentleman said.
  The Prime Minister: I repeat that I have nothing to add to what I said.
  Mr. Speaker: I was getting a"prompt" for the purpose of giving a Ruling. I do not see anything out of order in that.
  Mr. C. Pannell: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. When the hon. Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley)"recapped" on the question, he did not give it in the precise terms, as Hansard will show. He attempted a cowardly withdrawal, because he knew—[Hon. Members:"Order."]—if I may say so—[Hon. Members:"Order."]—
  Mr. Speaker: Do not let us occupymore of Question Time than we need. Would the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) oblige me by giving his version, so that I may have both versions?
  Mr. P. Williams: On a point of order—
  Mr. C. Pannell: I am on a point of order. The hon. Gentleman asked the Prime Minister whether he would inform the House of any threat to security—[Hon. Members:"No."] It obviously Mr. Speaker, was a reflection upon the trustworthiness of hon. Members of this House, and I think that it calls for a withdrawal.
  Mr. Speaker: I am in a considerable difficulty because I did not in fact hear the supplementary question and I cannot get an agreed version. It is very difficult to give a Ruling without knowing what was said. I think that I shall have to postpone it until I can see the supplementary question in writing, as I cannot get an agreed version.
  Mr. P. Williams:May I ask, Mr. Speaker, whether you will give a Ruling on some words clearly understood to be used when the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell), on a point of order, referred to my hon. Friend the Member for Cirencester and Tewkesbury (Mr. Ridley) as wanting to make a"cowardly withdrawal". Is not the phrase"cowardly withdrawal" out of order?
  Mr. Speaker: Yes, that is. But this is getting complicated. It is getting too confused with words. Accordingly, I must ask the hon. Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell) to withdraw the adverb from his submission on a point of order.
  Mr. C. Pannell rose—rose
  Mr. Bellenger rose—
  Hon. Members: Order.
  Mr. Speaker: The right hon. Gentleman appears not to have understood the position.
  Hon. Members: Do not withdraw.
  Mr. C. Pannell: With great respect, Mr. Speaker, as you are not prepared to adjudicate on the original statement, it seems to me reasonably fair that you

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  should postpone any request for me to withdraw until such time as you have read it.
  Mr. Speaker: I do not think that is right. I want to find out what was the original cause of the trouble and I cannot. But on any basis that I can now conceive the adverb was wrongly used. The point is not whether it is true or untrue, which will turn on the form of the supplementary question, but whether it is in order to put it in that way. That is the point. So, if the hon. Member will oblige me.
  Mr. Pannell: Out of respect to you, Sir, I withdraw the word"cowardly", and I substitute the words"altered" and"evasive".
  Mr. Bellenger: On a point of order. May I remind you, Mr. Speaker, that the word"coward", within the memory of the Prime Minister and certain other hon. Members, was used by the late Lloyd George in this House when he pointed to the Government and said,"There sit the cowards"? He was not asked to withdraw.
  Mr. Speaker: It is not for me to rule upon my predecessor's Rulings or absence of Rulings. In that form clearly there was no occasion.
  Mr. H. Wilson: Whatever the arguments about the admissibility or otherwise of the word"cowardly"—and I well remember the Ruling under your Speakership during the Finance Bill when the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Sir G. Nabarro) objected to the use of the word"cowardly", which was a point on which he was sensitive because of certain legal actions which had happened—it was allowed. Surely we are getting Rulings on the minor issue and not on the major issue, and the point of order raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds, West (Mr. C. Pannell), I respectfully submit, has not been dealt with. A suggestion has been made about hon. and right hon. Members on this side of the House and we have had no Ruling about it. That is the important question.
  Mr. Speaker: The right hon. Member will clearly understand my difficulty. It was said on the one hand that it was and on the other that it was not. Since I did not hear the words and cannot
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  get an agreed record on them until I look at the Official Report, I cannot see a way out of the difficulty.
  Mr. Ridley: I wish to withdraw any suggestion contained in my supplementary question which went beyond the suggestion contained in the original Question.
  Mr. Speaker: I am obliged to all the hon. Members concerned for getting us out of our current difficulty.
  Mr. Wigg: On a point of order. Before this matter is turned into a joke, is there not a serious side to this question? It may be very clever to make suggestions about my hon. and right hon. Friends without any foundation whatever, but would hon. Members opposite, perhaps the Prime Minister, realise that those who live in glass-houses should not throw that kind of stone?
  Mr. Speaker: What the Prime Minister should or should not recognise does not raise a point of order for the Chair.
  Mrs. Castle:On a point of order. I wish to make it entirely clear that I do not withdraw anything in my original Question, because I believe that the House ought to be apprised of any security risks which may have been discovered from whatever side they might come.

  BRITISH GUIANA (SITUATION)
  Mr. Bottomley (by Private Notice)asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will make a statement about the further difficulties which have necessitated sending further troops to British Guiana.
  The Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations and Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Duncan Sandys): The general strike continues, and with it tension in Georgetown has been mounting. Although there has been little open violence, attempts have been made to damage Government buildings with explosives. However, in the past few days, there has been a number of inter-racial clashes in the rural areas, particularly on the coast east of the capital.

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  This has placed an increased strain on the security forces. Consequently, the Governor decided last night, with the agreement of the Premier, to ask for the despatch of one additional company, to reinforce the existing garrison of one British battalion. The troops are now on their way.
  Mr. Bottomley:Can the right hon. Gentleman say what will happen if this further contingent of troops fails to stop the present troubles? Can he give further consideration to the suggestion made by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, that we might send a Parliamentary mission, which could at least be said to be reasonably impartial?
  Mr. Sandys: With all respect, I submit to the House that at this particular juncture I doubt whether a Parliamentary mission would be helpful.
  Mr. H. Wilson: It is now several weeks since this proposal was made, during which time the situation has gone from bad to worse. I think that everyone who has studied the situation knows the very serious difficulties. It is not easy to take sides in this matter. That is what is wrong—there is a lot of interference going on which should not be tolerated in the area.
  I know that the right hon. Gentleman is not trying to be in any sense disrespectful to hon. Members, but will not he agree that if a small delegation of about four hon. Members, two very senior members from the Government side for whom we would have great respect and two from our side, could go out, and bring back a report, that would be a more objective assessment than one of the ex parte kind which some of us are receiving?
  Unless the right hon. Gentleman can go himself—as he ought to have done long ago—will he give consideration to the idea of a small delegation of hon. Members, Privy Councillors and perhaps other senior Members, going and then making a report to the House?
  Mr. Sandys: I have been thinking for some little while whether to go myself, but I thought it better to wait. I had hoped that this strike would come to an end, but, unfortunately, it continues. Since there is no immediate prospect of
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  it coming to an end, I am considering the possibility of going to British Guiana myself some time next week.
  Mr. Wall: If this unfortunate situation drags on, will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that other Commonwealth countries might be able to give some assistance in solving these very intractable problems?
  Mr. Sandys: I should be glad of any help from any quarter, but at the moment I do not think outside missions would help us to resolve the difficulty.
  Miss Lee:Without wishing to be in any way offensive to the Minister, may I suggest to him that in the situation in British Guiana a party from this House, made up of different points of view in the House and including Members who have personal knowledge of the Prime Minister, Mr. Jagan and others concerned, might have a better chance of bringing back the sort of report that we want than the Minister, who would be very much hampered by official associations?
  Mr. Sandys: I think that I have already answered that question. The first thing to do is to try to bring the situation back to normal. Then we can try to resolve the constitutional deadlock which led to the breakdown of the conference on independence last autumn.
  Mr. W. Yates: Has the Minister anything to say about the extraordinary shooting which took place from the Prime Minister's car and the police escort on the crowd? Is he aware that I have cables from the Leader of the Opposition, Mr. d'Aguiar, about the position? Will he say whether he is going to reopen conversations about the Constitution?
  Mr. Sandys: I have just said that I will go next week.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
Mr. H. Wilson: May I ask the Leader of the House to state the business of the House for next week?
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Iain Macleod): Yes, Sir. The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY, 8TH JULY—Supply [24th Allotted Day]: Committee.
There will be a debate on Housing and Urban Land Prices, on the appropriate Votes.
At seven o'clock, opposed Private Business, set down by the Chairman of Ways and Means. It is expected that this will be disposed of in sufficient time to allow the Housing debate to be resumed.
Consideration of the Lords Amendments to the British Museum Bill.
Motion on the Town and Country Planning (Minerals) Regulations.
TUESDAY, 9TH JULY—Second Reading of the Public Order Bill [Lords], which it is hoped to obtain early enough for the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure to start at a reasonable hour.
WEDNESDAY, 10TH JULY—Debate on the Rochdale Report on the Major Ports of Great Britain (Command No. 1824).
Second Reading of the Statute Law Revision Bill [Lords], which is a consolidation Measure.
Motion on the Gas (Borrowing Powers) Order.
THURSDAY, 11TH JULY—Second Reading of the Rhodesia and Nyasaland Bill.
Motion on the Greenwich Hospital and Travers' Foundation Accounts.
FRIDAY, 12TH JULY—Debate on the First and Special Reports of the Estimates Committee on Dental Services.
And, if there is time, on their Sixth and Special Reports on the Timing of the Presentation of Supplementary Estimates.
MONDAY, 15TH JULY—The proposed business will be: Supply [25th Allotted Day]: Committee.
A debate will take place on Science.
At 9.30 p.m. the Question will be put from the Chair on the Vote under discussion and on all outstanding Votes, under Standing Order No. 16.
Mr. H. Wilson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware—as I am sure he is—that there can be no guarantee that the Second Reading of the Public Order Bill, on Tuesday, will go through with the speed for which he hopes, particularly in view of the feeling of hon. Members that the Bill has been misconceived from the start? The right hon. Gentleman
594
will recollect the exchanges which we had about it the day that it was very quickly introduced in another place.
In those circumstances, will he take note of what I am sure is the widespread feeling on both sides of the House, that if the debate on the Public Order Bill continues longer than he hopes, it will be quite intolerable for the House to be asked to deal with the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure, if that is reached too late at night, in view of the very strong feelings both for and against this Measure which many hon. Members have?
Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm—I think that I am right in saying this—that the Government, as well as the Opposition, regard the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure as entirely a matter for private Members and that the Whips will be off in respect of that Measure?
Mr. Macleod:I agree with everything that the Leader of the Opposition said—which makes a nice change. The Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Measure is not a Government Measure and there is no question of the Whips being on for it. I entirely agree that it would not be desirable to take it late at night, and that is why I worded the business for Tuesday as carefully as I did.
Sir H. Legge-Bourke: May I ask a question about the business for Monday week? Will my right hon. Friend be a little more specific as to what the debate will be about, because it is within the recollection of hon. Members on both sides of the House that the last time we had a debate on science as such it proved to be too wide a subject for us to get anything constructive out of the debate?
Mr. Macleod:My hon. Friend will appreciate that this is a Supply day and that, therefore, it is the Opposition who indicate what they wish to discuss. It has not yet been announced whether it will be on the appropriate Votes or on a Motion. I do not know whether the Leader of the Opposition can help on this matter, but perhaps we could clear the matter up now or I could make a subsequent business announcement.
Mr. H. Wilson: Is it not clear to the right, hon. Gentleman, since the Question

595
will be put from the Chair about 9.30 p.m., that the debate must be on a Vote and cannot be on a Motion? The Votes will relate to the Minister for Science and other related subjects, and we shall obviously make our own speeches, but, the Votes having been tabled, it will be entirely a matter for hon. Members and the Chairman of Ways and Means to decide what is in order. We shall put the Votes down and presumably anything which is in order on the Votes relating to science could be discussed.
Mr. Wade: Is it the right hon. Gentleman's intention that there should be a debate on the case of Mr. Harold Philby and the recent disclosures relating to him?
Mr. Macleod: No, Sir. I have no such intention.
Sir A. V. Harvey: Last wek, my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, South (Sir H. d'Avigdor-Goldsmid) asked the Leader of the House whether he would find time for legislation about an airport authority. Is the Leader of the House aware that London Airport urgently requires something to be done about it? As the previous Minister of Aviation said that there would be such an authority, will he give this matter his urgent attention? London Airport is rapidly becoming a disgrace to this country and legislation is required to deal with it.
Mr. Macleod:I am well aware that legislation is necessary to deal with this matter, but I know that my hon. Friend realises that it cannot come into the busines for next week or, at this stage, into the business for this Session. But I agree that it is an important matter and, of course, I take note of what he said. A good deal of study on this matter has taken place.
Mr. Lipton: Will the Leader of the House find time to discuss a Motion which I put down with my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) relating to a personal statement which I made to the House on 10th November, 1955? If, for any reason, he does not like the terms in which the Motion is drafted, will he agree to enter into discussions with my hon. Friend the Member for Dudley and myself with a view to an agreed Motion which will enable the House formally to permit me to withdraw that personal statement?
[That this House deplores the fact that on 10th November, 1955, the hon. Member for Brixton was prevailed on by the formal assurances of the then Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bromley, to make a personal statement withdrawing and regretting charges and disclosures regarding Mr. Harold Philby, which the Government now belatedly admit to be true.]
Mr. Macleod:Naturally, in my capacity as Leader of the House I shall be very glad to discuss with the hon. Member and anybody he chooses to bring with him any matter concerning the business of the House. I can deal only with the Motion which now stands on the Order Paper, and I certainly do not propose to find time to debate that.
Mr. Warbey:Will the Leader of the House say when we shall have a debate on foreign affairs? When is the House to have an opportunity to discuss, in addition to the problems of and preparations for war, the problems of the Yemen, Vietnam, Malaysia, Cuba, Berlin, and other problems which are before the United Nations and which are likely to lead to breaches of the peace?
Mr. Macleod: I cannot suggest that there is any possibility of another foreign affairs debate at present. The hon. Member knows that we had a two-day debate on the subject, ending last night. On one particular matter which he mentioned, and only on one aspect of that in relation to the Yemen, there will be a statement in a few moments.
Mr. P. Williams:As the Government are to make an announcement in due course on policy in relation to the North-East, will my right hon. Friend agree that this would be a highly desirable subject to be debated by the House as soon as possible?
Mr. Macleod: It certainly is an extremely important subject and no doubt one which is in the mind of the Leader of the Opposition as the Opposition are considering the remaining days which are available. [Hon. Members:"Government time."] I cannot provide an opportunity within Government time. We have spent less time in this Session on legislation and more time on debate than, I think, in any single Session since

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the war. That charge cannot be laid against the Government. There are opportunities available to the Opposition.
Dr. King:On Wednesday, we are to debate the Rochdale Report. Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the ports of Britain and the areas around them have been anxiously awaiting some declaration of Government policy and of its attitude to the Report? Shall we merely have a general debate on the Report on Wednesday, or will the Leader of the House precede it by presenting a White Paper setting out the Government's views?
Mr. Macleod: The debate would take place on a Government Motion, which I think has already been tabled, welcoming the statement made by the Government on Wednesday, 6th March, on the Report. Naturally, my right hon. Friend will develop that statement when he opens the debate.
Mr. Robert Cooke: Will the Leader of the House indicate when time might be found to debate the Wilson Report on Noise? Will he say whether the Government intend to take effective action on this important subject?
Mr. Macleod: I cannot suggest an early opportunity for debate, but I very much agree about the importance of this subject. The statement made in another place, repeated in this morning's HANSARD, shows the seriousness with which the Government regard this problem.
Mr. Wigg: Has the right hon. Gentleman given very careful consideration to the Motion standing in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton)? If he has, has he borne in mind the fact that if a wrong has been done to my hon. Friend the Member for Brixton, it is a wrong which has been done to the House as a whole? This House lives by precedent, and if this wrong is not put right, then in twenty or thirty years' time this precedent will guide a future Speaker in the conduct of a similar matter.
Will the right hon. Gentleman not remember that recently, when some of the cards were in my hand, I went out of my way to meet the Government in this matter so that a similar situation could
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be put right? Would not the Leader of the House reconsider his duty to the House and find time, not by discussions with my hon. Friend and myself—that would be presumptuous—but by discussions between the usual channels to find a form of words which could be tabled without encroaching on either Government or Opposition time and in the interests of the House as a whole?
Mr. Macleod:I readily responded at once to the suggestion made by the hon. Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton), and if wider consultations are required I should be glad to have them, too. The point which I have made is that I certainly could not accept any suggestion in the terms of the Motion which is on the Order Paper at present.
Mr. H. Wilson: Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that this is fundamentally a House of Commons matter? The issue raised at this stage—I should hope that he would take this view—does not go into the wider questions of the Philby affair, which might be a matter for other handling. This is the second case in recent weeks where a problem has arisen about a personal statement, and we have no precedent to guide us in the whole history of Parliament, in Erskine May, and all the rest of it. It is important to get some declaration about it.
Would the Leader of the House consider having discussions either through the usual channels or with my hon. Friends on the basis that perhaps an agreed Motion might be found which would enable the House to dispose of this matter quickly and without any controversial or acrimonious debate on the wider issues in order to get the record straight, because, as I say, this is a House of Commons matter?
Mr. Macleod:I recognise that it is a House of Commons matter, and I have said that I would have discussions either with the right hon. Member or with the hon. Members for Brixton (Mr. Lipton) and Dudley (Mr. Wigg).
Mr. McMaster: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind the need for an early debate on the affairs of Northern Ireland, in view of our heavy unemployment and the difficulties facing our shipbuilding, aviation and textile industries?
Mr. Macleod: Yes, certainly. I am reasonably confident that we will be able to have such a debate before we rise for the Recess.
Mr. Charles A. Howell:May I ask the right hon. Gentleman a question for his consideration when he is picking the days for the various debates? Will he give the House an assurance that the Minister of the Crown who is responsible for the Department concerned will be present in the House for the debate and will give priority to being here rather than accept engagements outside?
Mr. Macleod: Obviously, there is a supplementary question behind that question, and I am not informed on what the hon. Member has in mind.
Dame Irene Ward:Will my right hon. Friend give an assurance that before he enters into any conversations with the hon. Member for Dudley (Mr. Wigg) and those who support him he will seek the views of some Members of Parliament who have been here for a long time? Is he aware that I have a great deal to say before we get involved in any Motion of any kind? I support the view that the Motion of the hon. Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton) should be debated, but I am a bit tired of hearing hon. Members opposite talking as if they were the only people in the world—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The fact that the hon. Lady has a great deal to say about the matter may take it outside business questions.
Mr. Snow:Does the Leader of the House recall that a few weeks ago I secured permission from the House to introduce a very modest Bill to amend the Public Health Act, 1961? Since the various outbreaks of typhoid are imposing strain on an increasing number of small authorities, will the Government provide some sort of help to get this very modest Bill through?
Mr. Macleod: I could not give that undertaking. As the hon. Member knows, the time for private Members' legislation in the ordinary way has been exhausted. There are many claimants and I cannot select from them.
Mr. Grimond: When the right hon. Gentleman is giving further thought to the Motion of the hon. Member for
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Brixton (Mr. Lipton), will he consider whether there is not a perfectly good precedent for dealing with this? Is it not the custom of the House that when a Minister unwittingly misleads a Member of the House so that that Member, in turn, misleads the House, that Minister comes to the House and makes a statement, without prejudice, explaining the matter and making it clear that he unwittingly misled the Member in question?
Mr. Macleod: This subject is a great deal more complicated than that. If the right hon. Gentleman will read the speech of the hon. Member for Brixton (Mr. Lipton) in November, 1955, he will find that the hon. Member was interrupted on at least six occasions and that the majority of the interruptions were made by hon. Members on his own side, asking him to substantiate what he was saying. It is quite unfair to suggest that it was solely the statement of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, then Foreign Secretary, which led to this situation.
Dr. Bray: Will the Leader of the House consider finding time to debate the Report of the Select Committee on the Nationalised Industries dealing with the electricity supply industry in view of the questions which it raises about the security of electricity supply and the public importance of maintaining that security?
Mr. Macleod: Yes, but the problems of the nationalised industries are dealt with under a sort of quota system, and I do not think that there is any time available.
Mr. Wigg: May I say to the Leader of the House that I entirely agree with the view which he has expressed about the 1955 debate? That is why I appeal to him as the Leader of the House.
Mr. Macleod:Exactly. That is why I say—perhaps to my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward)—that I am, of course, prepared to discuss this matter with any Member of the House. I do not limit that in any way at all. But I think that it is a very much more complicated matter than the Leader of the Liberal Party suggests.
Dame Irene Ward: Let us have the truth.
Mr. Wigg: I am much obliged to the Leader of the House for offering to have talks with my hon. Friend the Member for Brixton and myself. As this is a House of Commons matter, it would be entirely proper for the two Front Benches to discuss this matter first.
Mr. Speaker: If the hon. Member is addressing me, that is not a point on which I can express any view. I was rather hoping that we might bring business questions to an end soon.

THE YEMEN (BRITISH SERVICE PERSONNEL)
The Minister of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Peter Thomas): With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I should like to make a short statement on the British Service men detained in the Yemen.
I am glad to be able to confirm to the House that the 16 British Service men who have been held prisoner in the Yemen have arrived safely in Aden. I believe that they are all well.
The terms of the agreement under which they were released have been negotiated on our behalf by Mr. Cortada, the United States Chargé ďAffaires in Taiz. We authorised him to tell the Yemen authorities that we regretted the accidental crossing of the frontier, and that all possible steps would be taken by the British military authorities concerned to see that there would be no repetition of the incident.
As to the payment of compensation for casualties incurred by the Yemenis in the skirmish, as well as for damage to property, we left Mr. Cortada discretion within the limit of a few thousand pounds. I do not know the exact details yet, but the sum of £150,000, mentioned in the Press today, is not correct. It is probable that it will be in the region of 150,000 shillings local currency, which is equivalent to £7,500. It might be less.
A telegram has already been sent to Mr. Rusk, expressing the thanks of Her Majesty's Government for the devoted work which Mr. Cortada and other members of the United States Foreign Service have put in during this unfortunate affair. Without their skill and patience we could not have got the men back so soon.
Mr. Gordon Walker: May I express the very great pleasure, naturally, of right hon. and hon. Members on this side at the release of our men and say how glad we are on behalf of their relatives. I am also glad that the Government had the good sense to express regret for what was clearly an accident, and we should like to associate ourselves with the hon. Gentleman's thanks for the good offices of the American authorities.
Now that this matter has been closed in this sense, we should like one or two matters which are not clear from the statement to be cleared up. We should like the original question to be cleared up, namely, how it came about that this operation was ever undertaken at all and how men and women were sent on so dangerous an operation so near the border, resulting in the expenditure of taxpayers' money—it may be only £7,500—but particularly in the death of four British soldiers, which has caused very great anxiety. We will want this to be cleared up in a further statement in due course. We are very concerned about the way in which this operation was undertaken and authorised by someone, and we want to know about that.
Mr. Thomas: I can quite appreciate the right hon. Member's anxiety about the details of this matter. As he will realise, it is a matter for my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence and I cannot possibly answer it. However, I know that my right hon. Friend will note what the right hon. Gentleman has said.
Mr. W. Yates: Would my hon. Friend be kind enough to convey the thanks of the House to Dr. Lukman, who spent some time in Taiz and who came up from Aden to assist in the release of these soldiers? Secondly, would he agree that it is time that Her Majesty's Government had a look at the borders and the frontiers between the Protectorate and the Yemen? Will he consider whether it is really worth while Her Majesty's Government going on recognising the Government of the Imam of the Yemen?
Mr. Thomas: The question of recognition is a rather different one. I will certainly note my hon. Friend's other questions.
Mr. Shinwell: Is not an inquiry into this incident being conducted by the War

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Office and will not a report be made to the House when the inquiry has been completed? Can the hon. Gentleman say when the report will be made available to the House?
Mr. Thomas: I am sorry, I cannot answer those questions, because they are solely within the province of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Defence. My right hon. Friend said, however, when informing the House about this matter, that an inquiry was being put in train.
Mr. Wall:Can my hon. Friend say whether the transport used by our soldiers has been returned? Will he recognise that this whole business has resulted in considerable loss of prestige to this country? Will he, therefore, give every consideration to making the investigation as public as possible and to publishing the report to allay anxiety?
Mr. Thomas: I am sure that my right hon. Friend will give full consideration to what my hon. Friend has suggested.
Mr. A. Henderson: Is it the fact that these troops went into the Yemen in uniform and not in mufti?
Mr. Thomas: Yes, Sir, that is quite true.
Sir H. Legge-Bourke: My hon. Friend will remember that in the earlier descriptions of the incident the word"ambush" was fairly frequently used. Would he not agree that an ambush presupposes that it is known that the people to be ambushed are likely to come? Does he now have confirmation, however, that this was a pure accident and that there were no troops deliberately on the other side of the frontier in Yemen laying up to catch our people?
Mr. Thomas: I must apologise to my hon. Friend and the House, but I have no information about the details of this unfortunate incident.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (SUPPLY)
Ordered,
That this day Business other than the Business of Supply may be taken before Ten o'clock.—[Mr. Iain Macleod.]

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  SUPPLY
  [23RD ALLOTED DAY]
  Considered in Committee.
  [Sir WILLIAM ANSTRUTHER-GRAY in the Chair]

  CIVIL ESTIMATES, 1963–64
  Motion made, and Question proposed.
  That a further sum, not exceeding £40, be granted to Her Majesty, towards defraying the charges for the year ending on the 31st day of March 1964 for the following services connected with Housing in Scotland, namely:—

  CIVIL ESTIMATES 1963–64

  £

  Class III, Vote 2, Scottish Home and Health Department

  10

  Class VI, Vote 2, Scottish Development Department

  10

  Class VI. Vote 4, Housing, Scotland

  10

  Class VI, Vote 8, Equalisation and Transitional Grants to Local Revenues, Scotland

  10

  Total

  £40

  SCOTLAND (HOUSING)
  4.3 p.m.
  Mr. James McInnes: We are today considering the Civil Estimates in respect of the services connected with housing in Scotland. It can truly be said that Scotland has never been without a housing problem. The eighteenth century problem was created by the one-room rural cottage, with its mud and stone walls and turf-covered roof. The nineteenth century problem was an urban problem created by the tenement.
  The tenemental system was Continental rather than British. I believe that Edinburgh and Stirling introduced it into this country when the primary function of those two towns was that of defence. It comprised tenements of three, four and five storeys with their one or two rooms and kitchen, with one water closet on each landing common to several tenements, involving probably 12 to 16 persons. The tenements thus became the standard type of Scottish working-class

  605
  house. Today, we know that the three-storey and four-storey tenements contain as many as 16 houses accommodating 70 to 90 people and that we still have, in 1963, tens of thousands of such tenemental houses.
  Early this century, the awakening consciousness of the people to the inadequacies of their housing conditions eventually led to the appointment in 1911 of a Royal Commission. That Commission reported in 1917. I have quoted this Report before in a housing debate and I do not apologise for quoting it again. The Commission said:
  "We found insufficient supplies of water, unsatisfactory provision of drainage, widespread absence of decent sanitary conveniences, the persistence of unspeakably filthy middens, whole townships unfit for human occupation, grass overcrowding everywhere, the huddling of the sexes together—clotted masses of shims in our great cities."
  The Commission concluded by saying that commercial enterprise had failed to keep pace with the demand for houses, that the State must accept the responsibility of meeting the housing needs of the people and that the obligation of carrying out the programme should be placed or imposed on the local authorities. As a result of that Report, the State in 1919 accepted the responsibility and arranged for the local authorities to carry out the programme that I have mentioned.
  I have deliberately mentioned the Commission's Report for the simple reason that many of the conditions described therein still exist to the present day, forty-six years after the publication of the Report. Hon. Members will find these conditions in the Cowcaddens and Carlton areas of Glasgow, in Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen and, indeed, throughout Scotland. We must recognise that more than one-quarter of our total stock of houses in Scotland are more than 100 years old. Is not that a shocking state of affairs?
  I ask the Committee to consider the age groups of our existing stock of houses. We have in Scotland 471,000 houses that were built before 1860, 320,000—private enterprise houses the lot of them—built between 1860 and 1914 and 169,000 private enterprise houses built between 1915 and 1962, giving a total of 960,000 private enterprise houses
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  in Scotland. We have, of course, since 1919 built 660,000 local authority houses, thus giving us a total of 1,620,000 houses in Scotland.
  The significant feature of these figures is that we have 471,000 houses that were built before 1860 and are, therefore, 100 years old. These houses are in the main the tenemental type of house and are nearly all owned by private landlords. These houses are rapidly decaying through lack of maintenance, despite the fact that in 1954 the Government introduced the Housing (Rents and Repairs) (Scotland) Act, which enabled landlords to increase their rents by 40 per cent. provided that they carried out repairs.
  Unfortunately, the 40 per cent. was not sufficiently attractive to the Scottish landlord. In the Rent Act, 1957, the 40 per cent. was increased to 50 per cent.; there could be a 50 per cent. increase in rentals, provided that the landlord carried out the repair. Again, the landlords did not respond. What the landlords in Glasgow and elsewhere are doing is not to carry out the repairs but to abandon the whole of the property completely. These properties are naturally houses between 90 and over 100 years old. When the landlord abandons the property, the property invariably becomes dangerous.
  When this happens, the local authorities, in the interests of the tenants who are still in the properties and in the interests of the public in general, have to step in and rehouse the families and then demolish the tenement at the expense of the local authority. Even private landlords will not demolish the properties that they abandon. So the local authorities are compelled to do the work.
  I know and appreciate the issues that arise as to the future ownership of the vacant sites. That is a very complicated question. Indeed, it almost qualifies for a debate by itself. Therefore, I do not propose to deal with that aspect. What concerns me this afternoon—right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the Committee will appreciate and agree—is that the failure of private landlordism to carry out repairs enormously intensifies our slum clearance problem in Scotland.
  Perhaps we should examine now the extent of our slum problem in Scotland.

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  According to Cmnd. Paper 9685, published in February, 1956, Scotland had at that time 230,000 slum houses. I must point out, however, that when the Scottish Office was collating this information Glasgow and Edinburgh submitted provisional figures only. When the actual figures became available it was revealed that Scotland had about 300,000 slum houses as at 1956.
  Is the Secretary of State satisfied with the rate at which these 300,000 slum houses are being demolished? I find, for example, from the Annual Report of the Scottish Development Department for 1962, page 33, that between January, 1956 and December, 1962—eight years—we demolished 91,749 slum houses. That gives us an average of 11,400 slum houses demolished each year. At this rate of progress it will take almost twenty years to demolish the 210,000 slum houses that still exist in Scotland today. This is a shocking state of affairs. It is indefensible that in what is almost the worst-housed country in Europe we are demolishing the slums only at the rate of 11,000 houses a year. We must also recognise that not only do we have the problem of slums; we also have throughout Scotland the problem of gross overcrowding.
  Take, for example, the overcrowding problem confronting Glasgow. Glasgow has 208,000 privately owned and rented houses. It also has 121,000 municipally owned houses. No less than 124,000 of the 208,000 privately owned and rented houses—that is, 60 per cent. of all the privately rented houses in Glasgow—and one- and two-apartment houses and over 400,000 people live in them. Thirty-four thousand people live more than four persons to one room. Ninety-thousand people live more than three persons to one room. The majority of these houses have no hot water supply and no baths. Indeed, they have no internal conveniences of any kind. I ask hon. Members to think what this means to the people. I ask hon. Members to envisage the inconvenience, ill-health and misery which this over-crowding brings into their lives.
  These conditions are not peculiar to Glasgow. They are to be found, perhaps to a lesser degree, throughout Scotland. I regard the small house as being
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  the curse of Scotland. Indeed, I am appalled when I realise that 70 per cent. of Scotland's municipal houses are three-apartment houses or less. In England and Wales, the comparable figure is 20 per cent. Why should the small house be imposed on Scotland? This Government have aggravated the situation by further reducing the size of council houses in Scotland. They reduced the size of council houses in Scotland from 941 sq. ft. in 1947 to 865 sq. ft. as from 1959. Thus, small-roomed houses were still further reduced in size.
  In the knowledge of this background and recognising that we have a problem of tremendous magnitude, we are justified in asking ourselves, certainly in asking the Secretary of State for Scotland, what is being done to overcome this great social problem. In 1953, 39,548 houses were built. I think that I congratulated the Government at one of the meetings of the Scottish Grand Committee on achieving that figure. I almost feel like withdrawing the congratulations at this stage. Year by year since 1953 the numbers have dwindled. Last year we did not reach 39,548 houses. We reached a figure of 26,761 houses. Thus, between 1953 and 1962 the number of local authority houses built dropped by almost 50 per cent.
  Is not the Secretary of State utterly ashamed of himself? In the knowledge of the background of the problem which I have described, surely it is a shocking record to produce so few houses. It is all the more so when we compare our performance with that of other European countries. West Germany built 10·1 houses per 1,000 of population. Indeed, last year West Germany built 542,000 houses. The population there is somewhat similar to that of Great Britain as a whole. Great Britain completed only 6·1 houses per 1,000 of population as against Western Germany's 10·1 houses per 1,000 of population.
  If we take Sweden or Denmark—reasonably comparable with Scotland—we find that Sweden built 9·8 houses per 1,000 of the population, Denmark 6·9 houses per 1,000, and Scotland 5·3 houses per 1,000. We are absolutely at the bottom of the league in the whole of Europe in the provision of houses. The reason for this is that we are devoting

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  far too little of the national resources to house building.
  I do not ask the Secretary of State to accept that merely as my opinion. I can give him examples of people who think likewise. Mr. John Greve, a lecturer at the London School of Economics, estimated that we required in Britain no fewer than 425,000 houses a year over the next twenty years. That would mean approximately 42,000 a year in Scotland. The Alliance Building Society, in its 1961 report entitled The Housing Land Crisis, said that the number of dwellings completed each year should average 400,000 in Britain, or approximately 40,000 in Scotland.
  The hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page), who, I believe, is Chairman of the Conservative Party Housing Committee, told the Conservative Party conference at Llandudno in October last year that during the next five years Great Britain will need 2½ million new houses. Five hundred thousand houses a year is the demand made by the hon. Member for Crosby, and I entirely agree with him.
  It may well be that the Secretary of State will say that local authorities are free to build as many houses as they consider necessary. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not be so foolish asto say anything of the kind, because he must recognise that the greatest deterrent to local authorities building houses, not only in Scotland but in Britain as a whole, is the Government's policy of high interest rates. The intolerable burden which this policy imposes on local authorities makes it almost prohibitive for them to build houses. I give an example. I am quoting from a reply which the right hon. Gentleman gave to my hon. Friend the Member for Leek (Mr. Harold Davies).
  The annual charge for a 60-year loan of £2,000 raised at the Public Works Loan Board's interest rates in 1950 was £72 1s. 6d. At the end of sixty years that loan will have cost the local authority £4,320. But at the interest rates which have to be paid today, it will cost the local authority at the end of sixty years no less than £7,140. So when a local authority sets out to build a house and borrows the money through the Public Works Loan Board, at the end of sixty
  610
  years that house has cost the local authority £7,140.
  This is the burden which the local authorities have to face. The Government have failed to provide houses, but even on those which they do provide they impose on local authorities these financial provisions and strictures before they can qualify for subsidies.
  During the last three years, we have had three Acts of Parliament, each containing a different financial formula to determine what subsidies local authorities will get in respect of their houses. I could go into details of these formulas in the 1962 Act and the Local Government (Financial Provisions) Scotland Act of the present year, but I shall not weary the Committee by doing so. I conclude by saying that in this modern age it is almost criminal that tens of thousands of our people should be condemned to live a lifetime in grossly overcrowded and squalid conditions.
  Today, we talk in terms of our affluent society, but when we speak of housing we talk in terms of public squalor. The provision of a decent home is fundamental to the happiness of people. Without a decent home the framework of a happy life does not exist. A home in which to live is not only a basic human need, but a basic human right. To provide the homes that are necessary we must have a Government with a dynamicpolicy. It is obvious that the Government have no policy for the greatest social evil that confronts Scotland. I urge them to get out and make room for a party which has a policy.
  4.30 p.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Gilmour Leburn): The hon. Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. McInnes) has made the sort of speech we have come to expect from him; an interesting and clear speech in which at times he was critical. I make no complaint about that. I, too, welcome this opportunity to debate Scottish housing. This is an important matter and the present time is appropriate to take stock of the progress that has been made and to consider the future. The background to the present situation was given in a White Paper which was presented to Parliamentlast month by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State

  611
  and my right hon. Friend the Minister for Housing and Local Government.
  I will begin by developing the subject of housing in Scotland and by indicating the way in which we are dealing with the problem. Notwithstanding what the hon. Member for Glasgow, Central said, there is no doubt that over the last ten years the housing situation in Scotland has greatly improved. In that time more than 300,000 more houses have been built, more than 90,000 slum houses have been demolished and more than 30,000 houses have been improved. There are still shortages in many areas, but the figures recently published suggest that the excess of households over houses in many areas is not very great.
  On the other hand, I freely admit that we still have a vast problem of unfit and unsatisfactory houses which must be dealt with at a greater rate. While there is no doubt that we have this housing problem, it is changing in character and our policies and methods must be adapted to meet this change.
  One of the important aspects of housing that has become clearer in recent years is that houses are needed not only for social improvement, but also as an essential element in promoting and sustaining economic development. This is most clearly seen in the new towns, where the existence of a continued and planned programme of housing development, covering a variety of standards and types of accommodation, has not only made possible the build-up of a balanced labour force but has also encouraged new industrial and commercial development to take place. The same process has been going on in some of the overspill receiving areas, where the atmosphere of expansion and enterprise created by the initiative of the receiving local authority has encouraged new industrial growth.
  The need for this kind of housing, closely linked with industrial development, has called for great efforts from the local authorities adjacent to the new motor vehicle factories at Bathgate and Linwood. Both the authorities and the Scottish Special Housing Association are putting a great deal of effort in these areas to provide, in a comparatively short time, houses for the workers in a wide variety of skills who are needed to make
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  a success of this developing industry. But there is still some way to go. A large proportion of the employees are, of course, being drawn from Glasgow under overspill arrangements. So this housing development is providing both a firm base for the industrial development and making an important contribution to the relief of congestion and redevelopment in Glasgow.
  Much smaller in number, but still important, are the houses provided for the workers with special skills whom these factories have had to bring from England and elsewhere. This question of houses for key workers is often of crucial importance to the growth of both new and existing industry, not only because it enables the firm to recruit the best key men on which the employment of many others depends, but also because the willingness or unwillingness of a local authority to help in this way can make or mar the impression made by a district on an industrialist who is giving consideration to the question of where and how he is going to expand.
  Mr. Tam Dalyell: Will the Under-Secretary accept from me that those of us who yesterday visited Linwood and Bathgate as the guests of the Society of Motor Manufacturers had it impressed on us that the provision of housing has been ludicrously inadequate? This was the opinion of men like Mr. Geoffrey Rootes and others, who believe that this burden should be borne by the central Government and that there is no other way out of the problem.
  Mr. Leburn:I cannot accept that from the hon. Member in the exaggerated way he has put it. I would agree with him to the extent—
  Mr. William Ross: If the Under-Secretary cannot accept it, will he give us the figures?
  Mr. Leburn:—that a great many houses have been built both by West Lothian County Council, Whitburn and Blackburn.
  The hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) knows as well as I do that it is extremely difficult to dovetail the exact number of houses into the exact number of workers required at any particular time. The programmes of these local authorities, both in the east and

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  west, are being so arranged that the requisite number of houses will be available. However, I recognise that it means that a certain number of workers may have to travel to work for a somewhat longer period than would be wholly desirable.
  Mr. Dalyell: They asked for 240 houses and they got 10.
  Mr. Leburn: That may be so, but I can assure the hon. Member that plans are going ahead now.
  Mr. McInnes rose—
  Mr. Leburn: I hope that hon. Members opposite will allow me to finish my remarks on this aspect.
  Within a comparatively short time these requirements will be satisfied. I pay tribute, rather than being critical, to those local authorities which have done so much to provide houses for incoming workers. I know how difficult it is for an authority to provide houses for incomers, often seemingly at the expense of their own people. On reflection, I am sure that hon. Members will appreciate that this can play a vital part in attracting and sustaining new industrial development. I hope that those authorities which have been reluctant to help industry in this way will come to see the long-term advantages that it can bring them.
  In addition to building houses in the right number and in the right places, it is important to have enough houses of the right kind. We all know that it is important for our future to attract and keep in Scotland a higher proportion of the scientists, engineers and technologists who we train. These are often people who are not looking for and, indeed, should not look for, a subsidised house. We must see that their needs are met. Some local authorities have undertaken this task and have built special schemes of houses for letting at cost rents, but it is not primarily their job.
  The Government see this need being met in a number of ways, and the first is by encouraging expansion of private-enterprise-built houses for sale. This form of housing has increased substantially in recent years. In 1962, it was nearly 8,000 houses—the highest figure since 1937—but, as the White Paper indicates, the Government wish to see
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  owner-occupation grow still further, and this is particularly true for Scotland.
  The abolition of Schedule A Income Tax for owner-occupiers will help. The building societies have a vital part to play. The White Paper refers to the talks that the Government have had with the Building Societies Association, and I am sure that the greater flexibility in the terms the societies can now offer—lower initial deposits and longer terms of repayment—will encourage this trend still further.
  In addition to those who wish to own their own houses, there are many who would prefer to rent a house at an economic rent if one were available. For example, there are those who do not wish to settle permanently in a particular area. As a first step to meeting this demand, the Scottish Special Housing Association is to build houses to let at cost rents. These schemes will, at first, be small, but I am confident that they will show what can be done in this direction, and will encourage others to follow. The S.S.H.A. has been making a considerable contribution to Scottish housing, not only in its efforts in the erection of buildings, but, equally important, by the part it has been playing in putting into practice new ideas. The schemes I have just mentioned are a further example of the continuing contribution the Association can make. But these efforts must be supplemented.
  Mr. Ross: Then can the hon. Gentleman tell me why the Scottish Special Housing Association built fewer houses last year than at any other time since the war? We do not want words; we want performance, related to reality in Scotland.
  Mr. Leburn: The hon. Gentleman knows that the S.S.H.A. has a great many houses under erection at the present time.
  Hon. Members will recall that in the 1962 Housing Act, £3 million was set aside for lending to housing associations for building at cost rents and co-operative ownership. The reaction to this scheme has, I admit, been slow, but that does not mean that nothing has been happening. A great deal of preliminary work has been done, and the Housing Corporation visualised in the White Paper could give these associations a great deal of help to enable them to play an essential part in providing housing.

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  Important as these developments are—and I think that they are supremely important if we are to have a properly balanced growth in Scotland—the bulk of our new houses in the coming years must continue to be provided by local authorities. Thenumber of new houses completed by public authorities in 1962 was disappointing. In many areas, this was because of the change-over to redevelopment. For example, in Glasgow the difficulties of land acquisition and clearance reduced the rate of completions to just over 2,000.
  In 1962, however, the number of houses started by public authorities—that is, the local authorities, the new towns and the S.S.H.A.—was 22,640, 20 per cent. higher than in 1961, and the number for which tenders were approved rose to over 27,000, 46 per cent. higher than in 1961. As a result, nearly 29,000 houses were under construction at the end of the year, as compared with 25,000 a year before, and this number had risen to over 31,000 at the end of the first quarter of1963, in spite of the very bad weather at the beginning of the year. I believe that even the hon. Member for Glasgow, Central will grant that this is a big move forward.
  If this new impetus—
  Mr. Ross: Is the Under-Secretary aware that 20 per cent. of the houses are one-apartment and two-apartment houses?
  Mr. Leburn: That may be. On the other hand, we get very many representations that more houses should be built for the elderly, and I have heard criticisms that we were building only 3 per cent. of houses for elderly people.
  I can tell the hon. Member that if this new impetus is to be sustained we must take advantage of new techniques in building, which I believe can do so much to speed up the production of houses. With this in mind, my right hon. Friend last year appointed a small working party of officials of the Scottish Development Department and local authorities to report on how to secure the best use of these techniques.
  The working party's report, which was circulated to all local authorities in February of this year, indicated that while the new industrialised systems give
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  a much greater speed of direction they are, in the main, designed for multi-storey flats, which are likely to represent only about 10 per cent. of future Scottish housing. There is, therefore, need for the systems to be extended to other types of house building. If this is to take place—and it could bring considerable economies both in time and money—larger programmes of building than can be offered by most individual authorities are needed, and this means co-operation between authorities.
  My right hon. Friend has asked authorities to give urgent consideration to these suggestions, and a series of meetings with authorities has taken place to discuss the prospects of greater co-operation, and the possibility of forming consortia of local authorities for this purpose. As a result of these meetings, one of which was sponsored by Glasgow Corporation—and I am very grateful to the Corporation for taking an initiative in this matter—the authorities are considering in detail what form of co-operation might suit their particular needs. The Department is now collating this material, and will shortly circulate it to those concerned. Groups of suitable authorities will then be brought together with a view to setting up consortia.
  For this more rapid building it is essential to have enough land available and, therefore, as part of the quinquennial review of development plans, my right hon. Friend has asked local planning authorities to ensure that for the coming period they have allocated enough land for housing, including private housing development. This is also a point to which the most careful attention is given in the examination of development plans submitted for the Secretary of State's approval.
  So far, I have been dealing with the building of new houses, but what about the stock of existing houses? In the first place, I agree with the hon. Member for Glasgow, Central that the removal of those that are unfit—the slum houses—must be one of our top priorities. The current three-year programme of local authorities provides for the closing or demolition of some 40,000 houses by the end of 1964. By March, 1963, they had dealt with 13,353 of these, and I am reasonably confident that they will

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  achieve their aim. This, however, will largely depend on the speed with which new houses can be built, and this is one of the strongest reasons for my regarding the plans for greater co-operation and for the use of new techniques to be of such vital importance.
  In addition to the houses that must be pulled down, there are very many houses which, in their present condition, are unsatisfactory in one way or another. We must take more vigorous steps to deal with them, not only for the sake of their present occupants but because, if nothing is done to them, they will deteriorate into slums and be an obvious further burden on our building resources. In other words, they must be improved so that they can measure up to present-day standards. With the introduction of standard improvement grant in 1959 there was a useful increase in the number of houses being improved each year, but the annual rate is still only about 4,000.
  I admit that this is not nearly enough in relation to the problem with which we are faced, and the Government are determined to see that it is substantially increased. The means of doing this are described in the White Paper. This is not the occasion to discuss what should or should not be included in new legislation, but I do not think that I would be out of order in mentioning some of the defects of the present state of affairs which we see and which I recognise and acknowledge.
  First, too few private owners, and especially landlords, are taking advantage of the improvement grants at present on offer. Secondly, it is often impracticable to deal with individual houses in tenement blocks. The only practicable way of dealing with these, as I see it, is often to deal with a whole tenement as a unit, frequently in such a way that the total number of houses in the tenements may have to be reduced. Thirdly, it is not sufficient merely to bring a few separate units up to standard. The whole of an area needs to be modernised and tidied up—both the houses themselves and the surrounding amenities—if the work is to produce its maximum return.
  Possible solutions to these and other aspects of the problem are put forward in the White Paper, with full regard to
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  Scottish conditions, but before legislation is introduced we must have full consultations and discussions with the local authorities and with the property owners. I am looking forward to a meeting tomorrow with representatives of the local authorities, and I hope to arrange a meeting with the property owners very shortly.
  The cost of housing has an impact on all these proposals, and in the broader field it is an important element in local government finance generally and in the claims it makes on the country's investment resources. The cost to the individual must also be approached in a reasonable way, and here the Government have made their position on local authority houses crystal clear. No one in genuine need of a house should be asked to pay more rent than he can reasonably afford. Equally, subsidies should not be used to benefit those who can afford to pay an unreasonable rent—reasonable in relation to his economic circumstances and to the real cost of housing.
  It is disingenuous, to say the least, to talk as if only a very few people living in local authority houses are capable of paying a reasonable rent. Over 30 per cent. of Scotland's population live in local authority houses, and, while rents have risen in recent years, the average weekly rent last November was still only 12s. 3d. This can be compared with the average weekly earnings of adult male manual workers in Scotland which, at October, was £14 14s. 3d. This means that the average weekly rent of local authority houses was a shade under 4 per cent. of the average weekly earnings. I would agree that averages can be misleading, but even so, I do not think that anyone could claim that 4 per cent. was an unreasonable contribution for rent to come out of the wage packet.
  Some local authorities have gone a long way towards achieving a more reasonable and more realistic level of rents and I appreciate their efforts to secure a balance between the interests of their citizens—ratepayers generally as well as council tenants. Many authorities are not yet working on this basis. The assertion is often made that a more rapid move towards reasonable rents would inflict unjustifiable hardship, but this, I believe, deliberately ignores the fact that proper rent rebate schemes

  619
  can ensure that all those who are in genuine need of help can obtain it. The experience of the S.S.H.A. shows how, by this means, reasonable rents can be charged without causing hardship.
  Mr. Harry Gourlay: The hon. Gentleman, on more than one occasion, has referred to reasonable rents, but so far has not stated what they are. As for the average wage in Scotland, there are many areas where £10 a week is the maximum, which is far less than the average.
  Mr. Leburn: I admitted that averages could be misleading but, nevertheless, I thought that this painted the broad picture. The hon. Member knows that we have discussed reasonable rents on many occasions and my right hon. Friend has indicated to local authorities that as a good guide they can use G.A.V. Many hon. Members opposite were present when we discussed this on the Local Government (Financial Provisions) (Scotland) Act in Standing Committee, where I made it perfectly clear that this was only a guide and that on occasions I even foresaw circumstances where local authorities couldcharge more than this.
  Mr. Gourlay: Or less.
  Mr. Leburn: I sometimes have the feeling that many of the Government's critics on rents secretly agree that the present unduly low level of Scottish rents threatens to undermine the stability of local government finance and to bear far too heavily on the ratepayers. No one expects to gain in popularity by increasing rents, especially in places where half or more of the houses are local authority houses, but local authorities have statutory duties and my right hon. Friend intends to fulfil his responsibility in seeing that these are discharged.
  In a number of cases my right hon. Friend will be shortly asking some local authorities to look again at their position in this respect. I want to make it absolutely clear that there is no question here of my right hon. Friend wanting to impose rent schemes on local authorities. Housing lies at the centre of local government, and that is where we want it to remain.
  Miss Margaret Herbison (Lanarkshire, North): Really!
  Mr. Leburn:My right hon. Friend and I have been encouraged by the sensible approach to this long-standing problem of a good many local authorities and I hope that more will now make headway in the same direction. As I have already said, the cost of housing is a major element in the finance of both local and central governments and our subsidy system must always be kept up-to-date. In the White Paper my right hon. Friend made clear that he proposes to initiate discussions with the local authorities on the workings of the present subsidy system and to review with them the whole situation.
  Miss Herbison:The hon. Gentleman has just said that housing is really the centre of local government and that the Secretary of State does not want to impose rents. Does that mean that we shall have a Bill presented to us tomorrow which will repeal the powers which the Secretary of State took to impose a rent scheme, with all the might of the Act?
  Mr. Leburn: In a debate like this I am sure that the hon. Lady would not expect me to anticipate legislation, but if she is expecting a Bill to be proposed along those lines she will be disappointed.
  Mr. Hector Hughes: The hon. Gentleman talks about consulting local authorities after the White Paper has been issued. Isnot that putting the cart before the horse? Would it not have been more logical and reasonable for the Government to have consulted the local authorities first and to have issued the White Paper as a result of their consultations?
  Mr. Leburn: No, Sir. The White Paper clearly laid down the lines of principle which the Government wish to follow, but made equally clear that we wanted to discuss certain matters with them.
  Mr. James Dempsey (Coatbridge and Airdrie): Which White Paper?
  Mr. Leburn: The White Paper on Housing.
  Mr. McInnes: The right hon. Gentleman cannot get away with that. The White Paper contains only two paragraphs referring to Scotland at all. There is nothing in it regarding Scotland except two small paragraphs. In which

  621
  of these two paragraphs are to be found the propositions which the hon. Gentleman is now outlining?
  Mr. Leburn:The hon. Member for Glasgow, Central really surprises me because, of all hon. Members—I include hon. Members on both sides—he, I should have said, probably does his homework best. I recommend him to read the White Paper on Housing. There are far more than two paragraphs making reference to Scotland. I can assure the hon. Gentleman of that.
  Mr. McInnes: And I can assure the Under-Secretary of State of what I say
  Mr. Leburn: I am very glad that the hon. Gentleman is not one who takes on a wager, because he would surely lose it on this occasion.
  The total of 300,000 new houses during the past ten years is clear evidence of the Government's determination to press on with the improvement of Scotland's housing. The increases which have been made in the number of houses coming under construction, the forward plans of local authorities and new towns, the healthy growth of private enterprise building, and the development of a third arm of housing in the form of the new housing societies will all combine to make a target of at least 35,000 houses a year in Scotland attainable in the foreseeable future.
  Such an increase is needed to match the problem, but in contemplating it we must take into account the capacity of the construction industry and the ever increasing demands made upon it. Today, we are concerned with housing, but new schools, new factories, new roads, new shops, new hospitals and the rest are all making increasing demands upon it. Increased efficiency and productivity in the building industry are, therefore, essential.
  This increase in house building combined with a still stronger drive to remove unfit houses and improve unsatisfactory houses will ensure an overall improvement in the standard of housing accommodation to bring it into line with the general rise in the standard of living, and this is vital to both the economic growth and the social development of Scotland.
  5.3 p.m.
  Mr. John Rankin: I congratulate the Under-Secretary on his peroration. It lived up to many of those which we have heard in the past and might, indeed, be said to have been taken from one of his former speeches. The trouble is that, between his perorations, the stones, bricks and lime which are turned into houses do not match his words. The figures which we have in the Reports prove that.
  The hon. Gentleman started by emphasising that housing is necessary for social improvement. With that we agree. He said, also, that it is a necessary adjunct, or, I think he said, precursor of economic development. I do not propose to argue that, but it is part and parcel of economic development, as our new towns emphasise. He went on to say that housing encouraged new industrial progress to take place. I should have hoped that the reverse was true also, that new industrial progress would encourage new housing.
  When the hon. Gentleman made this last suggestion, I wondered whether he had ever thought of looking on Cumbernauld as a commuter town. I throw that suggestion out to him because of the intensity of Glasgow's housing problem, the nearness of Cumbernauld and the necessity to maintain certain forms of transport which, at the moment, seem to be under threat.
  The hon. Gentleman emphasised that it was necessary to improve and extend housing because of key workers. I have never yet found that key workers had any difficulty in getting houses. If the hon. Gentleman takes that as a very substantial reason for getting away from what is the main fact in regard to housing, then I leave that soporific with him. It seemed to me that, throughout his whole speech, the hon. Gentleman sought to shed what is basically a national burden on to the local authorities. The local authorities arehaving difficulty in solving the housing problem in Scotland today because the Government are running away from their national obligations.
  I shall illustrate what I say with figures from the place which I know best, the City of Glasgow. Glasgow's housing problem, of course, is unequalled in the whole of Europe. Having seen most of the great cities of Europe, I can confirm

  623
  that from actual observation. The overall weakness of the Under-Secretary's approach to the problem is that, in looking at the social and industrial aspects and the requirements of key workers, he ignores the sheer physical fact of gross under-housing in the City of Glasgow and other parts of Scotland and the need for a more sustained and intense effort to solve the problem.
  Today, almost half the houses in the city have only one or two rooms, and over 400,000 persons living in them. In central Glasgow two-thirds of the houses are only one-room or two-room houses, and 34,000 people live more than four persons in a room.
  I do not suggest that the Under-secretary of State and the Secretary of State have not important things to talk about, but their most important occupation at the moment is each to listen to what I am saying, not to what they are saying to one another.
  Ninety thousand people live more than three persons to the room. In one district, 12,000 people live on 18 acres of land.
  This is not a new problem. Those of us who represent Glasgow constituencies have been saying these things for a long time. But the fact that we can repeat these figures still is proof that the Government's building or encouragement of building of new houses does not keep pace even with the decay of existing houses. So their attempted solutions of this problem have resulted, in Glasgow in particular, in a state of affairs which shows practically no change over the eighteen years I have been a Member of the House of Commons.
  It is because of these facts that today, when we meet to approve a sum of £17,920,000 net for housing purposes, as against £18,375,000 last year, so that we are being called upon to vote £455,000 less today than we voted last year for dealing with a problem which is still as acute as it was last year, I cannot approve, nor can my colleagues approve, of the sum we are asked to vote. Also we are met to vote £20,950,000 for equalisation and transitional grants as against £20,230,000 last year. Again, I oppose that because the increase is totally insufficient. The hon. Gentleman stated
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  that local authorities were getting into financial trouble, and so they are because of the policy of the Government.
  I want to look quickly at some of the figures which I have taken from the Report of the Scottish Development Department. On page 27 the Report tells us that in 1960 28,592 houses were built by all agencies. That was an increase of 1,299 over the year before, and, of course, I welcome that. In 1961, with this need for houses pressing on the Government and on the communities, 27,230 houses were built, a reduction of 1,362, and in 1962 the number built was 26,761, a still further decrease of 469, making a decrease of 1,831 over the last two years. I look at the graph on page 28 and observe that local authority building which the hon. Gentleman said was the major form of building accounted for 14,000 houses in 1960 and over 16,200 in 1962 compared with about 30,000 houses built each year in 1953 and 1954 by local authorities.
  That represents a very drastic fall indeed, but the most remarkable fact is that in 1949, four years after the termination of a world war, when the Labour Government were beset by difficulties on all hands—labour, supply, and money—we erected 21,000 houses as against the 16,000 which were built with Government aid last year. That isa deplorable record by this Government. I hope that when the Secretary of State replies to the debate he will be able to offer a modicum of defence for a figure of that nature. While this has been going on, Glasgow, eighteen years after the war, has still 80,000 persons on its waiting list.
  In achieving what has been achieved according to the standards of the Under-secretary of State modern methods of building have been used, and, of course, I pay tribute to these newer methods. I see them in the area where I live. The Pollokshaws scheme seems to be rising a storey every night due to industrial pre-fabrication. I should point out, not only did Glasgow Corporation lead the way with that, but it also led the Ministry of Public Building and Works. The Corporation got no encouragement from Government sources in undertaking that method of building, and the Corporation was actually the forerunner; and paved the way for the support which the Government are now giving to it.

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  Then, of course, I have seen the new homes of the Scottish Special Housing Association in my movements about the country. I pay tribute to what they have been doing in introducing precast concrete, computers, better techniques and work during winter, as I observed during the past winter in transit between my home and Renfrew Airport. We on this side welcome these advances. All that we feel is lacking is sufficient enthusiastic encouragement to greater efforts from the Government.
  Of course, we are not blind to the slum clearances that are taking place, and as I have gone about I have praised such developments as the disappearance of the miners' rows in places like Nitshill and Inchinnan. We welcome the desegregation that has been going on. But the slums in Govan still remain. Yet in Cmd. 2050 the Secretary of State tells us that
  "No restriction is being placed on the number of houses which local authorities can build each year for housing families from unfit houses and the Government will continue to give every encouragement to stepping up the pace of slum clearance."
  The right hon. Gentleman says"no restriction". Well, I dispute that, and later I shall give my reasons for disputing those words"no restriction".
  Again, we do not spurn the present subsidy of £16 million, but in view of the fact, which the hon. Gentleman admitted, that good housing is one of the most powerful secular influences in shaping the better world we all want to see—I hope—I still regard a £16 million subsidy in the circumstances of today as being totally insufficient.
  I have been looking at the three main factors in the building of a house and it is with these I want briefly to deal; the labour employed, the materials and the land, and the money which must be supplied. I agree, of course, as we all must, that the price of labour and materials enters into the rent of a house, but it is worth noting that a 2 per cent. increase in labour costs adds only £10 to the cost of a £2,200 house, but on the other hand a 2 per cent. increase in the interest charge adds £2,204 to its price.
  I take the £2,200 house at 5 per cent. interest. [Interruption.] I am not sure whether that was a joke or not. We
  626
  are dealing with the figure over sixty years. I understood that the right hon. Gentleman appreciates the terms of the loan; I take it that this is something with which he is completely familiar. I thought the right hon. Gentleman was laughing at the 5 per cent. interest figure as being a somewhat grotesque one. But I have worked out the average rate of interest paid by Glasgow Corporation between 1919 and 1962—over a period of forty-three years—and it is 4·79 per cent. In the light of the 6 or 6½ per cent. rate which we face today, that 5 per cent. figure is not unique.
  At 5 per cent. interest, the £2,200 house costs £6,973 over sixty years, of which £4,773 is interest. At 3 per cent. it costs £4,769, of which £2,569 is interest. That shows a saving of £2,204, or, in terms of rent, 14s. 1½d. per week. If local authorities and others find that the rents are too dear—as many of them do; there is no argument about that—the Secretary of State has an easy way out, as I shall try to show later, in reducing rents if he wants to do it without seeking to inflate rates, as is happening.
  Taking the high notional value which the right hon. Gentleman would put on this type of house as £54—the gross annual value is £48, but I am putting £6 more on the rent of the house than he suggests and if the subsidy were £32, there would still be a deficit of £41 to be met by the local authority. Therefore, the big problem that we have to face today in relation to housing is not the cost of labour or the cost of materials, but the cost of the money which is necessary to build the house.
  In the midst of that, the Secretary of State tells us on page 36 of"The Finance of Housing":
  "The level of Scottish local authority rents has risen only slowly and remains, on average, unreasonably low."
  We must realise that this year Glasgow Corporation will collect from the houses it owns £9 million in rents, rates and grants; and from that sum will pay £6 million to the moneylenders. That is the system which the right hon. Gentleman is advocating and is going to employ in order to solve the housing problem. It means putting on local authorities burdens which are almost insupportable.

  627
  All over the country—not merely in Glasgow—people are complaining because the housing revenue deficits are being put on the rates. In Glasgow, we are met by the question,"Is it fair to put a housing revenue deficit of £3 million on the rates?". It is sending the rates up by 3s. in the £. However, we are not discussing that today. I want to make it clear that I in no way dissent from the idea of a reasonable rent, but no one in Scotland says a word about the fact that from the same rates we are finding £6 million a year to give to the moneylenders. In fact, 6s. in the £ is placed on the rates to meet the demands of the moneylenders, and yet very little complaint is made about that fact. We must remember that there are two aspects—the amount supplied by the rates to meet the deficit on the housing revenue account, and the vaster amount taken to meet the demands of the moneylenders.
  Quoting the right hon. Gentleman, I have said that he is urging local authorities to raise rents, and he has actually brought in legislation to compel them to do so. I ask him to think about this question and try to answer it for himself,"What policy is it that causes this pressure for increased rents?". The right hon. Gentleman is bleeding the tenants at the rent level in order to maintain a high interest rate at the national level. The defence which he will put forward, and which he may put forward today, is that he has got to do that because our country, through its position as the banker of the world, must maintain a high interest level policy in order to attract investments. The result is that we keep high interest rates to attract money from abroad because of what we claim to be out peculiar international position.
  That reason is not true. If we take the general interest rate in Britain and compare it with the general interest rates over the last few years in America and Europe, we find that when our rate was an average of 6 per cent., that in Europe and America was 3 per cent., and when our rate was 5 per cent., in Europe and America is was 2½ per cent. We are being disadvantaged in our social policies because we are applying an international rate at the local level, which few other nations do.
  628
  When we were faced with the question of this policy and the cost of money a few months ago during the Committee stage of the Air Corporations Bill, we learned as a result of an Amendment which I moved that British European Airways and the British Overseas Airways Corporation are getting preferential rates of 4½ per cent. to meet capital commitments at a time when the Secretary of State for Scotland is imposing rates of 6 and 6¼ per cent. on our local authorities.
  Last Friday, in the House, we decided to give preferential treatment to owner occupiers by the abolition of Schedule A. This means that the rest of the Income Tax payers will make up whatever deficiency may be created by the loss of the revenue from Schedule A. It also poses to the Secretary of State this question: if he can defend an Income Tax rebate for those who borrow money to pay for their houses, how can he deny a tax reduction to those who pay rent? If he faces up to the social implications of this part of the Government's monetary policy, then he will find a happier way out of some of his difficulties than he seems to have found up to now.
  Cheap money should be a major aim in solving the housing problem and easing the financial burden of the local authorities. Let him remember that there is more than rent behind this. Yesterday, the right hon. Gentleman and I stood at the new tunnel at Linthouse, which was opened by the Queen. Earlier, he had heard the Lord Provost telling us of some of the other problems facing our great corporations today—not only tunnels, but roads, bridges and other needs. All these are serious and costly matters.
  When I first raised the issue of the Linthouse Tunnel in the House, in 1951, the cost would have been £2½ million. Yesterday, the Lord Provost said that it will be £11 million. That is the sort of financial language that the local authorities are now being compelled to use, and they cannot go on doing that, and doing it efficiently, with the minimum of help from the Government and the maximum of interest for the money they must employ in doing what the Government say they should be doing.
  I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will give serious thought to these issues.

  629
  It is far more important that local authorities should be able to bo361"
  rrow at lower rates for housing than that financiers should be able to borrow at high rates for speculation. That is what it boils down to. Millions of pounds are being made by the mere use—or, rather, abuse—of money. All this is helping to precipitate an inflationary situation under which individuals and local authorities are likewise suffering.
  I urge the right hon. Gentleman that if he wants to see a real and effective attempt made to solve the terrible problem of mal-housing in Scotland, then he must get down to the root problem—the costwhich the need of money imposes on local authorities at the present time. If he tackles that problem earnestly and seriously, he will be doing something more effective for the solution of the housing problem than has so far been done by the Government.
  5.35 p.m.
  Mr. John Henderson: The hon. Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. McInnes) took us back to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. I remember that more than twenty years ago I heard him make that speech for the first time. Time and again he has referred to those times. I do not think any of us are very much interested in what took place then. Members of the Opposition are entitled to concentrate on what has been done by the Government during the years they have been in office and to inquire what future housing policy is to be. The hon. Member finished his peroration by stating that the Conservative and Unionist Party has no policy and asked, very pertinently, what my right hon. Friend is prepared to do about housing in Scotland.
  A very good answer can be given. The Government have done a very good job. Since the war, 406,775 houses have been built in Scotland and one person in every three has moved into a new house built since then. It is worth relating that in the years 1952–60, under the Unionists, houses were built in Scotland at an average rate of about 30,000 a year compared with an average of about 19,000 a year under the Socialist Government. The best year under the Socialists was 1949, with 25,840 permanent houses built, but each year under the Unionists has seen that figure exceeded.
  630
  The hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin), who has now left the Chamber, mentioned a reduction of houses built in 1962. In that year, fewer houses were completed by public agencies—the local authorities and the Scottish Special Housing Association—but private building was the highest since 1937. The reason for the reduced public output is a reflection of the difficulties encountered by some of the cities and large burghs in turning from relatively straightforward building to the more complex process of redeveloping central areas.
  One can see at a glance that previously building has mainly taken place on the borders of cities or burghs where virgin land was used to a great extent. But when it comes to centre redevelopment there is a great deal of delay and many more expenses are encountered.
  I come from Glasgow, a city in which I have been a social worker for a number of years. I am as alive as anyone to the grim conditions in which people have to live in the slums of that great city. The slums undoubtedly affect the health of the community and the conduct of young people and build up enormous difficulties for future family life. Slum clearance is an operation which has to be undertaken in three separate stages.
  The first is the provision of new houses for the displaced slum dwellers. In Glasgow, two or three years ago, there was a large prison which was known as Duke Street Prison, near Glasgow Cathedral. The prison was pulled down and the corporation is now building a huge housing scheme on the site. I sometimes think that it would be desirable if sites such as that could be used for the building of some sort of hostel or other temporary accommodation to house people who have lost their homes as the result of slum clearance.
  Four or five times during the weekend I pass through a district known as the Gorbals, very well represented by a distinguished hon. Member. Those were horrible slums, but a year ago they were demolished and new houses are being built on the site. I inquired from the Glasgow Housing Department where the people who had lived in those slums had gone, and I was told that they were living all over Glasgow, many of them in

  631
  my constituency. If there were a policy of accommodating them in a hostel or something akin to it while the site was cleared, when the new houses were completed they could go back to the areas in which they had lived and brought up their children and where they had their roots and where they wanted to stay.
  Mr. James Bennett: Is not the hon. Gentleman aware that Glasgow Corporation is carrying out that policy? I draw his attention to the fact that a Clydeside shipyard is building temporary houses which are placed on sites from which people have been transferred out of old properties which have subsequently been demolished. Glasgow Corporation is to be congratulated on already pursuing the policy which the hon. Member is enunciating.
  Mr. Henderson: The Corporation must have heard me making this suggestion at a public meeting in Glasgow about eighteen months ago. Each stage of the redevelopment of small areas is dependent on the successful completion of the preceding stage, and this makes for a complicated and lengthy process.
  Secondly, the Government intend to clear nearly all the remaining slums, and this means providing the displaced workers with jobs. The Minister of Housing announced the plan some months ago for broadening the basis of house building, and firms in shipbuilding and other heavy industries are to be asked to build houses which can be transferred to suitable sites and assembled there. There is a great possibility in this process for the future.
  In the very heart of Glasgow there used to be a building known as the Lyric Theatre and the Y.M.C.A. On the opposite corner were the Empire Theatre and shops. Both those old established concerns have been taken over by a finance company in the last two or three years. Skyscraper offices will now occupy these very important sites. One building has been completed and the old buildings on the other site are in course of being demolished. Skyscrapers are now to be seen in many parts of Glasgow and they are common in London. There is nothing artistic about them, nothing pleasing to the eye, but
  632
  they are put up in a remarkably short time to provide office accommodation.
  There is a shortage of building labour in Glasgow, as there is throughout the country, and some of the material and building labour used in this office building ought to be placed at the disposal of the corporation or the building companies for house building. The time has come when firms engaged in office building should have their activities curtailed so that house building can be increased.
  I now come to the third stage. Many houses have been improved with the aid of Government grants, but the reconditioning of houses is a major problem. In Glasgow there are many good tenements which are externally sound but like slums internally. In the past few yearsthe Government have provided facilities for substantial grants for the improvement of these tenements which could fulfil a very useful purpose.
  In 1901, 48 people per 1,000 population in Scotland were over 65. In 1931, the proportion was 73 per 1,000, and it is estimated that it will be well over 100 per 1,000 in 1974. I disagree with the hon. Member for Glasgow, Central, for I believe that there must be an increase in houses of one and two apartments for the ever increasing number of old folk. In Scotland20 per cent. of new local authority houses are now of one or two apartments compared with 3 per cent. in the first ten years after the war.
  I turn now to the question of rents.
  Mr. E. G. Willis: Would the hon. Gentleman live in a two-roomed house?
  Mr. Henderson: I was born in one.
  Mr. Willis: Does the hon. Gentleman live in one now?
  Mr. Henderson: Many good people live in two-roomed houses.
  Mr. Willis: That is not an answer to the question I asked.
  Mr. Henderson: Does the hon. Gentleman live in a council house?
  Mr. Willis: No.
  Mr. Henderson: It is a wonder, because many members of the hon. Gentleman's party do.

  633
  The low level of Scottish local authority rents has continued to be one of the main problems of the housing programme, and this has been underlined in the Toothill Report, which is often quoted by hon. Gentlemen opposite, which said:
  "Low rents have not only failed to bring social justice but have done serious harm to the economy. With sensible rents it would be possible for local authority finances to be on a sound footing, to overcome the housing shortages which remain, to raise the low level of private enterprise building, to surmount the serious obstacles to mobility of labour to secure adequate expenditure on appearance and surroundings and to do all this while making better provision for the genuinely needy."
  Mr. Dempsey: The hon. Gentleman should say that at Castlemilk.
  Mr. Henderson: I do not mind a reasonable interruption, but I think that is just sheer impertinence.
  The Report considered that a higher level of rents throughout Scotland was essential to the health of the economy, and estimated that on average throughout Scotland a rent of 18s. a week would dispense with the need for any contribution from rates, and 15s. a week would require a contribution no greater than one-third of the Exchequer subsidies. As the general wage throughout Scotland is between £14 and £15 a week, I do not think that 14s. a week would be an unreasonable rent to charge.
  This Government have faithfully kept their promise made in their manifesto at the last election to get rid of all slums. Their record is a good one. During the past ten years the promise to provide houses for the people of Scotland is being fulfilled, and the Government have now decided to embark on a future scheme to build 35,000 houses each year. They will maintain this figure, and they could well increase it, for Scotland's people have never had it so good.
  5.53 p.m.
  Mr. Bruce Millan: The hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. J. Henderson) started his speech by complaining that he had heard my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. McInnes) making the same speech several times. I am not able to make the same criticism of the hon. Gentleman, because as far as I can
  634
  remember I have never before heard him make a speech.
  Mr. J. Henderson: The hon. Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan) is just a youngster, and has not been here very long.
  Mr. Millan: The hon. Gentleman need not be quite so sensitive about it. I was going on to say that although some of the things he said were no doubt interesting, he did not give me the impression that he really comprehends the seriousness of the housing situation in Scotland at the moment.
  That is a perfectly legitimate criticism to make also of the Under-Secretary of State for Scotland. I know that it is common form to criticise the Government's contribution in this debate as thoroughly inadequate. The hon. Gentleman's contribution was not only thoroughly inadequate but was extremely depressing, because the Government have not faced the seriousness of Scotland's housing problem and, however one looks at the Scottish housing figures, the fact is that they are appallingly bad and have been getting worse over the last few years.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Central quoted a number of figures which I was given in a Parliamentary answer from the Ministry of Housing and Local Government on Tuesday of this week, and the comparative figures for Scotland which I received on Wednesday of this week. If one makes these international comparisons on a population basis, one sees how badly Scotland is doing. In 1962 the Scottish Housing figure was 5·1 houses completed per thousand of the population. This was lower than the figure for England and Wales, and lower than the figure for France, West Germany, Austria, Italy, Holland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and the Soviet Union. The figure was lower in only one European country of those given, and that was in Belgium, but according to a report by the European Economic Community's Commission on Housing there is no shortage of housing in Belgium at the moment. The only country with a building record similar to that of Scotland was East Germany. The figure there was also 5·1 houses per 1,000 of the population, so the Secretary of State for Scotland managed to

  635
  do at least as well as Herr Ulbricht. But even that did not apply in 1961, and as far as one can gather from the figures for 1963, it will not apply this year.
  If we ignore what is happening in the rest of Europe and compare the position in Scotland with that in England and Wales we see that the figures for Scotland are worse than those for the other two countries. This development has come about in the last three or four years, because until 1958 we were building proportionately more houses than were being built in England and Wales. In 1958, for example, our figure was 6·3 as against the English and Welsh figure of 5·4. But since then there has been a steady and quite substantial deterioration in the Scottish position, until in 1962 we were building only 5·1 compared with 6·1 in England and Wales.
  It is a truism, and it has been said time and again in this House and elsewhere, that the housing position in Scotland is much worse than it is in England and Wales. I do not believe that even a Scottish Office spokesman would deny that. Yet making the comparison between the position in Scotland and that in England and Wales, we are doing substantially worse than they are, and if one compares the position in England and Wales with what is happening in the other countries of Europe, the position even in England and Wales is also thoroughly unsatisfactory. I do not believe that, making any kind of qualification that one can about these figures, taking into account all the different factors about population, increases in population, population movements, the quality of the houses, the size of the houses, the effects of rebuilding everywhere, and so on, one can come to any conclusion other than that which I have mentioned, that the Scottish figures are appalling and that they have been getting worse over the last few years.
  If one tries to estimate the amount of housing that we require to meet the present situation in Scotland, one comes to the conclusion that the figures which have been achieved over the last few years are thoroughly inadequate. If one does this calculation on a population basis, and if one takes into account the necessity for slum clearance, one comes to a total figure which is substantially
  636
  higher than the figure of about 27,000 houses achieved by the Government last year. We want about 40,000 houses per year as a minimum, but the figure could in fact be considerably higher.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Central quoted figures of old houses in Scotland. About 550,000 houses in Scotland were built prior to 1880. All these houses, with the exception of a small minority, ought to be renewed now, and quite a number built after that date also need to be renewed, sometimes because they are slums, and sometimes because they are rapidly deteriorating into slums, but in any event because they are lacking in modern amenities. Yet the slum clearance programme in Scotland has been reduced over the past few years. The figures relating to houses closed as unfit have decreased between 1958 and 1962, as part of the general pattern of deterioration in the Scottish housing position. We have been clearing under 10,000 houses a year.
  In what seemed to me to be an inexcusable attempt to mislead us, the Under-Secretary quoted a figure of 13,000 for a 15-months'period. But we are dealing with years. He gave the impression that he was quoting a year's figure within a three years' programme, but he was actually quoting a 15-months'figure. That was extremely misleading. The number has gone down to less than 10,000 a year, although we have 550,000 houses which are more than 83 years old and the vast majority of them require to be demolished. At the minimum, they require to be demolished over the next twenty years if we are to make any substantial improvement in the Scottish housing situation.
  We have had a Government White Paper, which rather strangely includes Scotland together with England and Wales in the one document. In that White Paper we have a Government admission that the total number of houses being built in the United Kingdom is inadequate. What else is the Government White Paper but an admission that the numbers are inadequate? It is said that we must increase the number, because of slum clearance, to 350,000 houses a year, but there is no background information in the White Paper as to the way in which this figure was calculated. There is no statistical information—no

  637
  estimate of the need for slum clearance in statistical terms. There are no estimates of population movement, which is a tremendously important factor, and one that will become all the more important if we can stop the tremendous drain of population from Scotland by way of migration. There is no attempt to deal with any of these factors, and it is extremely difficult to see how the figure of 350,000 was arrived at, or whether it was calculated on a reasonable basis.
  This document was accurately described by one of my hon. Friends on another occasion as being not a Government White Paper but the first part of the Government's election manifesto. Reading through it one gets the impression that there is the same duplicity, evasiveness and dishonesty that we have come to expect from Conservative Party manifestoes. The White Paper contained no information about Scotland, as distinct from England and Wales. The Under-Secretary brought out of the air this afternoon the figure of 35,000—but we built only 27,000 houses last year. If the Government plan to build 35,000 houses in Scotland in years to come one would have thought that this would be a sufficiently important fact to be mentioned in the White Paper, but it is not mentioned. It was brought out in the same dishonest way by the Under-secretary this afternoon—almost as an afterthought, in one of the closing passages of his speech.
  If only the Government would admit that by any standards—international standards, by comparison with England and Wales, or by any estimate of what we require in the way of slum clearance in order to abolish overcrowding and the rest—Scotland's housing situation is terribly bad, we might have some confidence that the Government can successfully tackle the problem, but if we are to get this kind of complacent speech—"complacent"is an overworked adjective, but it is an apt one in relation to the speech we had this afternoon—and this kind of Government White Paper, we must give up all hope that the Government even appreciate the problem, much less than having any idea as to how it can be solved.
  We must surely all agree that we need a substantial increase in the number of houses completed per year in Scotland.
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  What kind of houses should they be? We know that according to post-war tradition the vast majority of these houses should be local authority houses. The situation for years to come will be such that we cannot rely solely upon private enterprise. But I do not believe that the situation ought to be posed in terms of a choice between local authority housing on the one hand and private housing on the other. That is completely misreading the situation. There is no need to make this choice. Scotland needs more local authority housing and more private housing because the situation is so bad. We should not be trying to make this artificial choice.
  Knowing the slums of Glasgow, and some other slums, if I thought that we could build more private houses in Scotland only at the expense of local authority houses I should be against any increase in the number of private houses, but I believe that the two things can proceed at the same time. The Government should be trying to press ahead on the two fronts at the same time. To say that one is in favour of more private housing is not to criticise the principle of subsidy, which is inherent in local authority housing. A substantial principle of subsidy is also inherent—from the taxation point of view—in owner-occupation at present, because of the relief on mortgage interest. But this is not the main argument in respect of the kind of housing needed.
  What about rents? The Government have an obsession about rents, and I believe that some of my hon. Friends also have, although in a rather different way. In my view the subject of rent is a comparatively minor issue. There is no use disputing the fact that many Scottish local authorities have quite unjustifiable rent policies. To some extent there is a grain of truth in the Government assertion, but the idea that if we simply force local authorities to charge higher rents we shall go anywhere near to solving Scotland's housing problem is a ludicrous one. This approach by the Government is not relevant to the needs of the Scottish housing situation. If we agree that we should be building more houses of all kinds—private houses as well as local authority houses—and that the need is absolutely desperate, the next question we must ask is: are we capable

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  of doing it? What is holding Scotland back at present from obtaining the housing production that it undoubtedly needs, and that every observer agrees it needs?
  Part of this is the old problem of economic expansion. Economically, Scotland has a much poorer record than the rest of the country—and that has been poor enough. That fact has an effect upon housing output in Scotland. If the Scottish economy could be made into a prosperous one we would increase the demand for houses and also our capability and incentive to produce more houses in Scotland. We should be able to overcome many of the difficulties relating to new towns, where, again, the Scottish record is quite appalling and does not stand comparison with the record of England and Wales. This general lack of economic prosperity is one of the major factors in the Scottish housing situation, and it is a factor which is all too often overlooked.
  But there are other factors. My hon. Friends have mentioned some of them this afternoon. There is the factor of the interest rates, which affects not only local authority housing but building society mortgages, and therefore private housing. The greatest single step that the Government could take to encourage a greater rate of house-building in Scotland would be to do something about the existing high interest rates.
  There is also the question of subsidies, and there is the problem of land. This is not a problem in Scotland, or at least it is not a large problem, as in England and Wales. For that reason the Government completely neglect it. Even the Minister of Housing and Local Government is beginning to admit that in England and Wales there is something of a land problem, particularly in the South-East and the Midlands. But I do not recollect that any Minister from the Scottish Office has admitted that a land problem is beginning to develop in Scotland. Already in Glasgow it is extremely difficult, and there are difficulties in a number of other places. But the problem is being completely neglected and, eventually, it will become as serious in Scotland as in some parts of England and Wales. Certainly it is inhibiting central development to a considerable extent.
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  Apart from all these factors—interest rates, subsidies and the rest—it is also true that there there is a widely spread wrong attitude—that is the best way in which I can describe it—to housing in Scotland. We compare badly in this respect even with England and Wales. In Scotland there are far too many people who do not have a sufficient desire for Scottish housing improvements, and insufficient pressure is applied to the Government to persuade them to get rid of this quite appalling social problem.
  We see it manifested in all sorts of different ways. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Central referred this afternoon to the preponderance of three-apartment houses in Scotland and to the single apartment and two-apartment houses. One rather pathetic and depressing feature of the Scottish housing situation is that so many people prefer small houses. They asked that local authorities shall build small houses rather than larger houses. This seems to me to be something in the Scottish attitude towards housing which, unfortunately, does not help us to solve the Scottish housing problem. We find the same sort of attitude regarding the improvement of old type property. Here again the Scottish figures are much worse than for England and Wales. I am not exculpating the Government in any way, nor am I exculpating private builders.
  Also in Scotland there is insufficient feeling of anger and frustration about the housing situation. The problem is so dreadful. One sees the slums which exist in some parts of Glasgow and in other parts of Scotland and the bad housing conditions and one becomes extremely angry, not only with the Government and with everyone else responsible, but also angry because we do not make a sufficient row about the Scottish housing situation. I do not believe there is anything to prevent us from solving Scotland's housing problems or that there is such a strain on the Scottish building industry, that it must be a drag on improving the Scottish housing figures.
  The Under-Secretary of State again this afternoon—one gets tired of Government spokesmen doing it—talked about the number employed in the building industry as if somehow that number was static and could not be increased. But the number of people employed in the

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  building industry has been going up since 1959, according to the figures which I looked at this afternoon, and I have no doubt that the same pattern would be apparent regarding figures for earlier years. About 20,000 more people were being employed in the construction industry in Scotland at the end of 1962 compared with the number employed at the end of 1959. There is no reason why that figure should not increase substantially in the years to come. If the demand is there and the building industry is getting the orders and is sufficiently efficient to do the job quickly, the numbers employed in the industry will go up. That is common sense.
  Some industries are increasing their labour force all the time while others reduce their labour force. That is part of the ordinary process of industrial life. Yet Government spokesmen talk about imposing an undue strain on the building industry. There are 94,000 people unemployed in Scotland, and there is no strain on the industry which could not be relieved if the Government treated the problem with a little more urgency.
  Certainly there are shortages in some of the skilled trades. There is a shortage of architects, draughtsmen, technicians and the rest. We are now paying the penalty, in this as in other spheres of economic activity, for the neglect by the Government of scientific and technical education. But this is not something which we need to accept as a fact of life. The Government have it in their power to see that the numbers are increased if that is necessary, as I think it is. The Government have lately presented us with the idea of industrialised building, and it is an idea which I support. I hope that it will provide additional work for the shipyards, because, unfortunately, the shipbuilding industry has been very much in decline over the last few years.
  This is only one channel of approach. If the building industry is inefficient and cannot cope with the demands made upon it; if there are too many small firms, or firms which do not possess the technical equipment necessary, or if there are too many restrictive practices indulged in, the Government might tell us about them and what are the problems. Let the Government say how the problems are to be tackled. If the Government told us that this kind of aproach
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  would be adopted it seems to me that results would follow.
  When last did the Secretary of State for Scotland discuss the Scottish housing position with the Scottish building industry, never mind local authorities, building societies, private owners and the rest? When did we go over the problems of the Scottish building industry with the people who are actually building houses? There is no sign of the Government ever having done that. In every aspect of Scottish housing policy the record of the Government over the last two years has been one of miserable failure. It is not a question of statistics. There is a tremendous human problem involved which makes it all the more tragic that we have had such experiences over the last few years.
  On other occasions the Secretary of State has come to us and said that if we have an unattractive Scotland, with bad housing and bad town planning and with drab environments, and the rest of it, we shall not be able to attract industries to Scotland. There is a certain amount of substance in that argument. But while the Secretary of State is saying that, the number of houses being built in Scotland is steadily going down. It has gone down by more than 10,000 between 1953 and 1962. This is a vicious circle. If we have bad housing it makes it difficult to attract new industry. If there is no new industry we cannot have economic prosperity which in turn is necessary for new housing. But in respect of housing the Government have the power to break through the vicious circle. It is not something regarding which they must depend exclusively on private enterprise.
  One knows that the problems in Scotland are extremely difficult. It is not only the responsibility of the Government. There is a responsibility upon local authorities and upon us all. We have been too complacent for too long about the housing situation in Scotland. But the main responsibility rests on the Government and one does not gain the impression from previous speeches which have been made, from the content of the White Paper and the report on Scottish development, and particularly from the speech made today by the Under-secretary of State, that the Government have a proper conception of what are

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  the problems and how serious is the position.
  It is not a question of the Government failing to provide the right answers. I do not believe that the Government have even asked the right questions about Scotland's housing position. I have absolutely no confidence that while the present Secretary of State and his colleagues are dealing with the situation we shall ever come anywhere near to getting a solution to Scotland's appalling difficulties in respect of housing.
  6.20 p.m.
  Sir Colin Thornton-Kemsley(North Angus and Mearns): A story is told of the late Mr. H. G. Wells, who was in America, following a speaker who had dilated at great length about the place in which he was speaking. It was Hollywood. H. G. Wells was called upon to make a speech. He rose in his place and said,"Hollywood leaves me speechless". If the speech of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan) does not leave me actually speechless, it has left me very breathless, because he traversed so rapidly so many points that one is almost at a loss to know where to begin to pick up points in a debate such as this.
  I take two points made by the hon. member. First, if I understood him rightly—this was strangely reminiscent of an attitude shown by members of his party in this House that"the gentleman in Whitehall knows best"—he almost deplored the fact that a number of people in Scotland actually dared to ask local authorities for small houses. The truth is that old people prefer small houses. They are easier to work. If they did not have small houses they would have to go to an eventide home or some such place. Today in Scotland 100 of every 1,000 persons are over 65 years of age. By 1974 there will be about 120 of every 1,000 over 65 years of age. It surely is a very good thing that local authorities in Scotland have recognised this fact and are providing for it.
  Mr. Archie Manuel: I appreciate the point the hon. Member is making, but is not his contention completely wrong when we examine the statistics and find that a large proportion of local authority houses in every area
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  in Scotland are overcrowded? Some of them are grossly overcrowded.
  Sir C. Thornton-Kemsley: I do not think that detracts from the need to build some proportion of small houses for old people. I welcome the fact that it is being done with the encouragement of my right hon. Friend.
  Mr. Ross: Does the hon. Gentleman think it justifies the proportion in the latest figures, which show that this year 25 per cent. are one- or two-apartment houses?
  Sir C. Thornton-Kemsley:I merely make the point that in recent years there has been very little provision for old people in response to the demand for two-apartment houses for them. Naturally when attention is called to that, it is right that local authorities should make a drive to increase the number of small houses for old people and I welcome the fact that they are doing so.
  Mr. Millan: I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member, but on this point I was not talking about special provision of housing for old people, which is an entirely different question. If one compares the number of three-apartment houses for the whole of Scotland with what local authorities do in England and Wales one sees that on the whole our houses are very much smaller. This is part of the Scottish tradition, a tradition which I deplore. In England they think it quite natural to have a spare room, but in Scotland if people have a spare room they think they should be moving to a smaller house, I was merely stating a fact.
  Sir C. Thornton-Kemsley: The hon. Member has made the point and I accept it.
  I take another point he made in his speech. He spoke about the steady deterioration in the scale of Scottish house building vis-à-vis that of England since 1958. While no one on this side of the Committee can be complacent about the Scottish housing position, I think we ought to recognise certain basic facts. One is that since 1958 there has been most extraordinary pressure on the whole of the south-east of England and on the west Midlands for more houses. There has been most unprecedented and unexpected industrial development there.

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  No doubt we shall be debating this question in the House on Monday of next week. It is a feature which hon. Members recognise, but it is one which is bound to reflect itself in statistics such as these.
  Mr. Millan: Will the hon. Member allow me—
  Sir C. Thornton-Kemsley: No. The hon. Member made, I shall not say a long speech, but a full speech. It would not be fair to others for me to keep giving way to the same hon. Member.
  The second factor which has given rise to that disparity in the rate of building north of the Border compared with south of the Border is that in England the bulk of the building is done by private enterprise. We should like to see a great deal mare of it done by private enterprise in Scotland.
  Mr. Cyril Bence: It is done by private enterprise in Scotland.
  Sir C. Thornton-Kemsley: I mean that in England it is done in another way. In England the bulk of building is done by private enterprise speculators who have not got purchasers for their houses when they buy the land. They buy the land and run up houses, some good and some not so good, and then sell them to people who, usually, are very ready to buy them. In Scotland most of the building is done by local authorities, by the Scottish Special Housing Association and so on for public authorities, and very little speculative building of that kind takes place.
  The main reason for that is low rents for local authority houses in Scotland. I agree with the quotation made from the Toothill Report by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. I. Henderson) that low rents have not only failed to bring social justice, but have done serious harm to our economy. I welcomed the speech made by the Under-Secretary in which he referred to low local authority rents, which are not only undermining local authority finances but are inflicting grave injustice on taxpayers.
  I turn to another speech, that of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin) and the point he made about the price of money. This point was also
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  referred to by the hon. Member for Craigton. I may be doing him an injustice, but he appeared to be supporting the plea made by the hon. Member for Govan. I hope I am not being unfair to the hon. Member for Govan in paraphrasing what he said in this way: local authorities are having to pay so much for the use of money that the prices of houses are enormously inflated. That, I think, was the burden of his speech. Therefore, he suggested, we have to tackle the problem of interest on borrowed money. That, superficially, is an attractive idea.
  Clearly, if we could do anything to reduce the price of local authority building it would be worth going a long way to do it. But let us examine this, because in so far as it has been advanced as a serious argument twice this afternoon and on many occasions outside, we must recognise that if local authorities were able to borrow at artificially low rates for housing, then other demands would inevitably follow. I ask hon. Members to think of that. I can imagine that in the kind of debate which we had in Scottish Grand Committee this morning about Scottish education there would be demands for education authorities to borrow money at low rates.
  Mr. Willis: Why not?
  Sir C. Thornton-Kemsley: I am making the point that other demands would follow. They would be made in respect of hospital building, roads and allother public purposes.
  Mr. Willis: Why not?
  Sir C. Thornton-Kemsley:I will tell the hon. Member why not. I do not advance these points without giving an answer, and if he will wait I will tell him why, in my view, it would be wrong to do this. Changes in interest rates through the operation of the Bank Rate are one of the means by which the Government, or any Government in this country, keep our economy in balance and thereby help to combat inflation and to preserve employment.
  Mr. Willis: They have not been very successful in Scotland.
  Sir C. Thornton-Kemsley: Moreover, interest rates come down as well as go up. Local authorities are responsible for about one-fifth of the nation's capital

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  expenditure so that to exclude local authorities from any changes in interest rates would make nonsense of our monetary policy. I do not believe that any country organised as we are, with the balance which we have between local authority expenditure and other public expenditure, could possibly accept that as a feasible policy. Moreover, to allow local authorities to operate at an artificially low rate of interest would mean a concealed subsidy, which would be payable by the taxpayers.
  I want to pass to a point which was made in an interruption by the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) during the speech of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State. Many of us had the privilege of going yesterday to Bathgate to see the remarkable development which has been undertaken by B.M.C. and later to Linwood to see the Rootes' production of the new Imp car. As always, on these occasions, there was a session during which we were able to ask questions, and I put a question to the deputy managing director of B.M.C. about the provision of houses. I asked whether he had found that the Development Department and local authorities were helpful in the provision of houses and whether there had been any impediment in the firm's ability to expand and to employ the people they wanted to employ because of a failure to provide houses. The answer gave rise to considerable discussion, and I think that at the earliest possible opportunity the matter ought to be ventilated in the House so that an answer can be given or, if that is not possible, so that the matter may be investigated.
  The background is the remarkable fact that this enormous factory, with a land area of 260 or 270 acres, started to be built on a swamp only three years ago. Anyone who goes there now will be astonished at the progress which has been made and immensely impressed by everything which has been done. I have not had an opportunity to check these particulars, but I think that they have had 650 houses for key workers and others provided in one way or another. I shall go into that in a moment. But they have an immediate need of an additional 240 houses, and it was upon that point that the hon. Member for West Lothian, who is the representative
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  of that area in the House, said that although there was a need for 240 houses, they had been promised only 10 in the current year. We were told that the West Lothian County Council was very helpful and that the Bathgate Town Council was perhaps rather less helpful, but that there was no reluctance to help on the part of the local authorities. But, in the words of the deputy managing director,"Something seems to have gone wrong."
  I see from the Scottish Development Department Report for 1962 that
  "West Lothian County Council undertook to provide 300 houses for Glasgow families in addition to building about 200 houses for workers recruited by the company from places other than Glasgow; and Whitburn Town Council, assisted by the Scottish Special Housing Association, undertook to accommodate 500 workers from Glasgow."
  That makes 1,000 houses. The Report says,
  "By the end of the year 194 families had been housed in these two centres and 354 houses were under construction."
  I am not saying that local authorities have not done well. I dare say that according to their lights they have done as well as they can. We were pleased later when we went to Linwood to find that there was not the same complaint; although they had not all the houses they wanted they were not as unhappy about the position as are the B.M.C. people.
  Mr. Willis: Who is to blame?
  Sir C. Thornton-Kemsley: I wish the hon. Member would get out of the habit of making sedentary interjections and then I should be able to continue with my speech. He always anticipates what I am about to say, and I shall now say what he anticipated.
  I do not know the extent to which the subsidies of £42 a year for 60 years in respect of an overspill house and £30 or £32 in respect of a house for incoming industrial workers makes it a paying proposition for local authorities. It may be that local authorities do not break even, at the rents which they are charging in supplying houses at that rate of subsidy for industrial workers. But what ought to be done—and it may well be that it is done, although I make it as a suggestion—is that when a great concern like B.M.C. goes to Bathgate, the Scottish Development Department

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  or my right hon. Friend should convene a conference of all those responsible for housing, possibly with the Under-Secretary of State, representing the Scottish Development Department, in the Chair, to ascertain exactly what is the need for houses and then to ascertain from each of the local authorities concerned what they can do, with the help of the existing subsidies, to meet that need.
  For example, in this case West Lothian County Council might say that it would provide so many houses, Whit burn would provide so many and Bathgate would provide so many, and probably there would be a deficiency which could not be met by local authorities in the ordinary course of their housing construction, bearing in mind that they have other responsibilities as well as providing for a particular factory, however large that factory may be. There then comes a point at which the Scottish Special Housing Association should be brought in, as it was always intended to be and I suppose still is intended to be, primarily as a kind of commando force which undertakes a crash building programme. I should have thought that the Scottish Special Housing Association might come along and do the development which is required urgently if we are to do the right thing by these people on whose industries we set so much store in Scotland.
  I may seem to be contradicting what I said earlier about especially low rates of interest, but there may be a case here, as the Government have a responsibility for providing the infrastructure for big industrial developments of this kind—roads, houses, public services, drainage, and so on—for the Treasury to grant an interest-free loan to the Scottish Special Housing Association so as to enable it to carry out this crash programme of development in places such as Bathgate and Linwood to help incoming industry. I would make it a condition that, leaving outside the interest charges, the other houses should be let at economic rents to the industrialists concerned who could make what arrangements they cared to with their workpeople. The Scottish Special Housing Association, having erected the houses, would let them at an economic rent.
  Mr. Bence: The hon. Gentleman has suggested, in my view rightly, that in a crash programme it would be a good idea for nominal rates of interest to be charged. Would he agree to a crash programme on slum clearance on the same basis?
  Sir C. Thornton-Kemsley: I would not want to give a snap answer to that question. There is an enormous priority in Scotland now for getting the kind of industrial development which is represented by the B.M.C. at Bathgate and by Pressed Steel and Rootes at Linwood. It is so essential that we should have these points of growth that we should go a long way to make special arrangements in such cases. I do not know whether it should be extended later.
  Mr. Dempsey: When speaking of building houses for industrial workers at economic rents the hon. Gentleman used the words"leaving outside interest charges". What does he mean by that phrase in the context of building houses for industrial workers at economic rents?
  Sir C. Thornton-Kemsley: I think I can explain that. One of the items in the cost of housing development is interest on capital. If the Treasury were to advance the necessary capital to the Scottish Special Housing Association, or to whatever agency is chosen to carry out this crash programme for incoming industrialists, I think that the Treasury should do so without interest. Therefore, an interest charge would not form a feature of the economic cost of the house. Apart from that, the costs of materials and labour and construction costs would be added together and the firm concerned would be asked to pay an economic rent, leaving it to make whatever arrangement it wanted to with its employees who would occupy the houses as tenants.
  Mr. Ross: What is an economic rent?
  Sir C. Thornton-Kemsley: It is rent representing a fair income on the capital expended on the building of the house. It may well be that this sort of thing is being done at present, but I put it forward for consideration in the hope that it will be examined closely.
  I have spoken about a crash programme. When anyone talking about houses talks about a crash programme,

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  others inevitably begin to shudder and think,"My goodness, houses like boxes run up at any price, with speed the all-important thing and with no attention to design". In our last debate there was some criticism of the Report of the Scottish Development Department. I thought that that criticism was unjustified. That Report has much to do with housing and it therefore will not be out of order for me to say that it is a good Report—I hope I do not sound presumptious. I do not think it fair that the only mention of the Report should be the criticisms which were made last time. I have derived a great deal of pleasure from studying it and also a great deal of value. I like the way it is set out. It is factual and helpful.
  I am disappointed that nowhere in the Report is there any mention that I can find about the importance of design of houses. Yet we are being asked in Scotland, even with the comparatively few houses we are erecting, to spoil Scotland with houses of bad or indifferent design. Good housing estates are few and far between. It is a great joy to see an estate where the houses have been well laid out, with little bits of green in front and with trees planted. Such estates are an attractive sight. This is of immense importance. I hope that my hon. Friend can assure us that his people are thinking about this. We want more rich men to make awards for good designs to young Scottish architects. This is being done. Let us encourage the young architect. Let us do all we can to get him to produce a house of good design. I would not say that I would rather have a few houses of good design than a mass of houses like boxes without any character. That would not be right, because we must have more houses. It is important that, in addition to having more houses, they should be well designed and attractive to look at.
  I think that the Department has done well. I do not think that it is complacent. I am sure that none of us on this side is complacent. I hope that we shall press on to meet the enormous housing needs in Scotland.
  6.47 p.m.
  Mr. James Dempsey: I have listened to most of the speeches which have been made today
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  and I am fascinated by the different approaches to housing development in Scotland which have been forthcoming. What intrigues me is that on the question of housing we are immediately involved in housing finance. Hon. Members opposite have argued that it is possible to build houses for certain key workers without interest charges; in other words, that some subsidy from some unknown source should be used to subsidise the industrialists. From time to time we are told in other debates that money must be found to subsidise farmers.
  When we discuss financing these services we never hear any reference to means being taken into account before the subsidies can be given. This intrigues me. The Under-Secretary has made it abundantly clear that there is no subsidy for a tenant in Scotland who earns £15 or more a week. He goes further and says,"We accept the fact that everybody in Scotland has an average of £15, and in these circumstances we believe that a subsidy should not operate".
  This is a contradiction in terms—a means test for council tenants, but no means test for industrial executives or for farmers. This clearly indicates that the Government are thinking in terms of class. They are motivated by class loyalties, class interests, and class felicitations. In Lanarkshire, particularly in Coatbridge and Airdrie which I represent, the bulk of council tenants do not have £15 a week. A very large proportion do not have £10 a week. It is absurd to talk about imposing certain rentals on a community on the basis of an average wage which statisticians have worked out when the people do not have such an average wage.
  If we are to tackle this problem let us do it realistically and responsibly. I listened to the argument of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. J. Henderson). He, like others, seemed to get inveigled into making comparisons between house production under one Government and another, when we know that that will in no way solve the housing crisis in Scotland. If the hon. Member had had some experience of housing administration, he would not have made such a stupid speech.
  I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. McInnes)

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  and I are the only two hon. Members who have so far spoken who served on housing committees during the trying years immediately after the last war. Then we could not get timber for timber flooring. We had to be content with stone floors. Sweden could not export timber to this country because we could not export coal to Sweden. We had to go back to the archaic days of stone floors because of the export problem and the balance of payments problem. We tried, for example, for many years a simple gadget to cement steel window frames to timber window frames, to stop condensation running down the walls of houses, but we could not get any timber because of the export-import balance of payments problem. We were compelled to have steel window frames, which are bad condensers and cause continual deterioration in the standard of a house. I mention those two points to illustrate that it is nonsensical to try to make a comparison between the immediate post-war years and the 'fifties because there is no relative basis for such a comparison.
  Mr. J. Bennett:I would draw attention to the fact that we still have stone floors, not because of the lack of timber but to keep out the many varieties of vermin that exist in some of the cesspits that are called housing areas.
  Mr. Dempsey: My hon. Friend reinforces some of the views which I have expressed and mentions some of the experiences to which I want to refer subsequently.
  The situation in Scotland is well known to us all. What surprises me is that in this debate we have had no illustration of the conditions under which decent people in Scotland are expected to live in a dignified fashion. I heard the Secretary of State for Scotland, and he was"woe-woeing" the fact that the public are no longer interested in local elections. He said that we could not get them to attend meetings. They did not come along to the polling stations to record their choice of candidate. The amount of apathy is indescribable. If he will come to Coatbridge I can give him the guarantee that I will pack the largest hall in Coatbridge on the subject of housing. The housing conditions there are beyond imagination in a town which is almost a suburb of Glasgow City.
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  A week last Sunday some of us met a packed audience of tenants complaining about the deplorable conditions under which they live; the almost indescribable conditions under which men, women and children do not live but only exist at the present time. There is no question of amenities. There are no facilities such as hot water. Baths do not exist in this part of the country. Indeed, in many cases they do not have the simple facility of toilets. They are using public toilets which are locked at 10 p.m., and what happens between then and 10 the next morning is nobody's business.
  Mr. F. J. P. Lilley: The hon. Gentleman is interested in the people who are living in slum houses, but is he also interested in the fact that the City of Glasgow is paying £3½ million insubsidies? There are in my constituency the same living conditions that he is talking about, and the council pays subsidies for corporation houses. Do they do the same in Coatbridge?
  Mr. Dempsey: I am dealing with housing conditions, and I shall deal with the question of subsidies in due course. I think that the hon. Gentleman should first of all to get the ordinary decencies of life into our houses before he starts to wail about any financial imposition.
  I was interested when the hon. Member opposite talked about how many slums have been demolished, but who built the slums?—the landlords. And who represented them?—the party opposite. They were the most undignified hovels that human beings could be expected to live in. We have these slums. Only recently I was compelled to make an arrangement whereby the males who lived in a property had to walk a quarter of a mile to use the public convenience, so that expectant mothers were able to use the toilets in a public building. That is the state of affairs that exists in Scotland today, and with which we should be dealing; not this"waffle-waffle" and supercilious attitude adopted by hon. Members opposite towards this vexed problem of housing.
  In answer to a Question which I tabled the Minister said that there were 71,784 single apartments—we call them in Scotland"single ends"—occupied by

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  families of between two and ten people. This is a statement of fact on housing conditions in Scotland. He said that there were 361,433 two-apartment houses in Scotland, occupied by families, many of which had no facilities. Later he added that there were 416,167 houses where all the families shared toilet facilities. Here we have the real tragedy of Scottish housing revealed in stark-naked terms. What do the Government propose to do about this situation? What are their intentions? When we look at their record of achievement it is surprising. I am concerned with the fact that the local authorities build houses for those who need them most in the community, and allocate them on the basis of regulations laid down for that purpose. The local authority rate of house completion over the past few years speaks for itself. According to the housing summary issued by the Secretary of State it reveals, for example, that in 1957 we were completing 24,239 houses a year. But by 1962 that number had gone down to 16,245. Last year we were completing two-thirds of the number being built in 1957. Instead of this we should have been increasing the number of houses built because of the desperate needs of Scotland.
  I am concerned at the lack of sincerity on the part of the Government to get ahead with the housing drive. This concern is bound to arise when this sort of thing happens in Coatbridge. The local authority decided to acquire a site called Blairhill. While the council was in the process of acquiring it certain objections were lodged. The local authority held a public inquiry at a cost to public funds, which lasted for three days and the Secretary of State sent his own commissioner to the town to preside over it. In due course the commissioner recommended that the land should be given to the town council for municipal housing purposes.
  The Secretary of State—and I am referring to the present right hon. Gentleman'spredecessor—rejected the quasi-judicial findings of his commissioner and handed over the land to private enterprise for speculative house building. The only reason for the right hon. Gentleman deciding to do that must have been the strong connections between the firm in question and the Scottish
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  Tory Party, for the managing director of the firm is a leading light in that party. This example clearly shows how loyalties are devoted to the Tory Party and not to the people of Coat bridge, who are badly in need of houses. Examples like this have been given time and again in the House."Party before nation" is the attitude of hon. Members opposite, and it is to be regretted.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Bridgeton (Mr. J. Bennett) referred to vermin control. Scarcely a month goes by in which I do not receive at my public advice bureau in my constituency a jam jar containing snails cockroaches or other insects which have been breeding in someone's home. This is added reason why the Government should take courage and get down to the task of treating house building as a military operation.
  We have listened to all sorts of arguments, excuses and attempts by hon. Members opposite to justify Government policy on housing, but at the root of the matter lies the high rate of interest, for which the Government must be held responsible. Until they slash interest rates the difficulties confronting local authorities will continue to increase. Cheap money should be made available, because this is the only way to rid Britain of the evils of bad and inadequate housing.
  What beats me is why, since the banks pay such a low rate of interest, equally low rates should not be charged to those borrowing money for municipal house building. The trouble is that the will is not there and the Government have forgotten the motto,"Where there's a will there's a way". I hope that the Secretary of State will increase the Scottish house building drive and will accompany that increase with an aptitude for flexibility. He should bear in mind particularly the housing schemes and estates of the poorer local authorities.
  I urge the right hon. Gentleman to have more flexibility, because it is relatively easy, when going through almost any area, to point to council estates as distinct from private developments. I have travelled the length and breadth of Lanarkshire, Glasgow and elsewhere and I have been able to see at a glance which are council houses and which are not.

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  The hallmark of the Scottish Development Department is there. Why cannot we have more flexibility in the design of council houses?
  If I were an architect the very last organisation I would join would be the local authority service. Due to financial restrictions and Government interference the style, inclination and interest of the young architect is muzzled from its infancy in the architect's department of a local atuhority. I urge the Secretary of State to allow local authorities to make it possible for enterprising architects to use imaginative designs. Need we always have brick and cement frontages? Why cannot we have stone frontages with long, terraced blocks interspersed with nice three-or four-apartment cottage type houses?
  I have listened to the arguments adduced by hon. Members opposite about the money spent in subsidising council tenants. Are they not aware that the owner-occupied bungalows and other residences are subsidised by council tenants? Unfortunately council tenants have no voice of their own. I am not demanding that they should have. I am merely pointing out that they cannot frequently say,"We are also contributing in rates". I could give examples of owner-occupiers with three or four children at school and municipal tenants with no children. In such cases the municipal tenants are paying the education rate for the area. People who live in municipal houses must pay the necessary rates to cover the fire brigade, police force and other services which serve both owner-occupier and council tenant alike.
  Mr. J. A. Stodart: The hon. Member has spoken of his travels through Lanarkshire, Glasgow and elsewhere. Has he ever gone further afield, into the Highlands, and seen the council houses that have been built there; houses which offer almost everything he desires to see in corporation houses in his area? If he travels further afield he will see attractive, individual, grey-slated houses which more than match up to the description of the buildings he wants to see.
  Mr. Dempsey: If that is so it proves that Tory hon. Members and their areas are getting preferential treatment. The
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  hon. Gentleman's remarks certainly do not apply in the west of Scotland. If he comes to the premier county of Lanarkshire I will show him the sort of houses I have been discussing.
  Mr. Willis: My hon. Friend must admit that Midlothian is the premier county.
  Mr. Dempsey: I am always guided by that great Scottish patriot William Wallace, who came from Lanarkshire—the premier county. I understand that Lanarkshire, as an authority, is second only in size to Glasgow. Because of its agricultural and industrial combination it would seem convenient to describe it as the premier county. However, in doing so I do not wish to be offensive to any other county in Scotland. Whatever may be said on this score, why should the Government not do something for all Scottish local authorities? It is difficult for anyone to speak at a public meeting at Coatbridge or Airdrie and try to justify the low measure of house building. This is especially so when we have a first-class house prefabricating factory standing partly idle in the area. In what is one of the most consistently high unemployment areas in Scotland we have a factory that is not being used to its full capacity.
  The time has come for the Secretary of State to come down from national level to local level. Why does he not meet these local authorities on a country basis? Why does he not spend a day during the Summer Recess in Lanarkshire, meeting members of the county and town councils? They would show him an up-to-date factory that could manufacture houses, if only he would give the word. That can be done if he is willing to bend his energies to utilise all the services available to double and treble the output of houses.
  I have been reading the Conservative Party's policy statement—
  Mr. Ross: My hon. Friend is a glutton for punishment.
  Mr. Dempsey: I am a very tolerant democrat—and in Lanarkshire a democrat is usually described as a person who is fair but biased.
  I looked at the Tory Party policy, because we all know that there is an election impending. I cannot understand

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  why the Tories cannot build these houses when they are in power. Why should they wait until there has been a General Election? If there was the will, we could build many more houses than are now being built, but the will is not in the present Government.
  There are nearly 10,000 unemployed people in Lanarkshire, and, excluding the winter, we had several hundred building craftsmen registering at the labour exchanges. If hon. Members doubt that statement, let them refer to the reply given by the Minister of Labour to a Parliamentary Question I put to him. The labour is there, and there are factories equipped to produce two or three times the number of houses at present being built. It is a paradox, if ever there was one—the labour and the equipment are there, yet people have to live in such intolerable housing conditions. The means are there, but they are not being used to provide the houses so badly needed.
  It is time the Secretary of State spoke to the Government. He should roll up his sleeves at the next Cabinet meeting, and tell his colleagues quite frankly,"Scotland must have a proper share of the kitty. We must build houses there, and attract jobs there, and ensure that this bogy of bad housing is laid once and for all." That can be done only by a dynamic approach to the problem. That is why, as a broad-minded democrat, I hope that it will be done after the next election, when we have a Labour Government.
  7.13 p.m.
  Sir John Gilmour: The hon. Member for Coatbridge and Airdrie (Mr. Dempsey) would be deluding his constituents if he let them think that it would be easy to build at two or three times the present rate. That is not so. For the last two or three years we have been fluctuating between 26,000 and 28,000 houses a year—
  Mr. Willis: Far too few.
  Sir J. Gilmour: That may be true, but when the Scottish Grand Committee recently debated education we were told that although new schools were wanted there was a shortage of the people needed to build them.
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  The White Paper set a national target of 350,000 houses, and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary today mentioned 35,000 houses for Scotland. That is a good practical increase on the present building rate, but we would delude ourselves if we thought that we could suddenly jump to something better. On the other hand, I find it difficult to believe that over a period of years we should be satisfied that that is the best we can attain. When, in the past, we have considered all the clearance of old property that is necessary, the increase in the number of families, longer life, and so on, the tendency has always been to underestimate the difficulties we face. For instance, we thought that the school bulge would pass, but as circumstances have changed we have found that the numbers have tended to grow.
  The figure mentioned as the immediate target may be possible and practicable, but it will not be easy of attainment. Only two weeks ago, when my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State was talking about retraining people for the building industry, an hon. Member opposite said that it had not yet been possible to reach agreement with the trade unions to enable extra labour to come into building.
  I recently made inquiries in my own county of Fife to discover in regard to the school building programme what the unemployment figures were. I was told that 813 workers in the construction industry were then unemployed, but that only 62, including 12 electricians, were skilled, and that there were 21 skilled vacancies outstanding. That meant that in Fife there was a net pool of only about 40 skilled people. At the same time, we have an enormous power station to build, with all the ancillary works.
  I therefore repeat that we would be deluding both ourselves and our constituents if we thought that we could suddenly jump from the present 27,000 to 30,000 houses to about 35,000 houses. Nevertheless, we should not be prepared to rest at 35,000, because from what several hon. Members have said today there is an obvious need for the target to be increased to between 40,000 and 42,000. I hope, therefore, that when my right hon. Friend is going into the commitments outlined in paragraphs 19 and 20 of the White Paper he will, while realising that we cannot overload the

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  building machine, make certain that because of Scotland's particular needs our share of the 350,000 houses should not be a static but an increasing one. That is particularly so because of our need to stop the drift to the South that we have experienced in the past. The congestion down here reinforces the argument that, from a national point of view, the money would be better spent on better distribution of population than on piling people practically on top of each other in one place.
  Some hon. Members tend to underestimate the life of a house. I have heard people say that once a house is 60 year, old it is finished and done with. I must here declare an interest because, as the owner of houses, I have drawn grants from the Fife County Council to improve a number of houses. I still have one or two more to improve, for which I hope to draw the appropriate grant—[An Hon. Member:"No means test."] No, but if I had not done that work, an enormous extra burden would have been thrown on the Exchequer. I have paid at least two-thirds of the cost out of my own resources, and have thereby saved the taxpayers a great deal of money that they would otherwise have had to find.
  The hon. Member for Coatbridge and Airdrie will find in paragraphs 55and 56 of the White Paper very adventurous provisions for so improving existing houses as to prolong their life for the next ten or fifteen years while other houses are being built. I welcome those provisions, and hope that good use will be made of them, but it will need whole-hearted co-operation amongst private individuals and local authorities.
  The other thing which I think my right hon. Friend will probably have difficulty in achieving and which will require a special effort is the provision outlined in paragraph 35 for housing societies and for getting houses built for technicians and people like those in my constituency where new staff is required at the St. Andrews University. This is a new venture for Scotland which will require a special measure of publicity and drive if it is to achieve success.
  The Committee has touched on many aspects of the housing problem, but basically it is one of marshalling our resources and allocating the right priorities to them. It is easy to argue that there are too many
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  office buildings, but if we do not have a thriving economy we cannot have the money with which to build the houses. Basically it is houses that make the type and character of the people who do the jobs. Therefore, when my right hon. Friend allocates money to different things we have the right to ask that housing should have one of the highest priorities.
  It is easy to be carried away and to say what can be done and has been done by way of building factories, but basically it is homes that build the character of the people. I ask my right hon. Friend in the months that lie ahead to ensure that in the implementation of a housing policy, which has in it a great deal of what is needed to be done, housing really will take first place in these priorities.
  7.22 p.m.
  Mr. James Bennett: I am grateful for the opportunity of making a few comments in the debate, though I confess that the longer the debate goes on the more difficult it becomes to add anything new, other than to touch on experience in one's own area. It is recognised by all hon. Members that Scottish Members approach this problem with a sense of great frustration. This applies to Scottish Members in general and to Glasgow Members in particular.
  I have listened to my hon. Friends building up a strong indictment against the efforts of the Government in the past to meet the slum problem. I know full well that hon. Member opposite have built an equally imposing case and have thought out equally imposing figures to indicate how well they have tackled the job. I represent an industrial area, and I say without any boast or pride that it has some of the worst housing conditions in Glasgow. Statistics do not mean a damn in the face of the problem which exists in that area, and the statistics which we have been given as this evening has progressed are cold comfort to those who are living in overcrowded conditions or are homeless.
  We must recognise that slums are not a diminishing but a growing problem in Glasgow. Houses which were habitable a year ago are now slums. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. McInnes) gave figures indicating the present position. I have been reading a speech which I made in November, 1961. It is a quite edifying

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  experience to read one's own speeches. Either the HANSARD reporters should have the credit for doing a good job on that occasion or I was much better than I thought I was.
  The striking feature of that speech was that I quoted certain figures, yet in March of this year, according to figures obtained from the City Factor's Department in Glasgow, there is now hardly any difference in approach from what it was in 1961. This would almost indicate that nothing happened between 1961 and 1963. In fact, 5,000 houses were either closed or demolished during that period. Yet the figures for houses in a slum condition in 1961 still apply in 1963. We are, therefore, not even keeping pace with the slum problem in the programme outlined in the White Paper. The rate of decay far outpaces the present rate of building.
  On Tuesday of this week we debated in the Scottish Grand Committee the 1962 Report on Health and Welfare Services in Scotland. There is one small paragraph in that report which attracted no comment. It was never mentioned or questioned. I have tremendous admiration for the skill of whoever wrote that paragraph. Headed"Dysentery", it reads:
  "No outstanding success can be recorded in the attempts to control this most prevalent of acute infections. If anything, the situation…has become slightly worse."
  "No outstanding success" is a beautiful play on words. It means, of course,"utter failure must be recorded".
  This failure arises from the atrocious conditions in certain areas of Glasgow. The fact that there has not been an even greater incidence of dysentery is not due to any effort on the part of the Government to keep it down. It is due to the tremendous attempts made by local authorities to provide such amenities as they can.
  I well remember a debate on the Scottish housing Act which laid down certain conditions under which houses must be classified as unfit and action taken. If one were cynical enough one would smile at that provision in the Act. I can say quite sincerely that not merely one of these conditions but all of them exist in all of the houses in my area.
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  The White Paper states that no restriction is being placed on the number of houses which local authorities can build each year for families in unfit houses. Of course, the Government are not placing any restrictions, but the medical services of the local authorities simply cannot and will not close houses which are unfit for human habitation, because there is no other accommodation available. We therefore passively acquiesce in the continuation of a slum because of some failure somewhere to provide other accommodation to which people can be moved away from such conditions.
  The longer we tolerate these conditions the longer will the remarks which I made in 1961 continue to apply. I said then that conditions which existed not merely in Glasgow but in the other major cities of Scotland were a standing reproach to ourselves and an affront to decency. The only addition I would make to that remark today is that the reproach and the affront are even greater today.
  Even if we can prove to ourselves statistically that much has been done, if we can only face the fact that the slums are worse and can find some method by which land can be made more easily available to local authorities on which they can build, then possibly some day we shall make some real progress in clearing slumdom. But I see nothing in the White Paper or in legislation up to date which will lessen the slum problem. It is a simple matter to condemn the Government for their lack of action, but it is no satisfaction to do that if at the end of the day we cannot make some contribution which will result in an improvement.
  We must look at the problem with a greater sense of reality. I confess that many debates in this place, even the one today, seem to take place in an atmosphere of unreality. One has the impression that they have become an academic exercise. One feels that the theme running through them is,"Anything you can do, I can do better". Let us never forget that, at the end of it all, there are a great many of our people living in conditions which are completely subnormal. They live there because we allow them to do so. They live there because we have neither the wit nor the enthusiasm to do anything about it.

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  We are prepared to pay lip-service to ideas for great improvements, and, God knows, we have been doing it for many years, but, just so long as we continue to pay lip-service only, we accept the squalor and the atrocious conditions in which people have to live. This is our responsibility, and the sooner we face it as a House of Commons and as a Government, the greater will be the chance of survival for the people about whom we are supposed to be concerned.
  7.31 p.m.
  Mr. J. A. Stodart: I hope that the hon. Member for Glasgow, Bridgeton (Mr. J. Bennett) will believe me when I tell him that his words will again read splendidly in HANSARD. I congratulate him on his speech. I venture to make only one comment, that I hope that he will never be the victim of having his words in the House recorded and broadcast, because one's voice always sounds absolutely terrible when listened to. The words read excellently, but they sound quite ghastly.
  During the debate there has been a fair amount of emphasis on the financing of the housing programme, and this is not surprising. It was referred to by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State in his speech, and it formed almost the culminating subject of the White Paper, paragraphs 73 to 75 of which, if I may paraphrase them, said that we must face the cost of housing and that the householder must be prepared, where he is able to do so, to meet the cost of his house.
  It is fair to say that hon. Members opposite have on frequent occasions said that they do not support a policy of low rents. I well remember the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) making a speech to that effect at a public meeting in the west of Scotland. I looked up what I thought was a very good speech made by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. McInnes) in Committee in 1961 when he used almost exactly similar words. It is not unfair to say, however, that hon. Members opposite have never shown themselves particularly enthusiastic about getting the rents up when we have debated the subject here.
  Mr. McInnes indicated dissent.
  Mr. Dempsey: It is getting the houses up that matters.
  Mr. Stodart: The hon. Member for Glasgow, Central shakes his head with some vehemence. Perhaps he agrees with the objective of having reasonable rents rather than low rents but he does not like the method of achieving it. This may be so, but he is on record, with others of his hon. Friends, as saying that he does not approve of a low rent policy.
  I say bluntly that rents in Scotland are low by two standards. The first standard is this. Taking real values, rents are a long way below what was paid in 1938. In 1938 a resident in a local authority house in Aberdeen was paying 6s. 4d. a week. This is equivalent to 18s. 11d. today. The actual average rent in Aberdeen today is 10s. 11d. In Edinburgh, the average rent in 1938was 6s. 8d. This is equivalent to 19s. 11d. today, allowing for the change in the value of money. The actual average in Edinburgh at present is 14s. 3d.
  The second standard by which I judge the low level of rents follows automatically from the first. I refer to the proportion of income paid out in rent. This has dropped sharply from 7·2 per cent. in 1938 to 3·3 per cent. today. There are, I know, disagreements about exactly what average earnings in Scotland are. The figure is difficult to get at. But, even allowing for this, it is safe to conclude that there is about a 50 per cent. difference between the pre-war proportion of income paid in rent and the present one.
  In passing, on the subject of what is a fair proportion, it is worth noting that the local authority for the district in which this Palace stands, the Council of the City of Westminster, expects tenants under its council house scheme to pay 14 per cent. of their income in rent. I merely mention that in passing, and I go on to say that if 7 per cent. is a fair proportion one can draw certain conclusions from the present level of earnings in Scotland. Certain figures have been agreed by hon. Members opposite as possibly correct. The hon. Member for Paisley (Mr. J. Robertson) said that he thought that the figure was about £12. Seven per cent. of £12 would be 16s. 8d. Therefore, even holding the situation as it was previously, there is sound reason for saying that rents ought to rise.

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  It is, however, no use talking in averages.
  Mr. Willis: That is what the hon. Gentleman has been doing.
  Mr. Stodart: I ask the hon. Gentleman to be patient. I know that he tries his best, though without much apparent success.
  Mr. Willis: It is very difficult to be patient when the hon. Gentleman is speaking.
  Mr. Stodart: The hon. Member for Edinburgh, East may be glad to know that we are perpetually being patient with him.
  This is the question we must face. How can one discriminate fairly between tenants who can afford to pay more and those who cannot? I put on record, not for the first time, that I have absolutely no desire to inflict higher rents on those who cannot afford to pay. But I am anxious that those who earn substantially more should pay more rent or have the alternative of moving out into a house which is not subsidised out of public funds.
  Mr. William Hamilton: The hon. Gentleman is a farmer.
  Mr. Stodart: I notice the hon. Member for Fife, West (Mr. W. Hamilton) moving in on this, but I am certain that I should go far out of order if I were to do more than say that he knows perfectly well that farming subsidies are quite different. They are there, as the hon. Gentleman found out for himself the other day, to keep down the price of food. I well remember the passage of arms that we had in which he admitted that if they disappeared, the cost of food would go up.
  We must get this matter into as true a perspective as we can. I do not set much store by the headline stories which now and again appear about council houses being something like a Millionaires' Row, people dying and leaving £260,000 after having lived in a council house all their life. This happens—obviously, if the Daily Express says it happens, it must happen—but it hits the headlines to such an extent that, clearly, it is a most unusual occurrence. Consequently, in trying to find an answer to this problem, we should not overplay that aspect.
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  On the other hand, it is unfair that a household into which, let us say for the sake of argument, £20 a week plus is coming—and that requires only three or possibly even two earners in the household—should pay the same rent as a household which has an income of only single figures. It is worth while asking ourselves seriously whether it is possible to achieve equity in this field. It seems to me that there is certainly the possibility of having either a rents rebate scheme or a differential rents scheme run by a local authority, but I have two objections to this sort of thing. One is the difficulty of achieving equity.
  Perhaps I might quote as an example the rents rebate scheme run by the City of Edinburgh. It is admirable in intention, but I do not think it operates fairly. It adds 5s. a week in respect of every additional wage earner within the household drawing more than £4 a week. That means that one man who may be earning £22 a week pays less rent than a man earning £10 who has a son and a daughter each earning £5 a week, thus bringing into the household £20 a week altogether. Consequently, I do not think it is an equitable scheme.
  As to the second thing about these schemes which I do not like, I myself have the strongest objection to disclosing details of my income other than to the Inland Revenue. I absolutely sympathise with anyone who takes exception to filling in details of his personal and private income over the counter at the council chamber. The only people who could operate with real equity a system of rents tied to income would be the Inland Revenue.
  Mr. Willis:I am very interested in this argument about having rent rebates or differential rates based on the income of the householder. But the person who is buying a house is also very heavily subsidised through the tax reliefs which he gets on his mortgage. Is the hon. Gentleman prepared to apply the same principle to those people, who are, by and large, rather better off than council house tenants?
  Mr. Stodart: It is difficult to try to give completely off-the-cuff answers in the middle of an argument. I accept that this is a serious matter, and I do not

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  think that serious matters should be answered glibly and without thought or consideraiton.
  Mr. Willis: In so far as tax relief is given, the bigger the house that one buys and the bigger the mortgage, the bigger is the subsidy.
  Mr. Bence: And the bigger the income.
  Mr. Stodart: Perhaps I might now try to get back to my chain of argument, which has been almost completely destroyed. I was saying that the only people who could operate the scheme in such a way that it would achieve equity and confidence would be the Inland Revenue. However much we dislike the Edinburgh eighth district or the Kirkcaldy second district, or wherever the hon. Gentleman pays his Income Tax, if he does, I think I can say that we find the Inland Revenue fair to deal with.
  I wonder very much whether my hon. Friend remembers an article which appeared in the Scotsman in February last year giving ideas for tying up the rents of local authority houses with Pay-as-you-earn. The broad idea was that the Inland Revenue, through employers, should collect rents and pass them on to local authorities twice a year or so. Everybody in a local authority house would be re-coded, and the scheme would be operated as the pay-as-you-earn scheme is. The only business which persons occupying local authority houses would require to do at the city chambers would be to write on a form their Income Tax reference number and those of all other members of their family who were earning. They would merely fill in, say,"Mr. John Smith, reference No. A/1234/XY". It would then be intimated to the Inland Revenue that that individual was in a local authority house, and the Inland Revenue would do the rest.
  Mr. Bence: I am very interested in the proposal to link this with the Inland Revenue and pay-as-you-earn taxation. Would the hon. Gentleman agree to the application to the rents scheme of the method now employed by the Inland Revenue whereby if a man paying P.A.Y.E. loses his job in December and is unemployed until 5th April, he gradually gets a rebate of the Income Tax which has been deducted from his earlier earnings?
  Mr. Stodart: I do not want to weary the Committee with the details of this scheme. If the hon. Gentleman is interested, he can easily obtain particulars about it. The idea has the backing of, among others, a lecturer in social and economic research at Glasgow University. I believe that this is no more revolutionary an idea than P.A.Y.E. appeared to be when it was first suggested. I am certain that numerous people said"This cannot be done. It is an absurd idea". I have no doubt whatever that the Treasury, with its traditional reluctance, said that such a scheme would be impossible. Nevertheless, I ask my hon. Friend to look at the papers, which I shall be delighted to send him. A considerable amount of correspondence ensued about this, and certainly no insuperable objections were advanced.
  I have two minor points to put in conclusion. First, does my right hon. Friend think that the value of improvement grants is sufficiently appreciated in doing up old derelict properties? A grant is an enormous advantage not only to the person who collects it but to the local authority itself. One example I know well is that of an old and completely derelict house whose owner paid £5 in rates. There was no water, electricity or any other amenity. The local authority made an improvement grant of £400, and when the job was done, 18 months later, the rates became £60—and that was before revaluation took place. That was a very good investment for the local authority and it will quickly get its £400 back.
  I think that we have our sense of values wrong. For instance, it is absurd that one can get a 33⅓ per cent. grant to put up a farm building to house cows and pigs but that there is no grant available, other than through the hill sheep scheme—which is to come to an end anyway—for cottages for farm workers. Either the farm improvements scheme for cattle units and pig houses should be abolished, which would be a tragedy, or farm cottages should be brought in under the scheme for these improvement grants.
  7.51 p.m.
  Mr. Harry Gourlay: I do not propose to follow the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Stodart) in a detailed examination of

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  rent rebate schemes. However, I have read something about the idea of relating rent to P.A.Y.E. There are quite a number of objections, however, because to some extent a local authority has to be able to ascertain in advance exactly what its income is likely to be over the following year.
  It seems rather odd in some ways to hear the hon. Member, who is a farmer, indicating that the public purse should be protected by municipal tenants paying higher rents, because no evidence has been adduced that affluent farmers refuse to dip into the public purse themselves. The hon. Member did what most hon. Members opposite do when discussing this subject. He dealt with only part of the housing liability of a tenant. He made no mention of the rate liability. Surely, when one rents a house one pays not only the rent but the weekly portion of rates, and both should be taken into account as the proportion of average weekly earnings spent on the house.
  Mr. Stodart: I do not agree, for that is confusing the issue. The hon. Member is adding something which has no part in the housing costs. The rates keep services like the police, street cleaning and education going. To include the rates as he does is concealing the true cost of housing.
  Mr. Gourlay: The hon. Gentleman does not understand local government finance sufficiently to appreciate that a very large part of the rate-borne expenditure covers local authority subsidies to housing and also the loan charges. Thus, the total amount of money a tenant pays in rent and rates is the figure which should be related to his total outlay.
  We are often told that the municipal tenant in Scotland pays a much lower rent than his opposite number in England But, on comparing a tenant's outlay in England with the outlay of a tenant in Scotland, we find that there is not nearly as big a difference between the two as hon. Members opposite try to indicate. The hon. Member quoted figures about higher pre-war rents. If we compare pre-war and post-war rents and rates, however, we find that the tenant is now paying a substantially higher proportion of his wages on rent and rates than he was pre-war.
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  The hon. Member tried to sustain the Government's building programme by saying that they had to consider the various aspects of the building industry. He said that we could not overload the industry. But surely if the Government stopped the proliferation of petrol stations and many other unnecessary buildings we could build not only more houses but more schools and hospitals.
  Sir J. Gilmour:The hon. Gentleman entirely underestimates the problem. Refusing to build a few petrol stations will not make enough difference. In my county, where there is to be a new power station and new schools, unless we get industrial retraining and a largely increased labour force we have no hope of success.
  Mr. Gourlay: But it is not only petrol stations that are concerned. Many other types of building are quite unnecessary and they all have a big effect on the building industry.
  Sir J. Gilmour rose—
  Mr. Gourlay: I have already given way to the hon. Gentleman.
  Other hon. Members opposite have indicated that the record of the Labour Government after the war is ample justification for the record of the present Government from 1951 onwards. But one should compare like with like. No one could justly suggest that the conditions obtaining immediately after the worst world war could be compared with conditions between 1951 and 1963.
  Mr. John Brewis rose—
  Mr. Gourlay: I am sorry. I have given way enough already.
  This afternoon we heard from the Under-Secretary of State his usual words. But we did not hear from him about more houses. The records his Department has issued over the years have indicated a reduction in the annual number of houses provided. He said that higher rents would be one way of solving the problem of housing. This parrot cry we heard from the right hon. Member for Renfrew, West (Mr. Maclay) when he was Secretary of State. There is no evidence that those local authorities with high rents, such as Edinburgh and Dumfries-shire, are able to build more houses than other authorities.

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  Not long ago, when the Government were justifying the Rent Act, which enabled landlords in certain circumstances to raise rents to practically any level they wished without any difficulty, Lord Hill and the present Home Secretary said that the housing problem in the country was solved. Now the present Minister of Housing and Local Government, in association with the Secretary of State for Scotland, presents us with a White Paper indicating that the Government have suddenly realised that there is, after all, a housing problem. They seem to have made a discovery, and in this White Paper we are told that they are to step up the programme, but we are not told how.
  As some of my hon. Friends have said, this savours of approaching an election period. In answer to a Question about houses by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan), the former Secretary of State said:
  "…the number required to provide for population increases and increases in the number of households may be about 125,000. For replacement of existing houses about 175,000 may be needed, making a total of about 300,000 houses over the ten-year period."—[Official Report, 28th February, 1962; Vol. 654. c. 145.]
  That is an average of 30,000 houses a year. Today, the Under-Secretary said that the Government intended to build 35,000 houses a year, and that is another sign of approaching a General Election.
  The Government's housing performance has been miserable. Page 4 of the Housing Return, Scotland, 31st March, 1963, shows that the highest rate of building in Scotland since 1945 was in 1957, when local authority, Scottish Special Housing Association and privately built houses totalled 32,437. That figure has come down over the years, and in 1962 it fell to 26,761. But closer examination of the figures shows that the number of houses built by local authorities and the S.S.H.A. to rent was 28,924 in the first of those two years and only 18,977 in the latter year. In other words, at a time when more houses than ever have been needed, 10,000 fewer have been available to rent. That is the miserable record of the present Tory Government.
  Incidentally, this has been at a time when most other European countries have been building more houses per head
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  of the population than we have in Scotland. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. McInnes) said that in West Germany about 10·1 houses per 1,000 of the population were being built. It may be said that necessity was the major reason and that the bombing and devastation of Western Germany were the driving forces behind that high rate. But Sweden was not involved in war and the Swedes have been building at 9·8 houses per 1,000 of the population. Despite the urgent necessity with slum clearance and overcrowding, apart from the high marriage rate, in Scotland we have been building only at the rate of 5·3 houses per 1,000 population.
  Interrupting the Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) said that there was some dissatisfaction in the Bathgate area by B.M.C. about the provision of new houses for that industry. The Under-secretary said that he did not accept the statement. But that statement was made in the presence not only of my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian, but of Members from both sides of the House, including myself. I can assure the hon. Member that there is that dissatisfaction about the number of houses provided in that area.
  Mr. Dalyell:Would my hon. Friend confirm that, if there is a fault, it does not rest with the West Lothian County Council, which has been tearing out its proverbial hair to try to provide these houses?
  Mr. Gourlay:I agree. I am not apportioning blame to the West Lothian County Council. I understand that one authority, which may have a political colour different from West Lothian's, may be involved in the responsibility for the small number of houses being provided in the area.
  Mr. Stodart:As one who heard those words, too, may I ask the hon. Gentleman to confirm that the deputy chairman of B.M.C. was scrupulous to point out that he did not know and could not say where the fault lay?
  Mr. Gourlay: I am not suggesting that he did. He was merely indicating the problem. As public representatives—and some of us are members of local authorities as well—we know where the fault

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  lies. I do not entirely blame Bathgate Town Council. I blame the Government, because if they were in earnest about improving the Scottish economic position by encouraging industrialists to come to Scotland, they would give additional financial assistance to authorities in areas faced with additional building programmes, apart from the necessary programmes required for their own people. I ask the Secretary of State to have a much closer look at the problem, which, we hope, will arise in many other parts of Scotland in the not too distant future—if it does not, there is little hope of salvation for the 90,000 unemployed in Scotland.
  The Under-Secretary went on to talk about building techniques. In paragraph 47 of the White Paper we are told that a special effort has been made to increase housing output by encouraging co-operation among housing authorities and by the use of new building techniques. Paragraph 48 says that the Government will seek to secure a still faster way to progress in subsequent years. While I agree that new building techniques are needed, their lack is not the fundamental reason why we still have a housing shortage in Scotland. The fundamental reason is the lack of finance provided by the Government to assist local authorities to build houses. Although many Ministers have repeatedly denied the charge, we still repeat it, because it cannot be refuted.
  Some smaller authorities could be helped in ways other than improving building techniques. Some have development areas which they are anxious to clear and rebuild. For that they require some form of temporary housing for those who have to move from properties to be demolished and who are to return to the area later. Some authorities have applied for subsidies for these temporary houses. Burntisland is a case in point, but the right hon. Gentleman refused to give subsidy assistance or other help to Burntisland, which was particularly keen to speed up redevelopment of the town centre.
  When the Housing (Scotland) Act, 1962, was introduced, with the new subsidy structure, the then Under-Secretary said that the real purpose of the new subsidies was not to save money for the Government, but to maintain the normal
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  increase in the total amount of annual subsidies. Yesterday, I received a reply from the Secretary of State showing the total amount of subsidy paid in each year since 1958–59. We find that in the year 1959–60 there was an increase of £558,000 in the total amount of subsidy paid to Scottish local authorities. In the following year, 1960–61, the increase was £518,000. In 1961–62 the increase was £649,000. Then we come to the first year in which the 1962 Act was in operation. In 1962–63 the increase in the subsidy paid dropped to £306,000. Thus the point that we made in Committee when the Bill was going through the House, that the real intention behind the new subsidy structure was to save the Government money, has been borne out by the figures which the hon. Gentleman's Department issued only yesterday.
  Another answer which I received from the Secretary of State yesterday in reply to my question about the number of local authority houses which were in receipt of the various new rates of subsidy causes me to return to the point that the real intention of the Government was to save money, even though this was denied by the Ministers of the day. The figures show that 435 houses built by local authorities are in receipt of the £12 subsidy, which is £12 lower than the subsidy paid prior to the 1962 Act. Only 260 houses are in receipt of the £32 subsidy, which is £8 more than was paid prior to the 1962 Act. A simple arithmetical calculation shows that over the 60-year period of the subsidy on these houses the Government will make a net saving of £188,400.
  What interests me more than anything else is the fact that when the Bill was going through the House both the Secretary of State for Scotland and the Under-secretary, both in the House and in Committee, stressed the fact that the subsidy structure was being based on a method of assessing the needs and financial resources of the authorities, and that the authorities in the rural areas would receive a higher rate of subsidy, perhaps even as high as £56, but in the answer that I received not a single Scottish authority is shown to be in receipt of the higher rate of £56, which again illustrates the point that the Government introduced the new subsidy structure with a view to saving themselves money.

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  On the question of rents, the hon. Gentleman said that the average wage in Scotland was about £15 a week. I do not know where the figure came from. It might have come from some digest of statistics, but it is certainly not related to the position obtaining in my constituency and in many others in Scotland. In fact, within a week 750 of my constituents in the linoleum industry will be without a job. Over the years these men have earned nothing like £15 a week. Their basic wage is about £9 10s., and yet the hon. Gentleman says that we should have increased rents for municipal houses.
  The hon. Gentleman instanced that the average rent represented only 4 per cent. of wages earned. They may be 4 per cent. of £15, but if one takes the average rent in Kirkcaldy, one finds that it is a very much higher percentage of the normal wage which people receive in the linoleum industry, the coal industry, or in any of the ancilliary industries in the district. The Government have consistently refused to state what they consider to be a reasonable rent. They always shelter behind the assessors who have been appointed in various parts of Scotland to assess the value of various properties.
  The hon. Gentleman suggested this afternoon that the gross annual value of a local authority house should be regarded as a reasonable rent. In fact, he went further and said that it should be the gross annual value, or more. He was careful not to say less, and on this point perhaps I might quote some of the g.a.v. figures for Scottish local authority houses. Starting with the highest, in Dunfermline it is £55 per year. In Kirkcaldy it is £54. We then come down to some that are £47, some that are £44, and then to quite a number below the £40 mark. How does one get away with describing g.a.v. as a reasonable rent? Is £39 a year rent in Inverness a reasonable rent while one has to pay £54 in Kirkcaldy? Why the tremendous difference? The hon. Gentleman ought to come into the open and say specifically that it ought to be a percentage of the wage, or a specific figure, and not hide behind the assessors of Scotland who are charged with the duty of assessing the value of houses, and some of whom are not doing a very good job.
  Mr. Willis: In which areas?
  Mr. Gourlay: In Fife for one, and the county assessor knows it well enough. He knows my views on the subject.
  The hon. Gentleman went on to say that no one expects to gain popularity by increasing rents. This, of course, is true. But I do not think that any local councillors expect to gain popularity by increasing rates either. It is not true to say that members of local authorities deliberately suppress rents to gain popularity. This seems to be a popularly-held view among hon. Gentlemen opposite, but I do not think that it is one which reasonable and understanding people share.
  I think that most local authority representatives fairly face their responsibilities, only they consider the interpretation of those responsibilities in different ways. Some of them find it very difficult indeed to increase the cost of housing to the municipal tenant when they realise that millions of £s are taken from municipal tenants and ratepayers throughout Scotland every year to pay tribute money because of the exceptionally high interest rates which are being charged.
  The hon. Gentleman talked about subsidies and said that the Government's purpose in providing the increased subsidy of £32 and £56 was to help those local authorities in need of it. But in 1946 the overall subsidy for local authority houses was £26, and I am sure that if we relate £26 at that time to present-day values we shall find that both the £12 subsidy and the £32 subsidy fall far below the amount of Exchequer money which the Labour Government thought fit to give to local authorities to enable them to provide much-needed houses in Scotland.
  I was interested to see the housing return issued in March of this year, because I find that two boroughs in my constituency, Kinghorn and Burnt-island, have no houses under construction, yet I know from my mail that there are a number of people in those areas who are desperately in need of houses. It is not that there is no know-how in that part of the country, even before we come to the question of new

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  building techniques. The major reason why these two boroughs are not building houses is the inadequate subsidy which is being paid, and I hope that the Government will do something very soon—even before the election if they think that this will get them more votes—to increase the subsidies paid to local authorities.
  In Kinghorn there are houses under construction by private speculative builders for sale. Some of these houses have been standing empty for six to nine months despite the fact that people in the area are desperately in need of a house. In dealing with the problem of housing hon. Members opposite have said that if only we would increase the rents of municipal houses in Scotland we would solve the problem. To believethat a higher rent structure would be the salvation of Scotland's housing problem is to live in a world of fantasy.
  8.20 p.m.
  Mr. Forbes Hendry: I hope that the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy Burghs (Mr. Gourlay) will forgive me if I do not follow his arithmetical arguments. Enough has been said about rents. I want to take him up on the point he made about the number of houses being built in different places. It seems to me that his own burgh of Kirkcaldy has not done too badly. Mention hasbeen made of a figure of 10½ houses per 1,000 population in Germany, and on my calculations the burgh of Kirkcaldy has had under construction in the present year about eight houses per 1,000 population, which is a very commendable figure. It belies the argument that Kirkcaldy is suffering because of a lack of adequate subsidies.
  Mr. Gourlay:One of the reasons why Kirkcaldy has done very well is that it has had a Labour housing convener for many years. That is one of the major reasons.
  Mr. Hendry: Be that as it may, I congratulate Kirkcaldy on its success under the subsidies provided by the present Government.
  The housing problem in Scotland is still desperately bad, but Rome was not built in a day, and the Government have done pretty well, on the figures. Year
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  after year after year they have produced more houses than were produced by the Labour Government in the period 1945–51. In the years when the Labour Government were in power it was comparatively easy to build houses—[Interruption.]—because there were plenty of sites and it was merely a matter of going ahead and building. I know, because I was involved in building council houses at the time. It was comparatively easy.
  In this year of grace local authorities are up against all the difficulties of redeveloping central areas. The hon. Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. McInnes) knows that quite well. He knows what difficulties Glasgow Corporation is up against.
  Mr. McInnes: The hon. Member must be aware that two Government commissions, appointed in 1950–51 to go into the question of housing costs and housing production, conceded that the period 1945–51 was a difficult period, because we had to wait until the men were demobilised. There was a shortage of both building material and manpower. It was utterly impossible to build houses in those years.
  Mr. Hendry:It may have been a difficult period, but this is an even more difficult period. We are producing not only houses but hospitals, schools and what not.
  Mr. Willis:The hon. Member is forgetting that the Labour Government planned and made it possible for a Tory Government to build 39,000 houses per year. When Lord Strathclyde became Joint Under-Secretary he acknowledged that it was largely due to the planning of the Labour Government.
  Mr. Hendry:I did not want to be come involved in this long arithmetical argument. My experience is that the Labour Government set a target of 24,000 houses per year—
  Mr. Willis: They made it possible to build 30,000.
  Mr. Hendry:—and then rationed out those houses among the different local authorities and said,"That is your share. You will build those and no more." That is my experience. It is true that if a local authority got on

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  pretty quickly with its programme and then went to St. Andrews House it was often able to obtain authority to build more houses to the extent that another authority had fallen down on its job.
  But as soon as the Tory Government took over the situation changed. The Government said,"Right. You know how many houses you want and you know what the building industry in your area is capable of doing. Get ahead and build them." That is why, in their first year of office, the Conservative Government far surpassed anything that the Labour Government had done.
  Mr. Willis: Because the Labour Government had planned it.
  Mr. Hendry: From then we have gone on, year after year after year, not only producing a great number of houses but also more hospitals, schools and so on.
  Another side of the housing problem is slum clearance. It is easy to forget that under this Government, from the time their slum clearance drive started in 1955 to the end of 1962, no fewer than 79,679 slums were demolished or closed in Scotland. That is something of which this Government can rightly be proud. It is something that the Labour Government failed to do.
  The Government, in their housing reports—not only this housing report but the report of the Scottish Development Department—show that they are alive to the problem and are giving a great deal of thought to ways in which the situation can be improved. It is still bad because of a number of problems, of which the centre of Glasgow is one. There are still 50,000 slums in the centre of Glasgow, and the sooner they are cleared out of the centre and replaced by decent houses the better it will be, whether it is done under a Conservative or a Labour Government. I do not care which Government do it, but it must be done. This Government have given a great deal of thought to the problem, and I am sure that under them it will be dealt with in a short time. In my view, the present Government are the people who can obtain the quickest results.
  I have dealt with the arithmetical arguments at greater length than I intended. I now want to consider another aspect of the housing problem. In Scotland, with its heavy slum problem
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  and its shortage of housing accommodation, it is easy to regard housing as an end in itself and to divorce it entirely from all other considerations. I was therefore extremely glad when my right hon. Friend's predecessor decided to set up a Scottish Development Department to bring the problem of housing into proper focus, along with all the other developments that are now taking place in Scotland.
  I am extremely glad that my right hon. Friend has continued the process. He seems to have given a great deal of thought to co-ordinating the problem of housing with the other sides of development. That is obvious not only from the Report of the Scottish Development Department but in respect of certain other new concepts, which I welcome. In particular, I should like to draw attention to page 31 of the Scottish Development Department Report for 1962. In paragraph 15 the Department speaks about consortia of local authorities, and states that the Secretary of State felt that different local authorities—in the same area and probably having the same sort of problems—should co-operate one with another in order to see their housing problem not as individual authorities but as a combination of authorities in the same area, working out their overall needs and by that means producing greater efficiency and dealing with the problem as a whole in accordance with the needs of the area rather than with the needs of anyone local authority.
  That concept was carried further in the White Paper which my right hon. Friend produced the other day—The Modernisation of Local Government in Scotland. This is neither the time nor the place to discuss the various implications of the White Paper. It is rather like the curate's egg—good in parts—but one extremely interesting point is mentioned in paragraph 13, where my right hon. Friend points out that
  "A multiplicity of local boundaries—the corollary to a large number of authorities—may also affect adversely the rate at which a desirable development affecting more than one authority can be planned and executed."
  That is particularly true of housing, where a small local authority is not prepared to incur heavy capital expenditure and heavy rate expenditure, and I welcome this suggestion and congratulate my right hon. Friend upon it. I

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  see behind this the hand of the Parliamentary Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Mr. Leburn) who has had these ideas for a long time. He should be sharing my congratulations.
  Having referred to the necessity for local authorities getting together and regarding their areas as a single unit and developing it as such with the help they would get from the Government Departments, I wish to pass on to what is probably the greatest problem in Scotland—certainly the most spectacular—the problem of Glasgow. This enormous local authority is bursting at the seams. Over the years it has grown up higgledy-piggledy in a most dreadful way, especially in the centre. Its large population must be rehoused quickly. These people cannot be rehoused within the city. They must be found housing accommodation outside. Every hon. Member will agree that that is a crying necessity.
  Overspill is not purely a matter of housing. We must also consider the redeployment of industry. When contemplating the question of Glasgow's overspill, we must also think of the redeployment of Glasgow's industries. We must be very careful to get our priorities right, and if we regard the matter only from the point of view of housing we are liable to"put the cart before the horse".k
  The average local authority would feel most unwilling to accept part of Glasgow's overspill and provide housing, at its own expense, unless it were assured that industry would come with the houses or in anticipation of their provision. The Development Department Report refers to retaining in Glasgow those concerns which have a real claim to stay in Central Glasgow. It is not made clear what industry has such a real claim and I criticise the Report on that score. It does not give any lead about how to decide what industry in Glasgow should be redeployed. Although I may not get an answer tonight—it may be possible to have the answer next year—I should like my right hon. Friend to indicate the plans for redeveloping the centre of Glasgow, and what local authorities in other parts of Scotland may expect in the way of industry, as well as population, from Glasgow. A great many areas
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  in Scotland would welcome people from Glasgow, provided that there was work for them to do—
  Mr. Bence: And schools were provided.
  Mr. Hendry: I will come to that in a moment.
  In Glasgow we see a great city bursting at the seams while other parts of Scotland contain large areas, sometimes almost whole counties, where there is a rapid decline in the size of the population. It is an intractable problem. It is difficult to find an answer. The Local Employment Act does not give the answer. This piece of legislation is a good tool to use for bringing industry to an area where there is a large measure of unemployment—
  Mr. McInnes: It is a wash-out.
  Mr. Hendry: My experience is otherwise. It does not provide the answer in an area where there is no unemployment because the people who would be unemployed have gone to Aberdeen, Glasgow, Dundee, Edinburgh and to other such places and thereby increased the problems created by over-population. A great deal of thought must be given to retaining the population in such areas where people are inclined to leave, and if necessary to restoring the population to such areas.
  The hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence) referred to schools. There are excellent schools and hospitals in some of these areas. I am afraid that some of the hospitals are being closed down. Medical attention can be provided. There are shops and local amenities. Many such places are delectable spots in which to live, and the people who have left there would like to go back. Many of the people from Glasgow would like to live in such areas. But it would be impossible to restore the population to these places unless industry can come there too.
  The hon. Member for Glasgow, Central knows that in Glasgow there are a great many small businesses which could operate just as well in other parts of Scotland. It seems to me essential to persuade the people associated with these industries—I do not know how that can be done, housing subsidies will not provide the answer—to leave Glasgow for other parts

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  of Scotland where the provision of employment for even half-a-dozen people is a matter of great local importance.
  Mr. Lilley: How does my hon. Friend reconcile the idea of industry leaving Glasgow with the fact that for many years we have tried to induce light industry to come to Glasgow? We want to keep what we have.
  Mr. Hendry:I did not say anything about light industry. I was referring to small industries. The tragedy of Glasgow is the imbalance of industry. A new sort of industry is required. But a great deal of the industry already in the city could be moved and could work elsewhere. If other parts of Scotland are to accommodate the overspill from Glasgow, the industry must go to—
  Mr. William Baxter: Does not it indicate a complete misunderstanding of the position when two members of the Government are at loggerheads as to whether industry should move out of Glasgow or into the city? Will the hon. Member tell us what is the policy of the Government which he supports?
  Mr. Hendry: I thought I made that clear. I am not a member of the Government—
  Mr. Baxter: But the hon. Gentleman supports them.
  Mr. Hendry:—but I think I can see what the members of the Government have in mind. It is all in this Blue Book containing the Report to which I have referred, and if the hon. Member will read it he will find out for himself. It is made clear that the industry of Glasgow is completely out of balance and must be brought into balance. This means that not only must people be taken from Glasgow, because that alone would not help very much, but we must bring new types of industry into Glasgow and move out certain kinds of industry already there—
  Mr. Baxter: Such as what?
  Mr. Hendry: If the hon. Member would allow me to finish my speech he will then know what is in my mind.
  I said that this is an extremely difficult problem which requires a great deal of thought. I do not think that the
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  hon. Member for West Stirlingshire (Mr. W. Baxter) was present when I began my speech, and when I congratulated my right hon. Friend and the Under-Secretary for the imagination they had shown in trying to see this problem in a new light. But a great deal of thought must still be given to it. I do not ask my hon. Friends to answer tonight—
  Mr. Baxter: Why not?
  Mr. Hendry:—but I suggest they continue with the thought which is already being given to this matter and try to regard the housing problem in Scotland not as an isolated matter but as part of the redevelopment which is so urgently needed and which I am certain that in future years they will continue to recognise.
  8.41 p.m.
  Mr. William Hannan: Although I listened carefully to the speech of the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire, West (Mr. Hendry), I found it difficult to follow whether he supports the Government or is opposed to them. At one stage he was uttering the most reactionary statements, yet at another he seemed to be supporting the Opposition.
  I wish to make three points. One is on the question of overspill and the difficulty of rehousing Glasgow's population. The Government and the whole country must face the issue that we are not dealing with this problem in the fashion in which we ought to be dealing with it. We have not yet recognised that it is by new towns that the problem will be solved and that absolutely fundamental to that proposition is that industry should be transferred with the rehousing, indeed, in some instances in advance.
  The Government have claimed from as far back as 1954, and in the 1956 Housing (Repairs and Maintenance) Act and the Housing Act, 1957, that those Acts would solve the housing problem. Housing would become more free, there would be more houses available for letting and the mobility of labour would be enhanced. We claimed at that time that all the Acts would do would be to unload a larger number of small houses for sale on the market and that people would be penalised thereby. I am fortified in that statement by what has happened and is happening in the City of Glasgow in respect of the pressure brought on

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  tenants, particularly old people, to buy their houses.
  One old-age pensioner of 80 in a street in my constituency has received a letter from the house factors saying:
  "We write to inform you that we have received instructions from our clients that it is desired that the flat which you occupy should be sold and before having a notice served on you by sheriff officer we are instruc-same. If, therefore, you are interested in the ted to give you the first offer to purchase purchase of your house, will you arrange a meeting with our Mr.—in the course of the next seven days, but if we do not hear from you within seven days, we shall assume you are not interested in purchase, and of course you will appreciate that your tenancy can be terminated."
  This is a shameful and shocking practice. Two stairs above this old lady is another who is aged over 80. She is blind and is in the same position. This is a direct result of the Rent Act. The consequences will go very much further than even the Government thought at the time of the passing of that Act. The Government have no answer except that sheriff officers and courts will be applied to for certificates for the eviction of people of such an age.
  Another consequence of the Government's policy is seen in high interest rates and the fact that they are claiming that, because of increased incomes, people should be able to buy their homes. That is begging the question of the number of people below the £10 a week wage level in Scotland. According to the Scottish Digest of Statistics, of the total number of wage earners in Scotland, 1,864,800, the number earing £1,000 and over a year before paying tax isonly 209,520. The Government have to bear in mind that chairmen of building societies have said that any applications which come before them for mortgages and loans will be examined to see if they come up to certain standards. One of those standards is that the husband must have an income—disregarding any income of other members of the family—equal to about £1,000 annually before building societies will grant a mortgage.
  In view of the contrast which I have drawn showing the few people in Scotland earning such a salary, is it not time that the Government re-examined their whole policy in the light of this
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  and particularly in the light of the statement made in the White Paper that more encouragement is to be given to builders who will build houses to let? How many houses have they built to let in Scotland? None at all. Despite the blandishments here, they will not build houses to let. Even if they did so, according to paragraph 35 it is proposed to let these houses at rents between £4 and £7 a week, exclusive of rates. Is that the Government's policy in Scotland? In view of the very low salaries in Scotland, is that the policy? If it is, surely it is a farce in present economic circumstances.
  Policies other than those announced in this White Paper or in recent Government statements will be required to meet the challenge of housing conditions of people in Scotland in general and in Glasgow in particular.
  8.47 p.m.
  Mr. F. J. P. Lilley: I have listened to the debate with much interest. There has been a good deal of reference to statistics but, being no great believer in statistics, I will not touch them with a barge pole. Despite what has been said today in denigration of Scotland, I hope that anyone who comes to Scotland as a tourist does not think of the country as a large slum. Scotland has its beauty, and I wish that some people would say a little more about the beauties of Scotland and even of the City of Glasgow. Even Glasgow has its beauty. It has its slums, too.
  Much has been said, particularly by the hon. Member for Coatbridge and Airdrie (Mr. Dempsey), about builders building slums. I have never heard such nonsense. I never saw a slum built in my life. What he said was a denigration of the building industry and the men who take the trouble to build the houses. Years ago these houses were built, and they were admirable. If that is not appreciated, it should be.
  Mr. Dempsey: Single ends.
  Mr. Lilley: I am not talking of single ends or a room-and-kitchen. Some years ago there was a councillor in Glasgow known as But-and-Ben Jock, for even then he was complaining bitterly about Glasgow Corporation building so many large houses and refusing to build room-and-kitchen accommodation which is

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  badly needed. In Kelvingrove I could not care less what size the house is as long as it is a new house for some of the people there who are living in what were good houses and are now slums. Some of the people who see me on a Saturday morning tell me that they have been offered houses in some of the new housing schemes in Glasgow but would prefer to remain in the so-called slums. I hope that we are not creating new slums for the future.
  On the question of overspill, I have said before—I mean this sincerely—that Glasgow must keep its industry. The hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Mr. Manuel) spoke of the requirements of Irvine. It requires industry. Let it get all the industry it wants. I know that it has been doing very well. However, we in Glasgow need our industry. It is shocking that people in industry, whose families have been there for over 100 years, should be told that they must get out of Glasgow.
  We hear much about the interest charge in relation to housing. What effect has this on industry? The Corporation of Glasgow buys ground under a compulsory purchase order and at the same time charges £600 a year on a 100-year agreement. There are other places in Glasgow where the Corporation is charging as much as 20 per cent. on the money spent. I have said this before in the Scottish Grand Committee.
  I want to speak about method. This could help my right hon. Friend the Minister. Surely it is conceivable that the existing services in Glasgow—roads, sewers, water, electricity—could be left where they are. Surely we could clear the slums and rebuild in one movement. We could demolish, rebuild and decant whilst still using the existing services.
  I have said this before. I have brought it to the notice of Ministers in the Scottish Grand Committee. I have mentioned a piece of ground in Govan. I once stood as a councillor for Kinning Park. There was a piece of ground there on which we suggested that it was possible to build and decant from the buildings behind it. The buildings behind it have now gone. The people have gone. What do hon. Members think is on that first piece of ground? There is a petrol filling station there.
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  Hon. Members talk about building houses. Glasgow built under 1,000 houses last year. [HON. MEMBERS:"Two thousand."] There is a difference between"built" and"completed". The hon. Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan) said that there were not enough builders either in Glasgow or in Scotland. Glasgow has one of the biggest building organisations in the country, yetit built under 900 houses and completed 2,000 last year. The hon. Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. McInnes) will agree that the same organisation is there today that built 5,000 in a year. How much ground has Glasgow? Is it prepared to build, or is it following a Shavian principle—"What's yours is mine, and what's mine's my own"?
  The hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) mentioned the Rent Act. I do not think it is fully understood by hon. Members that the Rent Act as such leaves me in my constituency with tenements four houses tall, where the top and bottom ones went at £30 or £40 and the ones in between—the sandwich houses—went at £42. Under the Rent Act people in the same sized house pay £105 a year for a house in the centre and people upstairs and people downstairs pay £38. This is how the Rent Act operates. However, I acknowledge that some people in Glasgow are taking advantage of the Rent Act and I should like to see them dealt with. They put people out of their houses and re-let the rooms at 35s. a week, with no surety. That figure includes rates, but there is no surety.
  8.55 p.m.
  Mr. Neil Carmichael: In the very little time that is left, it is not easy to take part in a debate on housing. I was pleased to hear the hon. Member for Glasgow, Kelvingrove (Mr. Lilley) say how much he objected to the Rent Act and how opposed he was to it. Perhaps, if unfortunately he is with us after the next election, he will vote for the repeal of the Rent Act.
  The hon. Member said that we were inclined to be too critical of the City of Glasgow, and he wished that we would speak more of the beauties of Glasgow and less of the slums. I am as fond of Glasgow as anyone could be, but there is no doubt that we have slums. If we can devise some method in the House of

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  bringing the human problem involved in living in the slums of Glasgow to the forefront, make those slums a challenge to the whole of our modern living and culture, and solve the problems of Glasgow, the problems of housebuilding and slum clearance in the rest of the country will be comparatively simple. There is no other place that has quite such a bad record as a result of the exploitation of the industrial revolution, of dragging people in from Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland and herding them together under quite inhuman conditions.
  A previous medical officer of health for Glasgow quoted the figures for an area close to the area I represent, a fairly large area, where the density of people living there was comparable only with the density of people living on the waterfront at Shanghai. In the 1930s, the infant mortality rate in Glasgow was so bad that there was a famous cartoon in one of the national newspapers, immediately following on the medical officer of health's report, of a stork carrying a baby and the baby saying to the stork"Drop me at any place but Glasgow or Tokyo." Because of our appalling housing conditions, the insanitation, and the enormously cramped quarters in which people were living, infant mortality had reached a level in Glasgow that I hope will never come to any other part of the country. We do not now compare this city with the Far East, and I do not know whether that is because we have improved it so terribly much or that the population explosion in the Far East has made it relatively so much worse off, but in comparison with even the worst English city—probably Liverpool is one of the worst-housed cities in England—the occupancy ratio in Liverpool is enormously better than the occupancy ratio in Glasgow. The Minister of Housing has given the figure of ·89 persons per room as being a reasonable occupancy rate. In Glasgow the rate is about 1·3 persons for the city as a whole, although there are enormous stretches where the rate is as high as two and even three.
  I want to get this problem out of the realm of statistics. I appreciate that figures must enter the argument, but statistics do not give comfort to people living in bad housing conditions. To-
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  morrow evening I will be meeting some of my constituents, decent men and women with families, who are living in single rooms. Many of them have been living under these conditions for many years. For ten or twelve years a great number of them have been on the municipal housing list. I have little hope of immediately getting decent homes for them—homes in which they may bring up their families with a modicum of comfort.
  The situation in Glasgow is so bad that special legislation must be brought in to deal with the problem. We must get away from the idea that we can consider this from a national point of view alone. There are black spots in many parts of Britain, and Glasgow is one of them. Parts of Liverpool and, no doubt, parts of London are black spots. We must launch a two-tier system of relief for the really bad areas, and I would go so far as saying that completely free of interest loans should be made available to these black spots.
  This may sound an easy, perhaps ridiculous solution, but everyone knows that if the Polaris base or submarines should eventually cost £20 million or so over the estimated figure there will be a certain amount of claptrap but the money will be made available. If that can be done for such military purposes surely the Government must appreciate the necessity of doing something similar for the badly housed. So many young people are involved that we must give them the chance of having decent lives, in decent, uncramped conditions, so that they may become decent citizens. Something drastic is needed to solve the problem of the housing black spots, of which the City of Glasgow—my constituency—is one of the worst.
  9.3 p.m.
  Mr. William Ross: Since the beginning of the 'twenties Scottish hon. Members have been turning their minds to the problem of Scottish housing. There is, perhaps, no other subject about which, year after year, more passion and anger has been expressed. More frustration has been caused by bad housing conditions in Scotland in the last 40 years than by any other single subject.
  If during today's debate it has appeared that hon. Members who represent Glasgow constituencies have dominated the scene, the reason is simply that

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  bad housing dominates Glasgow. There seems to be a perpetual cloud of evil housing which we cannot dispel.
  We have had teazled out from this side of the Committee the performance of the Government and their promises. If any area has had promises from the party opposite it has been Scotland. It has been the promised land. We have been promised everything but have got nothing. We do not even get the truth. I have no doubt that tonight the Secretary of State will paint his usual bright picture of the prospects for Scotland—while he will probably be telling himself or another audience the truth about Scotland's housing in a week's time. In the same way, he misled the House last week about the Scottish economy, and then admitted to the Scottish T.U.C. that the outlook was bleak. We want to know what the outlook is for Scottish housing, and for the people who have to live in such conditions.
  I am sorry that the Under-Secretary is not here, but I can assure him that I got angrier and angrier with every minute he spoke. I think that we have become so familiar with this problem that we tend to be slightly callous about it, but every now and again we are jolted into a sense of reality. There are the homeless—40,000 of them in Scotland; the people in slums—over 300,000 slum dwellings, with nearly 1 million people in them. What does that mean?
  The hon. Member for Fife, East (Sir J. Gilmour) made a very serious mistake in a very good speech—the best speech we heard from that side. He said that we must do something about housing because the houses that people live in form their character. That is not true. It is the home that forms the character, and the home is not the four walls. It says something for the character of Scottish mothers, fathers and grandmothers that they have reared such fine people despite the housing handicaps that have been placed on them.
  Every Scottish housewife who has to contend with this problem is waging a battle against dirt and disease, and against something that offends human dignity. We talk of the teen-agers, but let us think of the conditions in which they are growing up in so many parts of Glasgow and Edinburgh, in so many parts of Dundee, and in some of our
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  older burghs as well—and in the countryside, too. It is a struggle for dignity, for respectability, but I sometimes think that hon. Gentleman opposite treat housing rather as a vexatious and irritating matter.
  I am glad that my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. McInnes) put this subject into a historical context, because unless we understand the historical context we are not able to appreciate the realities of housing, and the reactions of Scottish people. The fact is that after 1950 even the Tory Government appreciated the immensity of Scotland's housing problem, which is a vast heritage from landlordism and capitalism in its rawest form in the nineteenth century.
  After 1950, we got, even from a Tory Government, a matching of the problem with the subsidies. They increased the subsidies in 1952. Why did they do that? They did it because they realised the effect of the increased cost of money. Interest rates had risen, and the then Secretary of State for Scotland, now Lord Stuart of Findhorn, gave that as his reason in the Scottish Committee.
  But something happened to the Tory Party after the election of 1955. I think that when the Tory Party is in crisis the people are in danger, because a Tory Government has to buy the loyalty of their back benchers. I notice that The Times today said something about a new strand that had crept into the Tory party after the 'fifties. People used pressures, and a new turn took place in Scottish housing—a turn to squeezing more profit out of Scotland's festering heritage.
  The local authority, which had been recognised since the time of the Royal Commission in 1917 as the one authority and the one agent that had to bear the main responsibility for meeting Scotland's housing needs, was crowded out.
  We had even today the despairing plea from the hon. Member for North Angus (Sir C. Thornton-Kemsley), who has made it so often and has pinned his faith so often in private enterprise financing for building houses for sale or to let. Private enterprise has let Scotland down, because there is no money to be made out of it. What did we get with the Government's policy of decontrol? We had private enterprise still making money out of Scotland's vile housing by selling

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  slums, and young people in Scotland buying slums because they thought that thereby they would get priority for rehousing.
  It is the Government's record that we are debating today, not the Labour Party's record, and the Government's record is that last year they built fewer houses in Scotland than the Labour Government did three years after the war. Can any patriotic Scotsman get up and justify that? It should be remembered too that we built houses when that was not the only thing that we were doing in building. There were millions of houses down here in London which had to be repaired, and the people of Scotland did not mind the fact that there was a concentration of building labour here to do that.
  Let us look at the record for this year, because only on that record can we justify any confidence in the promises which the Government are making about what they will do for Scotland in future—and they are making plenty of them. The record for this year shows quite clearly that in Scotland the number of houses built has gone down steadily from 1953. Year by year it has gone down from 39,000 in 1953 to 26,000 this year, but it is not just that. The number of local authority houses has gone down to 16,000 a reduction of 50 per cent.
  When my hon. Friends talk about Cowcaddens, Woodside and Bridgeton, do hon. Members think that the people in those places are building private houses? They are dependent entirely upon the local authority. These are the people whose housing has been reduced and reduced.
  What about private building? It has trebled, but private building in Scotland has no appreciable effect upon the housing problem. Where have these 7,000 houses been built? Where are the worst housing areas in Scotland? Glasgow? How many private houses are built in Glasgow? Port Glasgow? How many private houses are built in Port Glasgow? Greenock? How many private houses are built in Greenock?
  The places where they are built are St. Andrews, Prestwick, Troon and Newton Mearns. These are the places where people are using their wealth to purchase what they want. If in future
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  we are to put our faith in the ability of the Scottish working man or a young couple being able to buy a house, we had better get busy with the Scottish economy. It is not a matter of unwillingness to own one's own house. We have nothing in principle against it. I own mine. Most of my hon. Friends own theirs. But what is the prerequisite of owner-occupation? The Government tell us themselves in their latest White Paper, the one with the name of the Secretary of State tacked on after the name of the Minister of Housing and Local Government, with sentences shoved in here and there about Scotland.
  Mr. Dempsey: An afterthought.
  Mr. Ross: An afterthought? I do not think that there was any thought in it.
  The one thing said about owner-occupation is that it is for people who have the means, for people settled in their careers.
  We have 94,000 unemployed. Last week, the Secretary of State told the T.U.C. that we should have just as many next winter. The outlook is bleak. Does the Secretary of State think that building societies are prepared to lend money to people in these circumstances? Does he imagine that Scottish people are prepared to take on a burden of debt like that? They are particular about these matters of finance in Scotland. Most of them were reared and taught to buy things when they had the money to pay. This is the history of Scotland.
  I sincerely hope that there will be a complete change of policy on the part of the Government because, if there is not, we shall not get the requisite houses. Taking every authority building houses in Scotland today, apart from the speculative builder—the local authorities, the Scotish Special Housing Association and even the new town corporations—they built fewer houses last year than they built a year before. It is a story of continuing failure.
  Yet what a wonderful opportunity there is. At last, people are beginning to realise that our housing situation offers an opportunity to clean up Scotland. People talk about drab housing schemes. I agree that we have lots of them, but they are the old ones. It is refreshing to go through the new towns. It is refreshing

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  even to go through Kilmarnock. The hon. Member for North Angus spoke about a lack of consideration in design. He should look at the photographs of the scheme in Cambuslang, the scheme for old people's houses in Kilmarnock, and see that we are now paying more attention to design, appreciating that we can make grave mistakes which are not easily removed in the present housing situation.
  But we are not giving our people a chance. The root of all this failure lies in the change of Government policy of which I spoke. Interest rates are absolutely vital in Scottish housing. This has been said time and again by everyone who builds houses. It was said by the hon. Member for North Angus himself tonight. He was prepared to do something for young scientific workers, key workers and the rest coming into the new areas. Why should they have priority in finance over people in the slums of Glasgow who have lived and been brought up in them and whose fathers and mothers were brought up in them?
  Sir C. Thornton-Kemsley:The hon. Gentleman asks me a question. My answer is that it is of vital importance that we should encourage the growth industries in Scotland upon which the future of our economy and employment depends.
  Mr. Ross: Indeed, yes, but, if we carry on with the present housing policy, we shall not have the skilled workers. It is our skilled workers who are leaving Scotland because they cannot find work and because they cannot get decent houses. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan) said that our ability to provide the houses we need, and the kind of houses we need, depends upon the prosperity of Scotland. I do not disagree, but I do not think that they should get priority over other needs. It. is equally essential that they should clean up Scotland and get rid of the scars of the industrialism of the past. It is a cynical comment that it was private industry which created the slums, and now the slums are handicapping us and preventing us from attracting private industry into Scotland. Therefore, let us bend our energies to this task and
  698
  ensure that our financial policies are suitable for it.
  That means reducing rates of interest. We talk about rates of interest, and hon. Gentlemen opposite reply about rents. This all stems from the same thing—the Government's policy and determination that the homeless and overcrowding in Scotland should bear the brunt of an inflation with which they had nothing to do but which the Government created and caused. The Radcliffe Committee reported that we could have reduced rates of interest for these social purposes. It is essential that we should. That is why my hon. Friends are right in saying that it is a red herring to talk always about rent. It is really a question of whether we are determined to get on with the task and get the socially necessary building done. It is an absolute scandal if the Government do anything to impede the building of houses.
  What should our target be? We are getting new targets. The Prime Minister comes to Glasgow and decrees that the sun has shone. At that time we thought there was a General Election in the offing, and so did he. So the sun had to shine. He decreed that the spring had come and the songbirds of the Tory Party were about to sing their songs of the 'seventies, and the kilted canaries of the Scottish Office had to join in. I wonder whether the Secretary of State for Scotland read this advertisement that I have here before he allowed his photograph to appear in it.
  Mr. Willis: Does the right hon. Gentleman wear his kilt?
  Mr. Ross: There were an awful lot of Scots people who were following a certain piece of news. This was rather an ill-timed advertisement for the Tories. I merely noticed it when I was turning towards a story on page 11 of the Scottish Sunday Express. I saw a headline:
  " 'Cut out this cant', says Maudling."
  so I cut it out. This is a Scottish paper, appearing only in Scotland, and, presumably, read only by Scottish people, and there was a photograph, not a terribly good one—there were far better photographs in the paper that day—of the Secretary of State for Scotland:
  "whose job it will be to launch the new housing programme north of the Border."

  699
  It is exactly the same as an advertisement that appeared south of the Border with a photograph—a much better one—of the Minister of Housing and Local Government. But the Minister of Housing and Local Government had a statement to make. He said:
  "It is my job to launch this programme so that housing will keep pace with the rising economy and rising standards."
  Why was that missed out of the Scottish advertisement?
  The advertisement says:
  "Housing: The big leap forward. A thousand new houses a day—and at least 500 older houses modernised every day."
  Most of the people in the slums of Scotland who are overcrowded and those who are homeless would settle for one instead of a thousand. Is Scotland to get 1,000 new houses a day? No. There was a wee bit in parenthesis. The Government are, in fact, building 35,000 houses less than they were building in 1953. That is the pattern of the great new leap forward. We are, on the contrary, leaping backwards. If the truth had been put in the Scottish headline, it would have stated 96 houses a day.
  What is the truth about the statement about 500 older houses being modernised every day? I have here the figures for Scotland. The answer is that nine older houses are being modernised every day. Because the programme for new houses has been made, the other one did not start at all. Indeed, three out of every four of these modernisations are by owner occupiers and bear no relation to the houses we really want to be improved.
  Who is subsidising whom? The Scottish taxpayers must be subsidising an awful lot of improvement grants in England at no benefit to themselves. Here is the pledge. Does the right hon. Gentleman support it?
  "The housing shortage has already been greatly relieved. The new plan aims to wipe out the housing shortage for good."
  Then it promises to build 35,000 houses a year in Scotland. The right hon. Gentleman will not even deal with the slum problem at that rate. By the time he has finished in ten years he will have as many slums as he started with, unless he remodels the whole aspects. If he is banking on housing associations and the building societies and is squeezing
  700
  out the local authorities, it means that the local authorities will be building only about 16,000 houses a year, 10,000 of them for slum clearance and 6,000 for all the other needs.
  We will not have cleared the slums at this rate because the slum problem is not static. It is one that grows and in ten years time we shall have more of them. I am sorry that the hon. Member for Ayr (Sir T. Moore) is not here. In 1935 he went down on his knees to thank heaven for Sir Godfrey Collins' great new slum clearance proposals. Sir Godfrey said that in five years' time the Scottish slums would have gone. They are still there—worse than ever. The only thing I regret is that the hon. Member for Ayr is still with us too.
  The advertisement went on:
  "We shall tackle our biggest problem of all—that of a growing population."
  But that is the one thing we will not tackle, because we have not got a growing population in Scotland. Every year25,000 people leave Scotland. That is why we have not got a growing population. We should have, but the Government have failed Scotland throughout their twelve years of office
  What is to be done about all this? Nothing is said here about the land. Nothing is said about the difficulties of Glasgow's overspill. What is the right hon. Gentleman to do to ensure that the land is available, and available at the right price? The local authorities are encountering some of the results of the Government's policy in relation to town and country planning.
  Hon. Members will remember that we were told that this was theoretical in Scotland because there were no difficulties there. But the difficulties are nevertheless there, both notional market value is now beginning to be the value and Lord Howard de Walden is charging higher rents not just for petrol pumps around Kilmarnock but for building land as well. That is what is happening in Scotland, and it will continue to happen.
  What is the Secretary of State to do about that? What is he to do about interest rates, or subsidies? Above all, what is he to do about organising the people of Scotland and the building industry of Scotland? The building industry is not, or should not be, static.

  701
  There are more Scots people building factories and office buildings in England than there are building houses in Scotland.
  We challenge him to do something about land, to do something about the building industry, to do something about the financing of housing and for goodness' sake to give the local authorities a chance and their head, and to give the people of Scotland a chance.
  I quote one paragraph from a leader in The Times of today:
  "This is at heart an eager, noble, and generous people."
  That is true of the people of Scotland, too.
  "What Britain wishes above all to see on the great stage of affairs is a new attitude. She enforced that wish in 1945. She will do so again. The appeal to affluence is about done."
  The appeal should be to dedication, to service, and to Scotland.
  9.31 p.m.
  The Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. Michael Noble): The Committee has listened with great interest to many speeches, and certainly to the speech of the hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Ross). He had the support of the whole Committee when he talked about the importance to Scotland of the whole of our development plans. When, as occasionally happened, he seemed to me to be rivalling Alan King, whom I saw at the variety show in Glasgow last night, it was amusing but out of keeping with the general feeling in the Committee about housing in Scotland today.
  On two occasions he spoke on a theme which I believe to be entirely unacceptable to hon. Members or to Scotland. He said that housing was dependent entirely on local government, and that private building made no appreciable difference. Those were his words as I took them down. He suggested that the Government were banking on private enterprise and were aiming to squeeze out local authorities from the whole of our building operations.
  This is entirely and completely untrue, and the hon. Member knows it perfectly well. I know that this feeling has percolated through years if not decades of Socialist thinking, and I do not expect it to change overnight, but there are many people in Scotland who see the
  702
  advantages of co-operation in this respect.
  As I listened to the debate—and this is the first on housing which we have had for two years—I thought that this was particularly important because it seemed that serious and devastating though some of the social problems in our slums undoubtedly are, there was a feeling, more widely expressed than I remember in earlier debates of this sort, that housing was closely linked with the whole of the economic development of Scotland.
  There were one or two themes which went through the debate and on which I should like to comment before turning to particular speeches. The first was the theme of the small house. This was mentioned by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. McInnes) and by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Craigton (Mr. Millan) and many others.
  I agree with the hon. Member for Craigton when he says that the problem of the small house is to some extent a traditional one in Scotland. It is a traditional pattern from which perhaps we have not departed quickly enough, but it is none the less true—and I think the Committee must accept this—that the pattern of local authority building is not laid down by the Government; it is chosen by each local authority [Hon. Members:"Oh."] This is so. Local authorities submit their plans, and they say in what proportion they want the varying sizes of house to fit in with their own local needs at any moment.
  As hon. Gentlemen know, the subsidy is not graded according to the size of the house, and the economic difference between building a two-apartment house and a three-apartment house is very marginal.
  Mr. Ross:The right hon. Gentleman says that this is marginal. If one gets the same subsidy for building a two-apartment house as for building a five-apartment house, surely from the economic point of view the pressure is on a local authority to build the smaller house?
  Mr. Noble: The difference between the two- or three-apartment house is marginal.
  Mr. Ross: Nonsense.
  Mr. Noble: It is true that many of the slums in Glasgow are being cleared, and I give Glasgow Corporation the full merit it deserves for its speed in trying to redevelop these areas which contain a large number of small houses.
  It is unfortunately true—it may be our tradition—that Scotsmen are by nature independent. I think that Scotsmen by nature do not like sharing their houses with, I shall not say mothers-in-law, but other members of the family, and because old-age pensions are better I think that more old people are able to afford to live in small houses, and want them.
  Miss Herbison: They go to the National Assistance Board for their rent.
  Mr. Noble: I agree that the rate of building small houses today may be too high, but in the surveys which local authorities have been making over the last few years this high rate was their request to balance perhaps the few small houses for older people in the past.
  The second general theme which has run through the debate is the question of a differential rate of interest for house building. Hon. Gentlemen opposite have stated all the way through that the one factor which is holding back house building in Scotland today is high interest rates. This point was made by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Govan (Mr. Rankin), the hon. Member for Kirkaldy Burghs (Mr. Gourlay)—though I unfortunately missed his speech—and by many others.
  Mr. Rankin: I did not say that that was the one factor which was retarding house building. I said that it was perhaps the chief factor.
  Mr. Noble: I said that this was a main theme which ran through many of the speeches.
  I think that the point about which the country and the Committee have to make up their minds is exactly what we are going to do in the form of differential rates of this kind. When my hon. Friend the hon. Member for North Angus and Mearns (Sir C. Thornton-Kemsley) dealt with this point, he did so in relation not just to a specific type of social service, but to Government policy as a
  704
  whole. He said that if this was necessary, education might need to be brought in as well as roads, hospitals, and other things of that sort, and hon. Gentlemen opposite asked,"Yes, and why not?" It is possible for any Government to decide, if they want, to have a special low rate of interest for certain things which they consider are more important than others.
  The hon. Member for Craigton suggested that building societies should be included in the same low rate because they were held up to some extent by the current rates at the time. If we are to do this, however, we must be clear what we are sacrificing. Do not let us think that we can shovel something under the carpet as a sort of hidden subsidy. We must know how much of our national investment—and that is what housing comes to in the end—isbeing given a specially low rate of interest, because then our people can judge whether we are prepared to face the cost of it. If, in some other form of investment, the proper return is 4 per cent., 5 per cent., or 6 per cent., we must know exactly what it is costing the country to have an artificially low level of 2 per cent.
  If we do not do this we make economic fools of ourselves. Hon. Members opposite know that at the end of the period when a low rate of interest was maintained right through the economy, as it was during their six years of office, certain economic and financial difficulties faced the country in 1951.
  The policy which we are trying to work out as best we can is to deal with interest rates through subsidies to local authorities. It is not right for hon. Members to talk about a certain rate of subsidy for a certain house costing so much at this moment. The whole purpose of the subsidies is to balance not the cost of an individual house but the whole housing account of the local authority concerned. In our White Paper we have promised to review this question with the local authorities, so that if help is needed for some of the purposes that have been mentioned it can be given.
  Mr. Ross rose—
  Mr. Noble: I have many points to make. I hope that hon. Members will allow me to try to answer the debate as quickly as I can.
  Mr. Ross: I will leave local authorities out of the question and debate the obvious case. What about the new town corporations? They have had to borrow all their money in dear money periods. Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to do something about that? We want to test the sincerity of what he has just said.
  Mr. Noble: The new town corporations together with my staff, are examining this problem in relation to the fact that all their houses are new ones and are being built in a period of high interest. I have had a discussion with them, and I have no doubt that I shall have others. We are discussing this problem. But the new towns are not in the same category as some towns which have corporation houses dating back over 30 or 40 years.
  The hon. Member for Central asked me whether I was satisfied with the rate at which we were clearing slums at the moment. I am not. The speech of my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary made this absolutely clear. At the moment I cannot give the Committee accurate figures relating to the problem of overcrowding. Although the impression that we have gained from many local authorities is that the position is getting better, the census figures which are being worked on have not come through yet in nearly a complete enough state to claim that the position is much better, or to say exactly what it is.
  The hon. Member for Govan referred to areas in Glasgow where roughly 700 people are living to an acre. This, alas, is a fact, and it illustrates the extreme importance of the overspill problem in the city. Unless we can get new houses built in the overspill areas for these people to move out to it is certainly not possible to redevelop these areas—something which must be done.
  Mr. McInnes:Surely the right hon. Gentleman remembers that we debated the question of overspill a fortnight ago, when it was revealed that the Government had not attained even one-third of the target set.
  Mr. Noble: I am afraid I cannot accept that from the hon. Gentleman. There are many points which I wish to cover, and so I should like to get on with my speech.
  706
  The hon. Member for Govan said he could not accept the Votes this year because—if I remember his figure accurately—they were £454,000 less than last year. This, as a matter of fact, is purely an accounting adjustment. Last year there was £1,193,000 in the Estimate for the Scottish Special Housing Association. This year there is only a token amount of £10 because it had an excessive surplus in its repairs fund. If we take this element out of the figures, the increase this year is £738,000, and so I hope that the hon. Gentleman may reconsider his position.
  He also said that the deficit per house on existing subsidies was very serious, even with £54 as a notional rental. If there was a rental of anywhere near £54 on existing houses—this is over the whole housing account—there would be no need to put any burden on the rates in most areas at all. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. J. Henderson)—
  Mr. Rankin: But surely—
  Mr. Noble: I am sorry, I cannot give way to the hon. Gentleman—
  Mr. Rankin: But that is unfair.
  Mr. Noble:—because there are many points which I wish to answer. It was a long and interesting debate.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Cathcart spoke of the drop in the number of houses which he said was due to the change from building on virgin land to central sites. Everybody who has studied the figures knows that my predecessor said to the House for several years that while that was going on there would be a drop in the number of houses. The figures given by my hon. Friend indicate that now that Glasgow has successfully tackled this problem the figures are moving up—perhaps not quite so fast as we should like, but very fast indeed.
  The other point made by my hon. Friend related to office building. This point was also made by my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, East (Sir J. Gilmour). My hon. Friend said that if there was, as it were, a competition between housing and office building, housing should receive priority. I think that, to some extent, this would be acceptable to many hon. Members. But

  707
  we must also realise that if as a country we are to grow economically in the way we wish, we must have some new office building. This is a problem which has certainly been acute in London, but nothing like so acute in our Scottish cities. I hope that we may attract more people to Glasgow and other cities in Scotland. Office work provides important employment for school leavers and others. This matter of office building and housing is a question of balance and it is not something which may be settled by a snap decision.
  Mr. Ross rose—
  Mr. Noble: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will allow me to continue—
  Mr. Ross: It is no use the right hon. Gentleman saying,"I hope that we shall attract people.…" We put this point to the President of the Board of Trade, who was not prepared to do anything. Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to do anything about it?
  Mr. Noble: It is certain that unless we have modern office blocks we shall not attract the people, and to that extent some development of this sort is necessary.
  I thought that the hon. Member for Craigton made a first-class debating speech which was slightly marred, perhaps, by the fact that he was more than a little unfair to my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State. He accused my hon. Friend of misleading the Committee over the question of the target for slum clearance. I know that when someone is speaking it is difficult to keep an exact check on the words used. But my hon. Friend clearly said that the three-year period finished at the end of 1964 and the latest date for which he had figures was March and the figure was 13,000, so that I do not think there was any question of misleading the Committee about this. He also felt that it was dishonest of my hon. Friend to refer to a target of 35,000 houses for Scotland. I quite agree that it might have been set out as such in the White Paper, but surely there is nothing dishonest in telling the Committee the figures which one thinks are reasonable and realistic for the immediate future. The hon. Member also said that no Minister had mentioned the land prob-
  708
  lem. I think that when he reads my hon. Friend's speech he will find a considerable reference to it.
  I accept the fact that over the last four years we have been lower than England in the league table. We were also above England, as the hon. Member fairly said, for nine years before that. We must not too slavishly demand comparisons between England and Scotland. I do not think the hon. Member would like to rely on the different levels of rents in Scotland and in England, even taking into consideration earnings in the two countries.
  Unlike his hon. Friend who wound up for the Opposition, the hon. Member for Craigton realised that there was an important part for private building to play. If he follows his own argument he will admit that if we have a policy in Scotland whereby local authority rents are very low indeed it is made exceedingly difficult for private enterprise to build houses and to find tenants for them.
  He rightly said that the number of people employed in the building industry was not static and that 20,000 extra had come in since 1959. I have not the exact figures on which that was based, but the hon. Member always does his homework very carefully and I accept that as right. It is important to realise that we can get more skilled workers into the building industry only if we have co-operation from the trade unions, and I am sure we shall have it. The hon. Member asked when we last talked to the building industry. That is the natural function of the Ministry of Public Building and Works, which keeps in very close touch with my Scottish Development Department.
  My hon. Friend the Member for North Angus asked about the situation at the B.M.C. plant at Bathgate. I also visited that plant in May so I know something of its particular problems. Both in regard to that and to Linwood the suggestion he made has been carried out. We have had conferences with these big developing industries, before they arrived, to discuss all these problems of housing. Even an industry of the size of B.M.C. or Rootes at Linwood cannot always be certain how fast it will develop. The phasing of the houses is therefore rather more difficult than one would imagine at the beginning. When I was there in May

  709
  I was told that the development had suddenly come on faster than had been expected and I was asked if they could have another 240 houses by September. This is the sort of problem which, however carefully one plans, is very difficult to provide for, because to provide 240 houses in four or five months must mean, as it were, pinching houses which some other authority is already building for its own purpose.
  The hon. Member for Coatbridge and Airdrie (Mr. Dempsey) was, I think, unfair to my right hon. Friend the previous Secretary of State by suggesting that he had given some housing site to a private contractor just because he was a Tory politician. I do not believe the Committee would accept that for a moment.
  Mr. Dempsey: Why not?
  Mr. Noble: It is also fair to say that it would be difficult to find a private enterprise builder who was a Socialist.
  Mr. W. Baxter rose—
  The Deputy-Chairman (Sir Robert Grimston): Order. If the right hon. Gentleman does not give way the hon. Member must resume his seat.
  Mr. Noble: I said it was difficult; I did not say it was impossible. I agree with the hon. Member about the problem of design for housing. There are good designs in Ayrshire, Inverness, Argyll and many other areas, irrespective of their political complexion. My hon. Friend the Member for Fife, East spoke about the problem of getting extra labour into the industry and illustrated this comment with a reference to the problem of skilled labour in his area. He spoke of the value of improvement grants—a point taken up by my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Stodart). These are important, and we have done our best to give them wide publicity, because if we are to keep pace with the needs of slum clearance we have the twin problem of new building and the maintenance and repair of the houses which are falling into decay.
  The hon. Member for Kirkcaldy Burghs said that it was unreasonable to relate reasonable rents to gross annual
  value. I am aware of the particular situation in Fife, and I have never said that these should be equated. All that I have said is that the gross annual value is the best guide which is available to local authorities of what a reasonable rent should be. My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, West, spoke about the possibility of tying the rebate system to the Inland Revenue in some form. This might be difficult, but it is an idea worth looking at. The Scottish Special Housing Association, which has run this satisfactorily for a number of years, finds that it can do it without such a complicated system.
  The problem before Scotland today is one in which housing development and industrial growth must go hand in hand. The new towns have shown the importance of attracting industry by having modern housing and modern facilities there for it. I agree with both the hon. Member for Craigton and the hon. Member for Kilmarnock that in Scotland we are often not sufficiently angry about the housing position. We have tolerated it—and this goes through all sections of the community. We have not converted the anger which one has reason to feel about slum conditions into constructive new ideas. I believe that in promising to meet the local authorities on subsidies, and in the increases which have already begun to show in the number of houses under construction, the Government are playing their part. I believe that local authorities, too, should look very carefully not only at rents but at the whole of their management of housing generally, so that we make the best use of the houses which are available to help us in this problem. I believe, with great hope, that the trade unions, which have a great part to play if we are to change our system of house building, will help us in getting the best solution to this very important problem.
  Mr. Ross: I beg to move, That Item Class III, Vote 2 (Scottish Home and Health Department), be reduced by £5.
  Question put:—
  The Committee divided: Ayes 137, Noes 212.

  Division No. 156.]

  AYES

  [10.0 p.m.

  Ainsley, William

  Bacon, Miss Alice

  Beaney, Alan

  Albu, Austen

  Barnett, Guy

  Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.

  Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

  Baxter, William (Stirlingshire, W.)

  Bence, Cyril

  Bennett, J. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

  Hilton, A. V.

  Pargiter, G. A.

  Benson, Sir George

  Holman, Percy

  Parker, John

  Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. C.

  Hooson, H. E.

  Pavitt, Laurence

  Bowden, Rt. Hn. H. W. (Leics.S.W.)

  Houghton, Douglas

  Peart, Frederick

  Boyden, James

  Hoy, James H.

  Popplewell, Ernest

  Bray, Dr. Jeremy

  Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

  Prentice, R. E.

  Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)

  Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

  Probert, Arthur

  Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

  Hunter, A. E.

  Proctor, W. T.

  Carmichael, Neil

  Hynd, John (Attercliffe)

  Pursey, Cmdr. Harry

  Chapman, Donald

  Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)

  Rankin, John

  Cliffe, Michael

  Janner, Sir Barnett

  Redhead, E. C.

  Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

  Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas

  Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)

  Crosland, Anthony

  Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)

  Reid, William

  Cullen, Mrs. Alice

  Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

  Reynolds, G. W.

  Dalyell, Tam

  Jones, Elwyn (West Ham, S.)

  Robertson, John (Palsley)

  Darling, George

  Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.

  Rodgers, W. T. (Stockton)

  Dempsey, James

  King, Dr. Horace

  Ross, William

  Diamond, John

  Ledger, Ron

  Skeffington, Arthur

  Dodds, Norman

  Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)

  Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

  Donnelly, Desmond

  Lubbock, Eric

  Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)

  Driberg, Tom

  MacColl, James

  Small, William

  Ede, Rt. Hon. C.

  MacDermot, Niall

  Snow, Julian

  Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

  McInnes, James

  Soskice, Rt. Hon. Sir Frank

  Edwards, Walter (Stepney)

  McKay, John (Wallsend)

  Steele, Thomas

  Fernyhough, E,

  McLeavy, Frank

  Stones, William

  Fitch, Alan

  MacMillan, Malcolm (Western Isles)

  Strachey, Rt. Hon. John

  Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)

  Manuel, Archie

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

  Galpern, Sir Myer

  Mapp, Charles

  Taverne, D.

  Ginsburg, David

  Marsh, Richard

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

  Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P, C.

  Mendelson, J. J.

  Thornton, Ernest

  Gourlay, Harry

  Millan, Bruce

  Timmons, John

  Greenwood, Anthony

  Milne, Edward

  Weitzman, David

  Grey, Charles

  Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Llanelly)

  Mitchison, G. R.

  Whitlock, William

  Grimond, Rt. Hon. J.

  Moody, A. S.

  Wigg, George

  Gunter, Ray

  Morris, John

  Wilkins, W. A.

  Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)

  Moyle, Arthur

  Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)

  Hamilton, William (West Fife)

  Mulley, Frederick

  Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

  Hannan, William

  Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)

  Willis, E. G. (Edinburgh, E)

  Harper, Joseph

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

  Woof, Robert

  Hayman, F. H.

  O'Malley, B. K.

  Yates, Victor (Ladywood)

  Henderson,Rt.Hn.Arthur(RwlyRegis)

  Oram, A. E.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Herbison, Miss Margaret

  Oswald, Thomas

  Mr. Lawson and

  Hill, J. (Midlothian)

  Paget, R. T.

  Mr. Charles A. Howell.

  Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)

  NOES

  Aitken, Sir William

  Cooper-Key, Sir Neil

  Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

  Allason, James

  Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.

  Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesf'd)

  Arbuthnot, John

  Corfield, F. V.

  Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)

  Ashton, Sir Hubert

  Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne)

  Hastings, Stephen

  Atkins, Humphrey

  Crawley, Aidan

  Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel

  Awdry, Daniel (Chippenham)

  Crowder, F. P.

  Henderson, John (Cathcart)

  Barter, John

  Cunningham, Knox

  Hendry, Forbes

  Batsford, Brian

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Hicks Beach, Maj. W.

  Bidgood, John C.

  Dance, James

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

  Biffen, John

  Deedes, Rt. Hon. W. F.

  Hirst, Geoffrey

  Bingham, R. M.

  Digby, Simon Wingfield

  Hocking, Philip N.

  Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel

  Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. M.

  Holland, Philip

  Bishop, F. P.

  Doughty, Charles

  Hopkins, Alan

  Black, Sir Cyril

  du Cann, Edward

  Hornby, R. P.

  Bossom, Hon. Clive

  Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

  Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Dame P.

  Bourne-Arton, A.

  Elliott,R.W.(Newc'tle-upon-Tyne,N.

  Hughes Hallett, Vice-Admiral John

  Box, Donald

  Farey-Jones, F. W.

  Hughes-Young, Michael

  Braine, Bernard

  Fell, Anthony

  Iremonger, T. L.

  Brewis, John

  Finlay, Graeme

  James, David

  Bromley-Davenport,Lt.-Col.SirWalter

  Fisher, Nigel

  Jennings, J. C.

  Brown, Alan (Tottenham)

  Foster, John

  Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)

  Browne, Percy (Torrington)

  Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Johnson, Eric (Blackley)

  Bryan, Paul

  Gammans, Lady

  Johnson Smith, Geoffrey

  Buck, Anthony

  Gardner, Edward

  Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)

  Bullus, Wing Commander Eric

  Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)

  Kerans, Cdr, J. S.

  Burden, F. A.

  Glover, Sir Douglas

  Kerr, Sir Hamilton

  Carr, Compton (Barons Court)

  Glyn, Dr. Alan (Clapham)

  Kershaw, Anthony

  Cary, Sir Robert

  Glyn, Sir Richard (Dorset, N.)

  Kimball, Marcus

  Channon, H. P. G.

  Goodhew, Victor

  Kirk, Peter

  Chataway, Christopher

  Gough, Frederick

  Lagden, Godfrey

  Chichester-Clarke, R.

  Green, Alan

  Lancaster, Col. C. G.

  Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)

  Grosvenor, Lord Robert

  Leburn, Gilmour

  Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)

  Gurden, Harold

  Legge-Bourke, Sir Harry

  Cleaver, Leonard

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  Lilley, F. J. P.

  Cole, Norman

  Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)

  Linstead, Sir Hugh

  Cooke, Robert

  Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.W.)

  Litchfield, Capt. John

  Cooper, A. E.

  Harris, Reader (Heston)

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

  712

  713

  Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)

  Percival, Ian

  Taylor, Frank (M'ch'st'r, Moss Side)

  Longbottom, Charles

  Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth

  Taylor, Sir William (Bradford, N.)

  Longden, Gilbert

  Pitman, Sir James

  Teeling, Sir William

  Loveys, Walter H.

  Pott, Percivall

  Temple, John M.

  Lucas, Sir Jocelyn

  Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch

  Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret

  Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Thomas, Sir Leslie (Canterbury)

  McAdden, Sir Stephen

  Prior-Palmer, Brig. Sir Otho

  Thomas, Peter (Conway)

  McLaren, Martin

  Proudfoot, Wilfred

  Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin

  Maclean, SirFitzroy(Bute&N.Ayrs)

  Pym, Francis

  Tilney, John (Wavertree)

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

  Rawlinson, Sir Peter

  Touche, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon

  Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)

  Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin

  Turner, Colin

  Macpherson, Rt.Hn.Niall(Dumfries)

  Rees, Hugh (Swansea, W.)

  Turton, Ht. Hon. R. H.

  Maddan, Martin

  Rees-Davies, W. R. (Isle of Thanet)

  Tweedsmulr, Lady

  Marlowe, Anthony

  Ridley, Hon. Nicholas

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Marten, Nell

  Ridsdale, Julian

  Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hon. Sir John

  Mathew, Robert (Honiton)

  Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley)

  Vickers, Miss Joan

  Matthews, cordon (Meriden)

  Roots, William

  Vosper, Rt. Hon. Dennis

  Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.

  Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard

  Wakefield, Sir Wavell

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

  St. Clair, M.

  Walder, David

  Mills, Stratton

  Sharples, Richard

  Wall, Patrick

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Shaw, M.

  Ward, Dame Irene

  Montgomery, Fergus

  Shepherd, William

  Webster, David

  More, Jasper (Ludlow)

  Sheet, T. H. H.

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles

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

  Whitelaw, William

  Nabarro, Sir Gerald

  Smithers, Peter

  Williams, Dudley (Exeter)

  Noble, Rt. Hon. Michael

  Spearman, Sir Alexander

  Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)

  Nugent, Rt. Hon. Sir Richard

  Speir, Rupert

  Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

  Oakshott, Sir Hendrie

  Stevens, Geoffrey

  Wise, A. R.

  Orr, Capt., L. P. S.

  Steward, Harold (Stockport, S.)

  Wolrige-Cordon, Patrick

  Orr-Ewing, Sir Charles

  Stodart, J. A.

  Woodhouse, C. M.

  Page, Graham (Crosby)

  Studholme, Sir Henry

  Worsley, Marcus

  Pannell, Norman (Kirkdale)

  Summers, Sir Spencer

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Partridge, E.

  Tapsell, Peter

  Mr. Gordon Campbell

  Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)

  Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

  and Mr. MacArthur,

  Peel, John

  Taylor, Edwin (Bolton, E.)

  Original Question again proposed.
  Sir Stephen McAdden rose—
  It being after Ten o'clock, The Chairman left the Chair to report Progress and ask leave to sit again.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again Tomorrow.

  IMPORT DUTIES (FOODSTUFFS)
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  That the Import Duties (General) (No. 4) Order 1963, dated 28th May, 1963, a copy of which was laid before this House on 31st May, be approved.—[Mr. Green.]
  10.10 p.m.
  Mr. Douglas Jay: The Order concerns duties on a number of important foodstuffs—chicory, coffee, cocoa, glucose, sugar, tea and other commodities—and since this is a question of not imposing for the first time the maintenance of certain taxes on foodstuffs, we should have an explanation from the Government of what it is they are asking us to do.
  I realise that this is the transforming of duties from one guise into another and not imposing them anew, but it is continuing them. As I understand it, under Section 3 of last year's Finance Bill there was a reduction made in these
  714
  duties and it was provided that they should be transformed from Revenue to protective duties. I do not understand why, if this was primarily enacted by last year's Finance Bill, it should be reaching final legislative fruition now.
  I do not think that my hon. Friends and I have any objection to transforming these from the form of Revenue duties to protective ones. We have no complaint about the name, unless it has some further significance that has escaped us. However, one naturally asks why, apart from sugar, for tea, coffee, cocoa and chicory, we impose protective duties. The difference between a protective and a Revenue duty usually is that a protective duty falls on the imported but not on the home-produced commodity. Presumably there is no home-produced tea, coffee or cocoa, so the name seems at first sight odd. If it is a protection in the sense of a duty which falls on non-Commonwealth and not on Commonwealth products, in that sense it is a preference and not a protective duty.
  I have always found that tea and sugar duties remain somewhat of a mystery. They always seem to be abolished in successive Budgets while we find, a few years later, that they are still in existence. I remember that a substantial reduction was made in the Budget of 1949, at the

  715
  time of a Labour Government, in the tea and sugar duties. I thought that we bad abolished them altogether, I know that £11 million was taken off tea and £22 million off sugar. These are substantial sums. However, we found in last year's Finance Bill that these duties were still there both on sugar and tea.
  We were then told by the present Home Secretary, then the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, that the Government were freeing all home-produced and Commonwealth tea, sugar and the other commodities I have mentioned. However, they are apparently still with us because they are now being transformed into yet another form.
  We are, therefore, given an opportunity tonight to discover the facts. How substantial are these remaining taxes, which I take to be purely there not for Revenue or protection—apart from the special case of sugar, which is a highly complicated matter—but for a somewhat symbolic preference for Commonwealth producers? Is any substantial revenue raised? If it is, is it not a tax on the consumers of a staple food? Is there good reason for continuing these taxes in existence? If the revenue is negligible, what purpose are they achieving and why should we not get rid of them? The sugar aspect of the matter is highly complex, and I will not enter into it now—there is a subsidy on home-produced beet sugar, there is the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement, and so on—but the same complications do not arise in relation to tea, coffee and cocoa, and I wonder whether any useful purpose is served by continuing those duties.
  I presume that it will be said that the sole purpose is to maintain a form of preference in favour of the Commonwealth product. I presume that tea from India and Ceylon is tax-free, while tea from China is subject to tax. I suppose that coffee from Kenya, and in British territories in East Africa is tax-free, and that from, other African territories and Brazil is subject to tax. Does that really achieve anything useful? Is there any reason why we should not follow the general policy of making all these food imports, from the Commonwealth and elsewhere, duty-free? That, after all, is the position with wheat, and I wonder whether there is good ground for having
  716
  a quite different system for tea, coffee and cocoa.
  Does the Minister of State think that it is of any practical value to the tea producers of India and Ceylon, to the coffee and cocoa producers of British territories in Africa, to have this tax on the non-Commonwealth product entering the United Kingdom? I should have thought that the Indian and Ceylon tea producers could compete perfectly well against any producers in China without any tax at all. However, that may not be so.
  I should have thought that, broadly speaking, the right principle for staple foodstuffs of this kind, and particularly for tropical foodstuffs, would be to have free entry for the product wherever it might come from, and whereas with regard to sugar and in other cases there is need to support home agriculture, I should have thought it would have been better to do it by way of subsidy or deficiency payment. I think that should be the broad principle—
  Mr. Speaker: I am not sure that I am following this. Would there not be a duty whether or no the House approved the Order? Does it make any difference?
  Mr. Jay: As a matter of fact, Mr. Speaker, I had just come to the end of my remarks, but this Order certainly removes one set of duties while imposing another, so we are not merely removing the duties in one form but imposing them in another. I therefore presume that it is in order to discuss whether we should reimpose them, and I hope the Minister will be able, both in terms of his knowledge and the rules of order, to answer some of my questions.
  10.18 p.m.
  The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. Alan Green): The first question, which I hope is in order, is: how substantial are these taxes? The right hon. Gentleman is quite right in saying that this is essentially a transference from revenue to import duty, and it follows the pledge given by my right hon. Friend in his 1962 Budget. Before dealing with how substantial these taxes are, I should like to answer the direct question about the delay.
  Many of the duties previously in force on composite goods, that is goods containing sugar or cocoa, or both—made-up manufactured goods—were over-elaborate. These have been simplified

  717
  wherever possible, which is a good further product of this Order. Working out simplified rates, in some cases in consultation with the trades affected, together with the need to work out new drawback schemes under Section 9 of the Import Duties Act, 1958, accounts mainly for the delay from the passing of the Finance Act, 1962, to the introduction of this Order. We had to consult some trades that were marginally or directly affected in order to be sure that we were not affecting them in a way we had not intended. That is the reason for the delay.
  How substantial are these decreases? In 1961–62, before the rates were reduced, the yield to the Revenue was about £17 million. As a consequence of the action of my right hon. Friend in 1962–63 the yield was a good deal less than half of that. This is where we pass into the kind of mystery that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned and under which he laboured when he was in power.
  The effect of this Order in terms of revenue will be negligible, but I should like the right hon. Gentleman to know that it is substantially less than half the £17 million.
  Mr. Jay: Is that £8 million, or whatever it now is, in sugar and tea?
  Mr. Green: A substantial part of it will be sugar. There is, I agree, therefore this extra complication. The right hon. Gentleman very fairly excluded sugar from the argument, because there is a home-protected element in that as well. He went on to ask whether I thought that the remaining Customs element was of real value to the Commonwealth. This was his key question. I can only give the facts in the case.
  On tea there is a 2d. per lb. duty and it is guaranteed to Commonwealth suppliers. On coffee there is a 9s. 4d. per cwt. duty which is guaranteed to India and Rhodesia. It is a fact that under the Ottawa Agreement we have given these guarantees and we cannot unilaterally get rid of them. This, therefore, is the reason why in the transference from revenue to protective duty we have retained what we guaranteed. I hope that with these words the right hon. Gentleman and the House will accept the Order.
  Mr. Eric Lubbock: The hon. Gentleman said that the effects of
  718
  the Order in terms of revenue would be negligible, but I believe that it is true that under this Order some of the commitments which we have undertaken under the E.F.T.A. Agreement, which would have taken effect on 1st March, 1965, have been anticipated. Therefore, to that extent there must have been some reduction in the revenue that will be received from these duties.
  Secondly, the hon. Gentleman says that the duty of 2d. per lb. on tea and 9s. 4d. a cwt. on coffee have been guaranteed under the Ottawa Agreement. Does he say, therefore, that in these circumstances, whatever a future Government might decide, we are never entitled to revoke these duties?
  Mr. Green: With the leave of the House I would say to the hon. Member that, first, on E.F.T.A. he is quite right. We are acting within our E.F.T.A. obligations. The hon. Member and the House may recall that we can either remove any protective elements in revenue duties in instalments, in step with the normal E.F.T.A. timetable for the removal of duties, or take single action by 1st January, 1965. We chose the second alternative, and in view of the acceleration of the E.F.T.A. timetables we proceeded to take this step at an early date. We are acting completely within our E.F.T.A. obligations.
  The hon. Member asked whether the E.F.T.A. obligations made any difference to the revenue-bearing effect on the consumer of these commodities. The plain answer is that practically all our supplies of these commodities come from the Commonwealth and are duty-free. We retain the preferential margin for the reason I gave—because this is guaranteed I hope that the hon. Member would not ask me to make a hypothetical case as to what a future Government might or might not do in consultation with the Commonwealth. All I am saying is that we are doing this in line with E.F.T.A. obligations previously undertaken and we are not rescinding guarantees given to our Commonwealth friends.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That the Import Duties (General) (No. 4). Order 1963, dated 28th May, 1963, a copy of which was laid before this House on 31st May, be approved.

  THE GAMBIA (CONSTITUTION)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. I. Fraser.]
  10.25 p.m.
  Mr. Norman Pannell: The matter which I have to raise is a complicated one and I hope, therefore, that the House will permit me to refer rather freely to my notes in order that I may give a concise account of it in the very short time at my disposal.
  On 28th May this year, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies announced in the House, in reply to a Question by the hon. Lady the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White), that he had advised the use of an Order in Council the effect of which would be to set aside the judgment of the Gambia Court of Appeal which had declared certain elections in the Gambia general elections of 1962 to be invalid. The decision of the Court of Appeal reversed an earlier decision by the Gambia High Court which had, in fact, upheld the validity of the elections.
  The Order in Council came into operation on 6th June, when the House was inrecess. There was, therefore, no opportunity to discuss the matter in the House, apart from the brief exchanges on 28th May. I am, therefore, grateful for this opportunity to ventilate the matter.
  The issue before both courts turned on the validity of the1961 register on which the 1962 elections had been held. This 1961 register of electors was quite distinct from the 1959 register on which the 1960 elections had been held. Indeed, the 1959 register of electors should have had validity until 1969, subject, of course, to certain amendments, deletions and additions. However, an amending Ordinance was introduced in Gambia in 1961, the purpose of which was to amend certain provisions of the electoral law in view of the impending general elections in 1962. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said that the object of the amending Ordinance of 1961 was to provide for the compilation of entirely new registers and that imprecise wording of one phrase in the Ordinance had given rise to the Court of Appeal's decision which had invalidated the register.
  720
  A perusal of the 1961 Ordinance does not support this view. There is nothing in it specifically or by inference authorising the compilation of new registers. Furthermore, the Chief Justice in the High Court in his judgment described the making of the 1961 register as a sheer waste of time and energy. However, he declined to declare the register invalid because he thought that Section 10(e) of the 1961 Ordinance had the effect of validating this irregularity. The Court of Appeal unanimously ruled that this was not so and accordingly declared certain elections in the Protectorate, not the Colony, invalid.
  There has been quoted in support of the 1961 register Section 6(a) of the 1961 Ordinance which provided for certifying registrations and said that
  "upon such certification such registers shall be deemed to have been lawfully compiled."
  Even so, it seems clear to me that the intention was that the 1962 elections should be held on the 1959 register, subject to certain amendments. In spite of this, a completely new register known as the 1961 register, was drawn up.
  This register, by the way, was the subject of many criticisms during the court hearing and several gross irregularities have been alleged. In particular, I might mention, it was alleged that six of the registration clerks were actually potential candidates at the forthcoming elections. Whether those charges have been investigated or not, I do not know.
  In any case, the appeal judge confirmed the view of the High Court that the 1961 register should never have been drawn up, and it was on this point that he declared the elections in certain constituencies invalid. He concluded that Section 6(a) of the 1961 Ordinance, which has been quoted as validating the1961 register, did not, in fact, have this effect since its purpose was to validate only the lists of voters which would operate in amendment of the 1959 register.
  The effect of the Appeal Court's decision is that the elections to all the 25 seats in the Protectorate have been rendered invalid, leaving only the seven Colony members and the four Chief's representatives validly elected. Clearly, this"rump", as it has been called, cannot legislate for the territory or operate

  721
  effectively as a government, neither can it validate the 1961 register.
  The opposition party, headed by Mr. P. S. N'Jie, which was, incidentally, defeated at the elections, feels very strongly that the Appeal Court's decision should be upheld and that fresh elections should take place. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said on 28th May that Mr. N'Jie's opposition party, the United Party, which was defeated at the 1962 elections, was in power when the 1961 register was drawn up, and therefore, since it did not object to that register at the time, it had no case now.
  I do not wish to speak at any length on that point, because my right hon. Friend the Member for Reigate (Sir J. Vaughan-Morgan), if he catches your eye, Mr. Speaker, will say some words about that. I just want to say that Mr. N'Jie, who was then Chief Minister, says that he had no influence at all on the compilation of the register since he was in that respect regarded as only the head of a political party.
  But in view of what I have said it seems to me a serious matter that Her Majesty's Government should validate registrations which have been declared invalid by the highest court of law in the Gambia. It further appears that the 1961 register was not declared invalid owing to the imprecise drafting of one phrase in the 1961 ordinance as my right hon. Friend alleged, but rather that a phrase in that Ordinance was wrongly assumed by the High Court judge to validate the 1961 register, and this view was rejected by the Appeal Court.
  I think that I should mention here that the validity of the Order in Council itself could be challenged, owing to the dual character of the territory, which comprises both a Colony and a Protectorate, but I do not wish—I am not, indeed, competent—to argue that point, which is a purely legal one.
  I should like to say that the future of the Gambia is at present in the balance. It is recognised that it is a small unviable territory with a very uncertain future should it become an independent State and, indeed, moves are afoot for it either to join the neighbouring French-speaking territory of the Senegal or
  722
  associate with it in some sort of federation.
  This is a matter of the highest possible constitutional importance to the Gambia, and, in my view, the negotiations for this should not be left to a Government who have been declared to be invalidly constituted. I freely admit that it is essential that the actions of the present Gambian Government should be validated till a new Government can be elected. But there would seem to be a very strong case for the argument that a new Government validly elected should bear the responsibility of negotiating the future of the territory.
  In view of this, I urge that a new Order in Council should be introduced arranging for the drawing up of entirely new registers under independent control, and that a new Government should be elected under these new registers. Obviously, this will occasion considerable delay, but in a matter of such importance it is, in my view, essential that Her Majesty's Government should be seen to act impartially and not proceed in an apparently arbitrary manner to flout the decisions of the highest court of law in Gambia. The opposition party in the Gambia feels very deeply aggrieved at the action of the Secretary of State, and takes the view—which I must admit I share—that the future of the territory should be decided only by a validly elected Government clearly reflecting the views of the electorate.
  10.36 p.m.
  Sir John Vaughan-Morgan: Not very many hon. Members have been to the Gambia, but those who have will hold this oldest Colony in West Africa, with so long a history and so loyal for so many centuries, in great affection.
  I do not want to add very much to what my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Kirkdale (Mr. N. Pannell) has said. The only point I want to emphasise is that I rather dislike the attitude which the Secretary of State took when he kind of threw the blame on to the then Government of the country, headed as it was then by Mr. N'Jie.
  This, as my hon. Friend said, does not seem to be right or relevant. This is, and was then, a colonial administration. These are matters which fall in the main,

  723
  as I understand it, within the province of the colonial Government and the colonial Governor. If we are to establish this Colony on the road to democracy, we must ensure, as my hon. Friend said, that the Government are elected on a duly constituted franchise and a duly constituted register.
  I must say that the action that my right hon. Friend has taken so far is right and proper and, indeed, inevitable in the circumstances, but we have to clear the decks for a different approach in the future. I hope that my hon. Friend will find it possible to withdraw in the main the suggestion that the then party in power was in any way responsible for what happened.
  10.38 p.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Nigel Fisher): I see that my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Kirkdale (Mr. N. Pannell) has called this debate"The Gambia Constitution"; and in view of this, although it has no connection whatever with the points that he has raised, I would like, first, to take this opportunity of informing the House—because I do not think that it has appeared in the British newspapers—of an announcement made by the Governor of the Gambia in the House of Representatives on Tuesday, that important constitutional changes will shortly take place in the Colony.
  The Governor has, in fact, announced that the Secretary of State has agreed to grant full internal self-government to the Gambia, and that an Order in Council will be submitted to Her Majesty later this year. I thought that it might be of interest to the House if I drew attention to that point.
  Mr. A. G. Bottomley: Does that mean that in some ways the hon. Gentleman is forestalling the claim made tonight that it will not be possible for him to take action as requested by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Kirkdale (Mr. K Pannell)?
  Mr. Fisher: That was certainly not my intention. What action I propose to take, or my lack of action, will become apparent as I come to my hon. Friend's arguments. No, this was quite innocent. I just thought that the House should be informed of this important development in the Gambia.
  724
  I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Kirkdale for raising this, as he said, very complicated matter, because it is of some importance to the Gambia and deserves, I think, to be ventilated and clarified. Of course, the opportunity my right hon. Friend had to do this on 28th May was inevitably circumscribed by the limitations of time and form which a statement after Question Time imposes.
  As my right hon. Friend then explained, the 1959 register of electors was, by common consent—and I do not think that this is disputed—unsatisfactory. It was therefore decided, in 1961, to prepare an entirely new register—the one which was, in fact, used for the 1962 elections. I will try to explain this as best I can, but it is really very complicated.
  My hon. Friend has told the House that the intention was to hold the elections on the 1959 register. With respect, I do not agree. In law, this may be the legal interpretation of the apparent legal intention, but the actual intention in the minds of the people who did it was to hold the elections on the new 1961 register, which had already been prepared by that time, and the trouble arose because of a drafting error in the 1961 Ordinance.
  My hon. Friend is absolutely right in saying, in effect, that the law as it was in 1961 provided for amendments to the existing 1959 register, but did not provide for a new register. In fact, the registering officers had legislative authority to compile a new register every tenth year, but for the intervening nine years they only had authority to bring the existing register up to date. So the 1961 register was not legally authorised.
  If the Gambia Amendment Ordinance, 1961, had specifically validated the new 1961 register as such—which it could have done and should have done—all would have been well and we would not have been in this difficulty. But it did not do that. All it did was to provide for registering officers to certify the accuracy of their lists and upon such certification, such registers
  "..shall be deemed to have been lawfully compiled and shall not be open to challenge."
  What the Ordinance did not do was to legalise the 1961 voters lists as legal

  725
  registers. That was the sole respect in which the error in the Ordinance occurred.
  Mr. N. Pannell: Since the 1961 registers were drawn up several months before the amending Ordinance, and if it was the purpose of the Ordinance to regularise these registers, surely a simple clause would have had that effect.
  Mr. Fisher: Of course it could. That is what I have been saying. There was absolutely no reason why this register, which had already been drawn up, should not have been specifically validated as such by the Ordinance, but this was the error. It was a drafting error. They failed to put in this most important provision.
  My right hon. Friend has been into this personally and with very great care. He is satisfied—and his view is endorsed by the Governor—that there is no doubt at all that the intention of both parties in the Gambia House of Representatives at the time was to hold the 1962 elections on this new 1961 register, which was, of course, what happened. But validation of the 1961 register was, in fact, frustrated by this faulty form of words used in the Ordinance. In short, the Ordinance was very badly drafted and the confusion arises from this legal and technical flaw which was missed by the High Court of Gambia, but spotted by the Court of Appeal.
  Mr. N. Pannell: I am sorry to interrupt again, but this is not just a slight technical flaw. It is a grave omission. It is leaving out the essential element required to validate the 1961 register.
  Mr. Fisher: I will not quarrel with my hon. Friend about the words we use to describe this. He is on one side of the case and I am on the other. I did not say that it was a slight flaw. I said that it was a legal and technical flaw. He says that it was a major omission. We shall not fall out about this. I do not mind what words are used. This is what happened.
  My submission to the House is that regrettable as this drafting error may be, it made no difference in fact to the 1961 register or to the result of the 1962 election which was fought upon that register.
  My hon. Friend said that the important issue of Gambia's future, in union with or
  726
  federated to Senegal should not be decided by a Government which had been improperly elected. If that were the position, I would, of course, fully agree with him, because that is an immensely important issue for the Gambia and one on which there is, I think, some element of controversy between the Gambia Government and the opposition party there. If I thought that there was any substance whatever in the allegation, expressed or implied, that the present Government of the Gambia did not, owing to the1961 register, reflect the democratic wishes of the Gambian people, I assure the House that I would be the first to press for a new register, new elections and, if it so resulted, a new Government. Indeed, it would be my duty and the duty of Her Majesty's Government to insist upon these things.
  But that is not the position. The use of the 1961 as opposed to the 1959 register had no effect on the result of the 1962 elections. I will show why I say that. In the Protectorate, the P.P.P., that is, the Government party, quite apart from one unopposed candidate, polled 54,600 votes, while the United Party, the opposition party, and the independents polled together 27,200 votes, only half as many. It was a sweeping victory. In not a single constituency were the votes so close that the errors, if there were errors, in the 1961 register could possibly or conceivably have made any difference to the result. Indeed, except in one constituency large majorities prevailed, I think, throughout the Protectorate. Nor has there been any change in the popular will since the election. In fact, the Gambia's government's party majority has actually increased, because several opposition members have crossed the Floor since the general election.
  If new registers were compiled and new elections were held, I am sure that there would not be a result different from the position at present, so what is the point of doing so? Of course we considered doing it, but it would have been very difficult since the validity of the present membership of the legislature would be in question and the law to establish a new register could not have been passed by the present Gambia House. We should have had to do it here by an Order in Council. We could have done it perfectly well and we could

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  have ordered the compilation of a new register and the holding of new elections upon it. But as there is nothing to suggest that there is anything wrong with the 1961 register, that would have been a very time-taking, inconvenient and expensive procedure, and it would have produced a result which would not have been different from the Gambia which now exists.
  My hon. Friend made one criticism. He referred to the fact that some registration clerks stood as candidates at the subsequent elections. Registration clerks did stand as candidates, but there was nothing improper in this. They were not candidates when they were appointed registration clerks, nor were they registration clerks when they became candidates. I am informed, I think reliably, that some registration clerks became U.P. candidates and others P.P.P. candidates, so that this cancels itself out.
  I should remind the House that the 1961 Ordinance provided for appeals against any mistakes in the register of electors. Therefore, if there had been any criticisms of the register, they should have been made and presumably would have been made at the time under the proper appeal machinery. I understand that what happened was this. About three months after the 1962 elections had been held, one of the defeated candidates discovered, rather brightly, the legal and technical flaw in the 1961 Ordinance to which I have referred. He used it to go to court and eventually to get a legal verdict from the Appeal Court of invalidation of the register on a technicality. That is really all it is.
  That is the position. There is no great issue of principle here and there is certainly no infringement whatever of democracy. There is a drafting error in a Gambia Ordinance, which we have sought to put right with the minimum inconvenience and the minimum delay to the people concerned. I hope that the House will accept this really perfectly innocent explanation of this drafting error, which has in some people's minds, quite genuinely—I am not complaining—been blown up into a great constitutional issue. It is not that at all.
  There is one other point to which I should briefly refer, because it has been
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  mentioned not only by my hon. Friend the Member for Kirkdale but also my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Reigate (Sir J. Vaughan-Morgan). They have both pointed out that Mr. N'Jei was not responsible, when in office at the time, for the 1961 Ordinance or for the 1961 register. That is perfectly true. No local Minister was constitutionally responsible at that time. The Commissioner for Local Government was responsible. But it is equally true to say that the decision to compile a new register was taken at an Executive Council meeting at which Mr. N'Jei was present. He therefore knew of the decision and agreed to it, even though he may not fully have understood it. I cannot say that I blame him; it is an extremely complicated matter. But he was cognisant of it in theory, because he was present, and so, although I do not in any way attach responsibility to him, because he was not responsible at the time, he did not object, nor did either of the political parties object, to what was being done. It was the intention that this should be done.
  Even though it is a complicated matter there is no substance in all this. I ask my hon. Friend to accept that whatever method had been adopted to put it right—whatever method we could have used, other than the one we chose—the practical result, in the membership of the House of Representatives, would have been no different at all from what it is today. That is the point from a democratic point of view, and the point of importance so far as the Gambia is concerned.
  Nevertheless, having said that, I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising the matter in the House, because it has enabled me to try—in so far as it is comprehensible to anyone who has not studied it—to correct the impression that might have gained currency in the Gambia that some injustice had somehow been perpetrated, or some democratic principle somehow flouted. That is not the case, and I very much hope that my hon. Friend will accept my explanation of the position.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at seven minutes to Eleven o'clock

MALAYSIAN FEDERATION
  Discussions
  Discussions
LOCAL GOVERNMENT
  Sewerage Scheme, Norman Cross
  Sewerage Scheme, Norman Cross
  Water Charges (Sub-Committee)
  Water Charges (Sub-Committee)
  New Towns (Social Amenities)
  New Towns (Social Amenities)
  Compulsory Purchase Order, Silksworth
  Compulsory Purchase Order, Silksworth
  Smokeless Zones (Leyton)
  Smokeless Zones (Leyton)
EDUCATION
  Technical Colleges (Apprenticeship Courses)
  Technical Colleges (Apprenticeship Courses)
  School Leavers, Aberavon
  School Leavers, Aberavon
HOUSING
  Easington
  Easington
TRADE AND COMMERCE
  British Films (Exports to Russia)
  British Films (Exports to Russia)
  Non-flammable Nightwear
  Non-flammable Nightwear
  Marine Hovercraft
  Marine Hovercraft
  Unemployment Areas
  Unemployment Areas
NATIONAL FINANCE
  Building Societies (Investors)
  Building Societies (Investors)
  Accepting Houses Committee (Membership)
  Accepting Houses Committee (Membership)
  Income Tax (Local Authorities)
  Income Tax (Local Authorities)
HOME DEPARTMENT
  Remand in Custody
  Remand in Custody
  Cremation Act (Revised Regulations)
  Cremation Act (Revised Regulations)
  Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act
  Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act
  Detained Persons
  Detained Persons
  Miss Rice-Davies
  Miss Rice-Davies
  Lord Denning (Inquiry)
  Lord Denning (Inquiry)
RHODESIA AND NYASALAND
  Victoria Falls Conference
  Victoria Falls Conference
NYASALAND
  Malawi Police
  Malawi Police
MALTA
  Constitution
  Constitution
ROYAL NAVY
  Manpower
  Manpower
AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD
  White Fish Authority (Levy)
  White Fish Authority (Levy)
  French New Potatoes
  French New Potatoes
EMPLOYMENT
  School Leavers (Scotland)
  School Leavers (Scotland)
  Northern Region and Gateshead
  Northern Region and Gateshead
MINISTRY OF HEALTH
  Executive Councils, Greater London
  Executive Councils, Greater London
  Health Centres
  Health Centres
HOSPITALS
  Medical Staff
  Medical Staff
MINISTRY OF POWER
  Smokeless Fuels
  Smokeless Fuels
  Electricity Boards (Charges)
  Electricity Boards (Charges)
  Nuclear Reactors (Output Capacity)
  Nuclear Reactors (Output Capacity)
SCOTLAND
  Scottish Licensing Law (Report)
  Scottish Licensing Law (Report)
  Water Supplies, Central Scotland (Report)
  Water Supplies, Central Scotland (Report)

Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Chester
The Earl of Enniskillen (L. Grinstead)—Sat first in Parliament after the death of his kinsman.

DETENTION OF GERMAN MARKSMEN'S RIFLES
2.35 p.m.
THE EARL OF GOSFORD: 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 why the sporting rifles of a German team, who were invited to take part in a shooting match at Worthing, were confiscated at Dover; in spite of the fact that the team had received a letter from the British Embassy in Bonn informing them that they would be allowed to bring their rifles with them into the United Kingdom.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF DUNDEE): My Lords, for reasons of public safety firearms and ammunition may not be imported into the United Kingdom except on production of an import licence or firearm certificate. The German marksmen who arrived at Dover on the 21st of May had neither of these documents, which their hosts here could and should have obtained beforehand, and their rifles and ammunition were therefore detained pending the issue of a firearm certificate. Although the host club telephoned the West Sussex police the same evening and were invited to call in the next day, they did not pursue the matter and therefore the necessary certificate was not obtained, but the weapons were returned to the marksmen when they left the country on the 27th of May.
The marksmen had not been informed that they would be allowed to bring their
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rifles into the United Kingdom, but Her Majesty's Consul in Düsseldorf, who is of course not competent to issue import licences or firearms certificates, had given them a letter to Her Majesty's Customs and Excise saying that any assistance which could be afforded to the party in effecting the temporary importation of their guns into the United Kingdom would be much appreciated. I regret the inconvenience suffered by the German sportsmen, but these regulations are very necessary.
THE EARL OF GOSFORD: My Lords, while thanking the noble Earl for his reply, and fully appreciating and agreeing that these regulations are necessary, I would ask him whether he is aware that a certificate can be granted only if the number of rifles concerned is known. Is he aware also that the host Club did not know the number of rifles arriving at Dover and therefore could not be issued with a certificate? This was not their fault. Is the noble Earl also aware that the German team had been here before and had been allowed to bring in their rifles; but that they brought this letter from the British Consulate to make certain that all would be well? Is the noble Earl further aware that this Act gave rise to rather hilarious and uncomplimentary cartoons in the German Press?
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, I am not aware of all those points; but I am aware that it is the usual practice for rifle clubs in this country who entertain a visiting team to arrange beforehand about their import licences or firearms certificates. That was not done in this case. It could have been arranged the following morning, after their arrival, but the matter was not pursued by the host Club. I am glad to learn that they did lend their guests rifles, which was no doubt the reason why they did not bother to proceed with the application for a certificate. I hope that they all had some very good shooting.
THE EARL OF GOSFORD: My Lords, if the noble Earl will forgive me, the reason they did not pursue the matter is that Chichester is 120 miles from Dover. They were also informed, I understand, that there was not much chance of the rifles arriving before the end of the contest. I think it is not quite the same thing to shoot with other people's rifles.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, it depends on the rifles.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl whether this incident does not show that there ought to be in every Customs station of this kind somebody who has enough responsibility entrusted to him to be able to waive regulations in cases of this sort? The disadvantage of incidents like this is far greater than any advantage gained by enforcing the regulations.
THE EARL OF DUNDEE: My Lords, Customs officials are very competent people; but I think it might be a little hard to pass on to them the onus of judging whether an arrival in this country is or is not a suitable person to be entrusted with firearms.

NEWSPAPER PUBLICATION OF UNDESIRABLE MEMOIRS
2.40 p.m.
LORD PEDDIE: 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 consider the increasing practice of some newspapers buying for publication the purported memoirs or life stories of criminals, prostitutes, and other persons of undesirable notoriety should be referred to the Press Council as a subject on which, in the public interest, the Council should express its opinion.]
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): My Lords, the Press Council is in process of reconstituting itself with a lay chairman and a proportion of lay members and wider terms of reference. While I cannot anticipate their approach to matters such as the noble Lord has raised, the new body may well consider this an appropriate subject on which to express an opinion. The Government deplore the publication in the Press of memoirs which lend glamour to crime, or to vice, I might add, and cater for an unhealthy interest in them. They would welcome any consideration that the Press Council felt able to give to the matter.
LORD PEDDIE: My Lords, I thank the noble Viscount for his reply and particularly for his reference to the fact that this is an appropriate subject for consideration by the Press Council. I would ask whether he believes it is wrong in principle as well as in law to permit financial gain to be secured from criminal or immoral activities.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I do not know about its being wrong in law. This is a very wide proposition. But I have, as the noble Lord will probably remember, twice deplored this particular practice in connection with the publication of memoirs; and I noticed, or rather I heard, the Leader of the Opposition in another place give expression to views of a similar kind.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, may I ask Her Majesty's Government whether the new terms of reference for the Press Council will include their being able to recommend to Her Majesty's Government that this kind of practice should be made illegal?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I do not know offhand what the terms of reference will be; it is a matter for the Press itself. But I have no doubt that if they came to the conclusion that there was any action which Her Majesty's Government could usefully take they would find means to let us know.
LORD SALTOUN: My Lords, may I ask whether there is any evidence of public morals having suffered any damage from the publication of the memoirs of Harriet Wilson?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I think I should require notice of that question.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, arising out of the Question of the noble Lord, Lord Peddie, and the noble Viscount's Answer, has the attention of the Government been drawn to the amazement and widespread disgust at the amount and tone of matter that the B.B.C. has been providing to its unfortunate news readers to disseminate in respect of the Ward case?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I think I require notice of that, too. I am afraid that my ability to

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listen to the B.B.C. has been greatly curtailed by the extent of my public duties.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, I would ask the noble Viscount, as an historian, whether he would say that the lives of the great prostitutes in history are more immoral than those of the great killers of men.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I think that I should also require notice of that question.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: My Lords, is it not a bit rough of the noble Viscount to say that he has not time to look or listen to the B.B.C. disseminations? I, and millions of others, listened recently to the noble Viscount on B.B.C., and I was greatly interested. The only thing was that I had to turn the knob down a little because it got a bit too loud.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, the noble Lord must really learn a little more about science and technology. The volume which is emitted bears no relation to the volume of the voice. It is a purely technical matter.
LORD FRANCIS-WILLIAMS: My Lords, can the noble Viscount give the House any assurance that the very large sums which are paid by newspapers to criminals, prostitutes, adulterers and others for their memoirs, the amounts they receive in gain for their confessions, are not allowed to stand as a capital gain for the purpose of tax so that they do not benefit by the whole amount?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I am not at all sure, but I will take advice about that.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: My Lords, would the noble Viscount not agree that such a remuneration would come under the heading of casual profit?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I am not at all sure about that, either. There is a doctrine in tax law that if a person practises a profession once, the gain is none the less professional earnings and not a casual profit.
LORD FRANCIS-WILLIAMS: My Lords, may I put this point to the noble Viscount? Sometimes these monies are
1000
not regarded as professional earnings, because these people are not getting any money from the exercise of their criminal profession but from the alleged exercise of their journalistic ability, usually with the aid of a ghost writer, in telling the public about the results of their criminal or other activities.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I believe that the tax inspector takes the view that if one practises journalism once that makes one a journalist and the fee is not casual profit but professional earnings. But if the noble Lord wants a considered answer on this point he will have to put down a Question.

NEW MOTORWAYS AND TOLLS
2.44 p.m.
LORD ST. JUST: 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 satisfied with the present progress of construction on new motorways; and whether they are considering introducing a system of tolls on these roads when completed.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD CHESHAM): My Lords, 217½ miles of motorway are in use. A further 41 miles will be opened this month, and another 34½ miles before the end of the year. Yet another 72½ miles are under construction; 29½, miles are at the stage of getting tenders, and some 600 further miles are at varying stages of preparation. We have substantially increased each year the funds devoted to the road programme and to motorways in it. Our aim is 1,000 miles of motorway by the early 1970s, and present progress is consistent with that.
It was announced in 1961 that the policy of charging tolls on large and expensive bridges and tunnels would be continued and that tolls would not be charged on motorways forming part of the five major projects or early extensions of them. This policy still applies. Whether or not we should charge tolls on later motorways has not yet been decided.
THE EARL OF GOSFORD: My Lords, may I ask my noble friend when Her Majesty's Government are going to announce the extension of their present programme, details of which he has just given to the House, to something up to what the County Surveyors' Association have said this country requires—that is, a further 1,700 miles over the present 1,000—if the roads are not to become entirely stagnant. As to tolls, is my noble friend aware that of the money found by the motorist only a very small proportion of the money goes into roads and that any toll would be out of proportion?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, it seems to me that in a sense my noble friend has raised what is a further matter and brought in somebody else's plan. The plan which has been put forward by the noble Lord is the opinion of an Association which does not have the charge of looking after the other national interests, as do the Government. More specifically, I would say to my noble friend that my right honourable friend has already offered to discuss the proposals with the Association in the light of their own studies into future highway needs. He has asked them, first, for further comment, which he still awaits.
THE EARL OF LUCAN: My Lords, could the noble Lord say whether his Department exercise any consideration as to the proper balance between expenditure on motorways and on the improvement of ordinary roads?
LORD CHESHAM: My Lords, we do our best to do so.

THE YEMEN: RELEASE OF BRITISH PRISONERS
2.48 p.m.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (THE EARL OF HOME): My Lords, I think that the House would like to hear of the latest position of the prisoners in the Yemen. I am glad to be able to confirm to the House that the sixteen British servicemen who have been held prisoner in the Yemen have arrived safely in Aden. I believe that they are all well.
The terms of the agreement under which they were released have been
1002
negotiated by Mr. Cortada, the United States Chargé d' Affaires in Taiz, on our behalf. We authorised him to tell the Yemen authorities that we regretted the accidental crossing of the frontier, and that all possible steps would be taken by the British military authorities concerned to see that there would be no repetition of such an incident. As to the payment of compensation for casualties incurred by the Yemenis in the skirmish, as well as for damage to property, we left Mr. Cortada discretion within the limit of a few thousand pounds. I do not know the exact details yet, but the sum of £150,000 mentioned in the Press to-day is, of course, ridiculous. It is probable that it will be in the region of 150,000 shillings local currency, which is equivalent to £7,500. It might be less.
I have already sent a telegram to Mr. Rusk, expressing the thanks of Her Majesty's Government for the devoted work which Mr. Cortada and other members of the United States Foreign Service have put in during this unfortunate affair; without their skill and patience we could not have got the men back so soon.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, we are obliged to the Foreign Secretary for the statement, and I should like to say at once that we admire the persistence with which, from the time the matter was first raised in the House, he has pursued it. I should also like heartily to associate the Opposition with the tribute paid to the American representative, Mr. Cortada, and to the United States for making these representations. We are all still concerned about the incident, and I was wondering whether the Foreign Secretary could give us any idea as to the date on which we shall receive the report of the inquiry which the Government ordered.
LORD REA: My Lords, I should like to join in thanking the Foreign Secretary. It seems to me that this is rather a storm in a teacup—an unfortunate storm in a very sensitive teacup. We are, indeed, grateful for the help given to us by the Americans, and I would endorse what the noble Earl has said.
THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, I am obliged. A storm in a teacup can

1003
be very dangerous sometimes and take much wider forms, and I am glad that this incident is over. So far as the report on the incident itself goes, about which the noble Earl the Leader of the Opposition asked, I shall be in touch with my right honourable friend the Minister of Defence and perhaps will be able to tell the House later on what date we expect to get it. I hope it will be soon.
LORD OGMORE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl whether the report will deal with the question how this body came to be so far out of their way, and what has happened to the instruction in map reading in the Aden Base for the various people employed in that base?
THE EARL OF HOME: My Lords, I do not know what else the report could contain. I should have thought that was bound to be the information in it.

BRITISH RAILWAYS BILL
Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
GLASGOW CORPORATION ORDER CONFIRMATION BILL
Considered on Report (according to Order).

EDUCATION (SCOTLAND) BILL
House in Committee (according to Order).
House resumed: Bill reported without amendment; Report received.

SHERIFF COURTS (CIVIL JURISDICTION AND PROCEDURE) (SCOTLAND) BILL
House in Committee (according to Order).
House resumed: Bill reported without amendment; Report received.

PUBLIC ORDER BILL [H.L.]
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.
REMUNERATION OF TEACHERS BILL
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.

PEERAGE BILL
2.57 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD DILHORNE): My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty The Queen to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Bill, has consented to place her prerogative and interest, so far as they are affected by the Bill, at the disposal of Parliament.
I apprehend that your Lordships will not wish me to traverse again the ground which was so fully covered when I moved, last March, a Motion that this House should take note of the Joint Select Committee's Report. On that occasion your Lordships considered the detailed recommendations of that Committee on their merits and, as my noble and learned friend the Leader of the House said on 15th May, the tenor of that debate showed that in general the Committee's recommendations would be acceptable to this House. My noble friend then undertook that the Government would introduce legislation as soon as possible to give effect to what appeared to be the wishes both of this House and of another place.
It was on 15th May that the Government were able to state their intentions and, as noble Lords are no doubt aware, this Bill was introduced in another place before the Whitsun Recess. Any changes in our constitutional law always involve difficulties of draftsmanship and unexpected complications, but I think nobody can complain that we have been slow in producing this Bill, which has already stood up to a good deal of scrutiny and come through unscathed. If, as I hope will be the case, your Lordships are able to approve it, we shall have put a useful reform on the Statute Book in a very short time.
I know that there are many noble Lords who wish to speak to-day, and I shall do not more than explain briefly the contents of the Bill, with particular reference to those points which are not covered by the Joint Select Committee's recommendations or on which the Bill departs from those recommendations in any particular. As your Lordships will

1005
see, Clauses 1 to 3 implement those recommendations of the Committee which deal with the "surrender" of Peerages. In the Bill we have used the word "disclaim", because it has been thought that this expression connotes rather more accurately what the Committee meant. This is a somewhat technical matter, but those of your Lordships who are familiar with legal terms will remember that in real property law an interest which is surrendered is extinguished; on the other hand, we speak of a legatee or a trustee in bankruptcy "disclaiming" a bequest or an interest which he does not want. Although I hope few would equate a Peerage with a damnosa hereditas, I think your Lordships will agree that, since we do not propose that renunciation should extinguish the Peerage, "disclaim" is the right word to use.
Clauses 1 and 2 prescribe the circumstances in which a Peerage may be disclaimed. I hope that the House will forgive me if I do not explain their provisions in detail, because (subject to the points which I shall refer to below) they carry out precisely the recommendations of the Committee which we have already examined. To put it shortly, anybody who succeeds to a Peerage in the future, or has succeeded in the past, will be able to disclaim that Peerage, but he will have to do so within certain strict time limits. These are six months from the coming into force of the Bill in the case of a Peer who has already succeeded; one month from succession in the case of a Peer who succeeds as a sitting Member of the House of Commons, and twelve months from succession in any other case.
There are two respects in which these clauses depart from the recommendations of the Committee. First, we have thought it right for these time limits to be capable of extension in cases of illness or other disability, particularly where the one month limit applies; this is accordingly provided for by Clause 1(4) and Clause 2(4). Secondly, for the reasons I gave to the House last March (and which were, I think, acceptable to your Lordships), we have not accepted the proposal that a person standing for election to the House of Commons should automatically be deemed to have undertaken to disclaim any Peerage to which he might succeed
1006
during the election. Such a proposal appeared to the Government to be capable of working injustice, and we have preferred to allow the election to proceed and to give the candidate, if successful, the normal one month in which to make up his mind.
Nor did we think it practicable to require a Parliamentary candidate who has disclaimed a Peerage to produce to the returning officer a copy of the instrument of disclaimer as a condition of nomination, and the Bill contains no such provision. There are a number of other points of detail affecting Parliamentary elections which arise on Clause 2, but I do not think the House will wish me to dilate on them at this stage.
Clause 3 provides for the effect of a disclaimer, and here the Bill follows the Committee's recommendations. The disclaiming Peer becomes to all intents and purposes a commoner for life, and on his death his heir succeeds to the Peerage in the normal way. I know some of your Lordships would prefer to see the Peerage extinguished: I appreciate their reasons, but after considering the very full and frank exchange of views which took place in an earlier debate, the Government have preferred to adhere to the Committee's recommendations. I will not at this stage rehearse the arguments on either side, because they are already familiar; I think it comes down in the end to this: if we were attempting in this Bill to curtail the right to membership of this House, then there would be a logical argument for extinction. But since that is not what the Bill seeks to do, it would be wrong for us to interfere with the rights of the heirs to a Peerage which has been disclaimed.
I ought, perhaps, to say something about the effect of the Bill on the use of titles. Your Lordships will see from Clause 3(1) that a Peer who disclaims loses any titles attaching to the Peerage. Your Lordships may also observe that there is nothing in the Bill either about courtesy titles or about what is to happen if the disclaiming Peer continues to use his old title. The reason is this: the fundamental rule of law is that anybody may call himself what he likes provided, of course, he does not use an assumed name for dishonest purposes. The House may readily call to mind instances of persons who have achieved some

1007
degree of fame in the world of entertainment who have described themselves as Lord This or Duke That. There is no reason why they should not; but one would expect that any Peer who disclaimed his Peerage would not choose to be known by a title he had deliberately rejected.
Secondly, as I have said, the Bill is silent about courtesy titles. Your Lordships are no doubt well aware that "courtesy title" means exactly what it says. An heir to a Peerage who, as a matter of courtesy, is known as, shall we say, Viscount Blank is not, of course, the holder of the Viscountcy of Blank, which is a title held by his father. Since he has no title it would be impossible to deprive him of one: again, what he chooses to call himself should his father disclaim or should he disclaim immediately on inheriting the title is a matter for him, and I am sure we should be very well advised not to try to interfere by legislation with courtesy titles.
I hope I may deal quite shortly with the remaining provisions of the Bill—not that they are unimportant, or, perhaps, altogether uncontroversial, but they are straightforward, and your Lordships are already familiar with the proposals which they implement. Clause 4 carries out the Committee's recommendation that all holders of Scottish Peerages should become entitled to Membership of this House. I appreciate that those who have taken part in the traditional ceremony of electing representative Peers, and particularly those who have themselves been elected to represent their fellows, may feel some regret at the passing of an historic institution—indeed, the noble Earl, Lord Perth, made this clear in our earlier debate. But I think the arguments both of principle and convenience are overwhelmingly in favour of the clause as it now stands.
I should, perhaps, make it clear that under the Bill a Scottish Peer will be in exactly the same position as an English or United Kingdom Peer as far as disclaiming is concerned. There will be nothing to stop a former Representative Peer disclaiming and standing for election to the House of Commons, provided he does so within the six months. I would also reassure noble Lords from Scotland that I have very much in mind
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the questions of the machinery by which Writs of Summons are to be issued to them and how, in future, succession to a Scottish Peerage is to be established to the satisfaction of whoever is to issue the Writ. I do not think these questions need cause any great difficulty.
Clause 5 removes the restrictions currently applicable to Irish Peers in relation to membership of the House of Commons and voting at Parliamentary elections. In future an Irish Peer will, if otherwise qualified, be able to represent any constituency in the United Kingdom and will be able to vote at any Parliamentary election. At present, as the House will remember, he cannot sit for a constituency in Northern Ireland or vote at an election unless he is himself a sitting Member of the House of Commons. I appreciate that the absence of any provision for the representation of Irish Peers in this House will come as a disappointment, though not as a surprise, to some noble Lords. The House will remember the discussions we had on this topic last March when my noble and learned friend Lord Kilmuir explained why the Committee had reached the conclusion that the present position should be left unchanged. I do not think I can say more than that the Government agree with the Committee's conclusion on this matter.
My Lords, if the Irish question is bound to cause, as always, some heart-burning, Clause 6 at least should be universally welcomed—unless the noble Earl, Lord Airlie, proposes to fight another rearguard action. Clause 6 confers on female holders of hereditary Peerages the right to membership of this House and, at the same time, puts them in the same Parliamentary position as men holding the same Peerages. They will have to disclaim if they wish to stand for election to the House of Commons or vote at Parliamentary elections. Your Lordships have repeatedly extended a warm, though ineffective, invitation to the hereditary Peeresses and I am sure that the House will be pleased that effect can now be given to its wishes.
Finally, my Lords, I must draw the attention of the House to Clause 7(2) which has attracted much attention in another place. In his statement to this House on May 15, my noble and learned

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friend Lord Hailsham stated unequivocally that the Government would introduce legislation in time for it to take effect at the next General Election. Clause 7(2) makes good that undertaking. Any Peer who wishes to stand for election then will have time to get himself adopted and to disclaim before being nominated. I do not see that there should be any difficulty about this.
On the other hand, there appear to me to be arguments, both of principle and of convenience, against making the change in the law operate before the end of this Parliament. We are altering by this measure the constitution of both Houses, and it seems only right that a Parliament which was summoned on a given basis should continue on that basis until, in the normal course of events, it comes to an end. Secondly, there would be appreciable, though admittedly not insuperable, difficulties in connection with the new status of Scottish Peers if Clause 4 were to come into force during the lifetime of this Parliament. On balance, I think it is right that we should make these important changes coincide with a new Parliament, and I hope that the House will agree. My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
3.12 p.m.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, this is yet another historic occasion in the history of Parliament in general and of this House in particular. There are those of us who have always liked to describe ourselves as people who are progressive in politics who may have thought from time to time in our long lives—some of us—that progress was very slow. Nevertheless, progress is coming. It was Lord Grey, I think, who after the famous decision in Parliament in the Reform Act, who went to the Guildhall that night and turned in the course of his speech to the audience and said:
"And now, let us educate our masters".
It is a long time ago since it was decided to take the first step in putting the sovereignty into the hands of the people, but this House has maintained ever since then one principle at least which is not yet wiped out and which is a fundamental principle in the
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general outlook and policy of the Labour Party; that is, it objects to a Government Revising Chamber that is dependent so largely upon the hereditary principle. I think it only right that that should be stated at this time.
Then, my Lords, I should like to say that, of course, the words that were used by a right honourable friend elsewhere are worthy of consideration: that the passing of this Bill will confer upon Peers under the present circumstances a very great right. It is a right which enables them to do what they have been prevented from doing so far; that is, to go to the electorate and ask for their suffrage and then to have the right to appear in the honourable House of the Commons. That is a considerable right.
Some Peers may think that rights are being taken away from them, but it seems that very little in that respect is being done at the present time. We have seen a departure from the hereditary principle to some extent in the notable reform which the Government brought in and which enabled Life Peers to be appointed: a step that I think has appealed to all sections of the House since by its actual practice in the debates of the House. I think that we have been very fortunate in obtaining notable additions to the House in that respect.
On the point mentioned by the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, with regard to the maintenance of titles to the descendants of anyone who disclaims (I must get used to using that word) a title, I would say that while, of course, those of us who served upon the Joint Select Committee of both Houses were against it and most of us voted against it in the Joint Select Committee, we agreed, in all the circumstances, to sign the Report as a whole. It is true that in another place an Amendment was moved to revert to the idea that a Peerage which is disclaimed by an individual Peer in order to be able to contend for a seat in the other place ought to wipe out that Peerage altogether. Most of us on this side of the House do not depart from that view. But I think, in view of the fact that we signed the Report as a whole, and the point, properly raised in the representative House, in another place, having been discussed,

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we shall have to consider whether or not it is really necessary to raise the matter again in Committee on this Bill.
I think that perhaps I ought to refer to the use of titles, a point which the noble Lord dealt with so effectively; and I must say that it is such an honour to be a Commoner in the House of Commons that it would be a great pity if individuals who transfer from one place to the other were by practice pressing the right to use a title in the exercise of that privilege which is being given to them by this Bill: and I very much hope that that may not follow.
May I say just a word about the provisions with regard to Scottish Peerages? It is, of course, obvious that this means there will be quite a substantial increase in the number of Peers who will enter this House for reasons of heredity. The Bill will increase the number of hereditary Peers in this House if they all accept the idea of sitting here. Because of our views on hereditary in these matters, of course we think that it is a pity, in one way. On the other hand, we feel that the recommendation which was made in the Joint Select Committee Report is one that we cannot now in the circumstances resist. But it will not prevent us, of course, from continuing our agitation against the hereditary status of this House.
I noted the especially warm welcome which the Lord Chancellor gave (I think he used the term "affectionate") to the invitation which will now be given to female holders of hereditary titles to enter this House. I am quite sure your Lordships will agree that, by the addition of the Lady Peers to this House under the Life Peerage appointments, the general effect of our debates, especially on social questions, has been greatly improved. It may well be so, if we remember a case of an outstanding lady like the late Lady Rhondda; it would not have injured debating or the public-spiritedness of the Members of this Chamber if this privilege to female holders of titles had been given long ago in the circumstances of the hereditary basis which have continuously existed.
My Lords, I have to apologise to the House for being comparatively brief on this matter. I could say a great deal more. I confess to you that I had a longstanding
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engagement this afternoon which I am bound to keep and it will necessitate my leaving the Chamber somewhat early. But I could not end what I have to say to-day without paying a tribute to the noble and learned Earl, Lord Kilmuir, for the outstanding services he rendered to both Houses of Parliament by the manner in which he conducted the inquiries of the Joint Select Committee. If your Lordships were to examine the verbatim Reports of the Committee, you would find that I very rarely spoke in that august assembly. The main reason for this was that I sat next to the Chairman, Lord Kilmuir, and we often exchanged views which afterwards saved me a great deal of speaking. I must say that I look back to those discussions with very grateful memories, because of the care and fairness, and the courtesy, of the chairmanship of the noble Earl, Lord Kilmuir.
I would also say that this is a great occasion for the one who fought the fight which enabled those discussions, and the decisions which are now embodied in this Bill, to become possible; that is Anthony Wedgwood Benn. He stood alone; he stood against what were the recognised principles of the electoral laws. Yet, in spite of all that he has suffered in consequence in the meantime, he now not only gains the freedom which we all think he ought to have had before, but is the head and shoulders which have led to more privilege being given to other Members of your Lordships' House. I think we should all be grateful to him for the stand which he made.
3.23 p.m.
LORD REA: My Lords, I should like to express my gratitude to the noble Earl who leads the Opposition for his support of me in my speech, not political support but physical support at this table and Box. I should like to join with him in his tribute to the noble and learned Earl, Lord Kilmuir, who really did lead us in that Committee with particularly great felicity. In supporting this Bill as a measure of limited scope and limited intention, I should perhaps repeat that I was a member of the Joint Select Committee, like the noble Earl who has just spoken, which was appointed to consider and report upon the matters which now come before your Lordships as the Peerage Bill. But the designation of this Select Committee was the Joint Committee

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on House of Lords Reform, which I think turned out to be an unfortunate misnomer, and consequently I suggest that a little clarification must now be made, and I ask the indulgence of your Lordships if I dwell for a little on this differentiation.
The Bill before us to-day is in effect an ad hoc and, I hope, only an interim measure; that is, regarded from the angle of reform of the House of Lords in its wide and generally accepted sense. The broader issue, with which this Bill is only marginally concerned, but which many of us think continues to need urgent attention, involves three cardinal principles, of which only one impinges immediately on the issues of the Peerage Bill now before your Lorsdhips' House; and to get the matter into proper perspective I should, if I may, like just to touch upon those three points. First, of course, there is the aim that the Second Chamber should be complementary to, and not a rival of, the elected House of Commons. It is consequently necessary, in my opinion and in the opinion of many others, that there should be some modification of the existing constitution of the Second Chamber and that it should not, by a system chiefly of election, or at any rate entirely by election, be put into that position of competition with another place. This point, of course, does not arise directly in this Peerage Bill, but its shadow looms across the whole conception of equal eligibility for membership of either House.
The second aim of the House of Lords reformers, readjusting the balance of Party power so that no permanent majority is assured for one Party in the Upper Chamber, is also remote from the Peerage Bill. And yet the involvement of Life Peerages as distinct from hereditary Peerages again brings that issue within what I might call audible range of this present measure. Of course, we know that the present Government, from motives of political conscience or political pressure or both, have made a notable gesture, as the noble Earl, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, said, in introducing the Life Peerage Act, ostensibly towards the beginnings of rectification of this anomaly of too much strength lying with one political Party. But criticism, I think, can hardly be too
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strong about the Government's implementation of this Life Peerages Act, introduced by the Conservative Leaders in each House specifically as a measure to strengthen the present Opposition. In the event, and as I think quite shamelessly, more supporters of the Conservative Party than supporters of the Opposition have been created Life Peers. The Liberal Party, incidentally, has not had a single creation of one Life Peerage. The present Peerage Bill, by bringing into this House a number of Peers and Peeresses hitherto excluded—and, I grant, unfairly excluded—will of course exaggerate this notorious imbalance still further.
The third very necessary major reform of the House of Lords, and the one which I think has the most widespread support, not only in the two Opposition Parties, is the abolition of heredity as the sole—1 repeat, sole—qualification for membership as a legislator in the Upper Chamber of the British Parliament. I am not going to develop these arguments about the reform of the House of Lords because they are, or should be, largely irrelevant to the Peerage Bill. But they are by no means totally irrelevant. It is because of the existence of these important matters that one member of the Select Committee had the courage and the sincerity to enter, by way of protest, an extremely broad amendment, which was to precede all other business in the Committee and to be dealt with first, and one which at any rate many or most of the Committee felt was expressing a widely felt doubt.
If I may paraphrase that amendment, it was in effect that the task of the Joint Select Committee was virtually impossible without taking into account all the difficulties and problems and anomalies wrapped up in the present constitution and composition of your Lordships' House. It asked, virtually for power to take into account the whole question of House of Lords reform during the exercise of the Committee's functions. The Committee decided, however, that despite its title of a Committee on House of Lords Reform, its assignment was meant to be something much more limited, as I think we would agree. It really had to deal only with the situation arising originally from the case of the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate (for that is his name at

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the moment), and those of a similar mind now or in the future.
I think this decision of the Committee to reject that amendment was a right one. By rejecting this amendment by Mr. Wade on the Committee, the first Amendment in the Report (it will be seen on page 13 of the Report), I think it should have been established once and for all that the general views and criticisms of the constitution, of the hereditary system, of the function of the second Chamber were outside the ambit of the Select Committee. But, unfortunately, this was not the case. It was not so accepted in spirit, and there were continual overt and covert attacks on these facets. Safeguards against any individual dividing his time at his own choice between one House and another had, of course, to be made. And I think the Bill has provided very adequately for this. You cannot go from one House to another at will any time.
But, of course, this Bill is not a vessel for the accepted need to reform the constitution of this House. The hereditary system, as it applies to your Lordships' House, is part of the Constitution. Some may like it; some may not like it; but it is part of the Constitution. I, and I think a majority of people in this country, want to see this abolished in so far as it gives a right to be a legislator without any other qualification. I earnestly hope that a Bill to this effect and of general reform of this House may be brought in. But this is not that Bill. This is not the great Bill for the reform of the Second Chamber which so many of us want to see. This is a limited Bill. I suggest that this Bill would be more accurately described as the House of Commons Freedom from Limitations Bill, or, if you like, the Wedgwood Benn Enabling Bill.
I respectfully suggest that your Lordships should take warning from the severe disclosures of hostility to your Lordships' House—even on unsound and prejudiced grounds, and of course from unadmitted jealously—which this Bill has disclosed rather sharply both in the Select Committee and in another place. The work of your Lordships' House is in many quarters denigrated, through ignorance and through uninformed impatience; but I would say that a good cure for criticism of the House of Lords
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would be to see it at work—at work, for instance, on the Shops Bill and the Weights and Measures Bill, and on the London Government Bill, all of which, incidentally, owe far more of their improvement to their liberal and constructive handling by all Parties in the House of Lords than to any process which they have been through in other places.
I hold no brief for the present composition of the House of Lords, traditional though it be—and, as a Liberal, I rather like tradition as a stepping-stone to development; but I hold a strong belief in a Second Chamber, and I, for one, will not accept this Peerage Bill as a sort of curtain raiser to the decline and fall of the House of Lords. It has no such function. Other and greater change may come—as I hope it will—but it should not come under this measure. For that reason, I am opposed to any suggestion, as was rather hinted at by the noble Earl the Leader of the Opposition, that there might be an amendment to this Bill, because the matter to which he referred seemed to me one of complete irrelevancy to the Bill—namely, that individuals should be empowered by this Bill to extinguish the hereditary titles of which they happen to hold a life tenancy, which applies in the case of almost all of your Lordships. Nor is it reasonable that in this Bill, dealing with eligibility for membership of the House of Commons, their heirs should be deprived of their lawful expectations as a result of this comparatively small measure which should properly be concerned only with the personal position, and of course the appropriate control, of those who desire a change in their own individual status during their own lives. I was encouraged by the support for this given in Committee by, among others, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Lord, Lord Silkin.
The detail of the Bill appears to be acceptable and properly in line with the recommendations of the Select Committee, as the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack has said, and for this reason I support it. I am glad to note that one recommendation has been dropped. I may have misunderstood the recommendation, but I think it was, shortly, that any individual who purported to have a possible expectation,

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however remote, of succeeding to a Peerage, could at any time sign away his potential right of succession. The motives behind this proposal were not, to me, either clear or convincing; and its principle appears to me to be both wrong and dangerous, for obvious reasons. However averse from becoming a Peer a man may be, surely the time to make a binding renunciation is when the possibility becomes an actuality, and not before.
Although I am not at ease about Clause 5, which, as the Lord Chancellor told us, allows Irish Peers to sit in the Commons—it allows them to do that without giving up their titles as their English and Scottish colleagues have to do—I admit I found little support for this perhaps rather unkind view, and I do not propose to pursue it. At the same time, it is curious that this great privilege, as the noble Earl, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough said, to be given to English and Scottish Peers of dropping their titles and, in the words of certain members of the Labour Party, becoming "fully fledged commoners", is to be denied to the Irish, whose titles in any case are emptier than most of your Lordships', since these Peers cannot sit in the House of Lords. My own sympathies are rather more with the new English and Scottish "Misters" than with the Irish "Lords-Commoners".
But there is one proposal in the Bill to which I do object. It is not a Party point. It may not be a major point, but it seems one of equity. It concerns Clause 3(2), by which a Peer who becomes a commoner in order to serve in another place—a most laudable attitude—is debarred from the eligibility of every other commoner in the land to become later in his life an Earl or to be made any sort of hereditary Peer, although hereditary Peerages are at present, as I say, still part of the Constitution and are not illegal. This is surely discrimination indeed against a man in one small class of commoner, who, through no fault of his own, happened to be at one stage in his life the heir to a Peerage.
What sort of a criminal is he that, after holding high office—perhaps becoming Prime Minister—and giving long and good service in the Commons—he may not enjoy the sort of honour which was accorded to Mr. Anthony Eden, Mr. Attlee, to Mr. Baldwin and
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to Mr. Lloyd George, and which perhaps may be accorded to Mr. Macmillan in due course, whatever that may mean? Until hereditary Peerages are abolished—as perhaps they should be—this is a gross injustice to anyone who has, by renouncing his Peerage, achieved the great dignity and honour, as we are told, of being a full-fledged commoner. He is not a full-fledged commoner; he will have one disability which no other commoner has. Not only is this inequitable, until the whole matter of hereditary Peerages is altered; it is, to my mind, an impertinence towards the Crown to enact that the Monarch shall be debarred by Parliament from conferring an Hereditary Peerage on one certain class of citizen. It seems to me invidious, and I should have thought it raised serious questions of Prerogative.
With these observations, I support the Bill—not as the first step, or as any step, to reform the Second Chamber, but as a necessary remedy of a current injustice whereby Members of the House of Commons may, and do, become Members of the House of Lords, but Members of the House of Lords have been debarred hitherto from ever serving as Members of the House of Commons.
3.38 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I, like the noble Earl, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, and also the noble Lord, Lord Rea, who has just spoken, was a member of the Joint Select Committee which produced the Report on which the Bill before the House was based; and I should like, briefly and without going into any great detail, to support the Second Reading of the Bill. I agree with Lord Rea that this is not a very important Bill. I do not pretend that it goes nearly so far in the way of reforming this House as some of us would have liked.
As at any rate some of your Lordships know, I personally have long favoured a much more drastic reform of this House which would cut out the deadwood of those who never attend. I believe that a far-reaching reform of that character would make the House a more valuable part of the Constitution than it at present is. But, after all, as Lord Rea said, the Select Committee was originally set up not to consider

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the whole question of the reform of this House, but merely to deal with the important but limited issue of whether a man who succeeds to an hereditary Peerage should be able to choose in which House of Parliament he should serve his country—the issue raised, as we all know, in a most acute form by the present Lord Stansgate.
On that issue the Report comes to a most definite conclusion: that a Peer in such a position should have that option, under certain conditions, for his lifetime, and that his decision should not bind his son or his other future successors, who will have the same option when, in due course, they succeed to their titles. With that I, as, I imagine, are your Lordships, am in full agreement.
It is quite true that there is one condition which many of us, even after what my noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor has said, regard as rather petty and peevish. It is this. If he opts for the House of Commons, a Peer will be required, at any rate legally, to give up his present title, which is in law and in fact his name. To take a simple example—and, if he is here, I hope he will forgive me—if my noble relative the Duke of Devonshire opted for the House of Commons he would have to sit as Mr. Cavendish. He would, as it were, be punished by his laudable, if mistaken, desire to serve his country in another place; and not only he, but his wife, his children, his ox, and his ass and all that is his will fall under this punitive ban.
If, on the other hand, the noble Duke decided not to take advantage of the facilities in this Bill—and I have not a notion what he intends to do—and preferred to remain in your Lordships' House, it would then be possible for his son to sit in the House of Commons as the Marquess of Hartington, just as before. This Bill penalises only those who wish to serve their country in the House of Commons, and I must confess that that provision seems to me so silly as to be almost childish. One can imagine the complications, financial, legal, and social to which it might lead.
The Lord Chancellor, if I understood him aright, said that it did not really mean much in practice. A Peer, he said,
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could continue to call himself what he likes without infringing the law. If that is so, why make this very foolish change? I did not like this proposal in Committee, and said so, and nothing has happened since to make me change my view, but I acquiesced in it because it seemed to me that, apart from this single provision, the conclusions of the Committee, as a whole, represented a fair compromise between widely differing views. In particular they do not infringe—nor does this Bill infringe—the broad basis of the hereditary system. That will seem, I am sure, to many people, not only in this House but outside, a consideration of first-rate importance. Indeed, I should like to put in a plea this afternoon—especially in view of what was said by the Leader of the Opposition—for that much opposed principle, for I believe that, even in these modern times, this House, based on an hereditary system, has certain merits enjoyed by no other Second Chamber in the world.
For one thing it is completely independent. Of course, on the great issues of the State we all incline one way or the other in politics, and nothing will alter that. But many the time in the old days, when I was more closely connected with the management of the affairs of this House than I am nowadays, I found my supporters quite unwilling to back up the line their leaders recommended, just because they did not agree with it. That was extremely tiresome at the time: but I still believe that in a political world which is all too heavily whipped it has very great virtue indeed.
Secondly, it makes it possible to have young Members of the House, and I do not believe that could be achieved in a Second Chamber in any other way. The great civil servants, the great diplomats, the ex-Cabinet Ministers, the trade union leaders, all those distinguished persons who so adorn our debates, are most valuable and add enormously to the prestige and authority of this House. But we need also younger men to help with the ordinary day-to-day work of the House, and also, I believe, to keep us up to date. For this purpose alone, the hereditary system is of the first importance.
There is yet a third merit of the hereditary system which may be regarded as the most vital of all. Unless this

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country does away with a Second Chamber altogether—as I know many members of the Party opposite would like to do—a Second Chamber based on an hereditary system, even from the point of view of the Labour Party itself, may well be the best Second Chamber for an unrestricted democracy. I say this for one particular reason which I have not yet mentioned but which, to my mind, overrides all others. It is that it ensures that the Second Chamber shall always be the junior partner under the Constitution; and that, I am sure is right. For a House of Commons which is based broadly on a very extensive electorate must always ultimately prevail. Indeed, I have never really understood why the Party of noble Lords opposite dislike the hereditary system. It seems to me that it ought to be, to use a vernacular phrase which I hope will not be regarded as frivolous, exactly "up their street", for not only does it provide them with a whipping-boy—I was almost going to say, an Aunt Sally—to which they can always turn when they wish to divert public interest from more embarrassing topics, but it also ensures that the final decision should rest with the elected House.
What would be the position if this present House of Lords were replaced by an elected House, on whatever basis it might be elected? It would become, in a sense, a rival of the House of Commons. The members would always be able to say, "We, too, have been elected—though perhaps by a somewhat different electorate—and our electors will expect us to use our own judgment in matters that come before us." We might then get an extremely embarrassing constitutional conflict between these two electorates. But an hereditary House can never say that, because it is never elected.
It is often said—and probably thought at this moment by many noble Lords opposite—that this House tends to favour the Right in politics rather than the Left.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: Hear, hear!
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I am afraid that is true of any elderly House—and Second Chambers always tend to be elderly. Indeed, I am sometimes tempted to suspect that even many noble Lords who sit on the Benches opposite are not so wildly and enthusiastically
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Leftist as they used to be in their younger days. Moreover, in any case it will not, I am sure, be suggested, whatever our natural political bias may be, that, for instance, after the 1945 Election this House behaved in any manner of which the Labour Government could legitimately complain. On the contrary, except for the Iron and Steel Bill, we passed all the nationalisation Bills, of which we cordially disapproved, on Second Reading, and did our best to improve them on Committee stage. Therefore I suggest that, from their point of view just as much as ours, any future Labour Government (if any such Government gets into power) will be wise to think very carefully before they interfere with the hereditary system. They would only be exchanging King Log for King Stork.
Having said that, and having taken this opportunity to put in a plea for the hereditary system which is so often under attack, I will say once more that I do not think it is widely breached by the present Bill. I see no great harm in an individual Peer opting for himself so long as the option is limited to his lifetime. The other important and limited reforms, such as those with regard to Scottish Peers, Peeresses in their own right, and the two variations from the recommendations of the Committee to which the Lord Chancellor referred—all these, I believe, are eminently sensible.
There is one Amendment which should like to see put into the Bill, and I hope it will be before it leaves this House. It relates to the date when the Bill is brought into force. I have read most carefully the debates on the Bill both on Second Reading and on the Committee stage in another place, and even after listening to the extremely able exposition of the Lord Chancellor, I still find the Government's attitude extremely difficult to understand. What is all the special pleading which we had in another place, about the Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act, 1918, and the Representation of the People (Women) Act, 1918? What is the importance of that, when we have before us the two Parliament Acts which fundamentally altered the balance of power between the two Houses; and, more recently, the Life Peerages Act which altered the composition of this House far more than this Bill would ever do? And those three Acts to which I have referred came into force,

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I believe, immediately after the Royal Assent was given.
What will be the position if the Government stick to their present attitude should a Member of the House of Commons succeed to a Peerage between the enactment of the Bill—that is to say, after it receives the Royal Assent—and its coming into operation at the dissolution of Parliament? The spokesman for the Opposition in another place put it very clearly, I thought, during the Committee stage of the Bill. I am going to quote his words because, as he was the spokesman of the Opposition, I believe it is legitimate for me to do so:
"There would have to be a by-election, the seat having been vacated, and the by-election would have to be fought and contested, even though the law had bean changed by Parliament, by both Houses, and had had the Royal Assent. Although the law had been changed, we should have to go on pretending it had not been changed."
Surely, my Lords, that really is rather an absurd position.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Marquess, but this is a question of precedent. I am not being troublesome about it, but is he sure that he is entitled to quote a private Member, a Back-Bench Member, of another place and not a Minister, in the same Session?
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I stand to be corrected, but I have always understood the position to be that, if a Member of another place is speaking for his Party, he can be quoted.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: If I may interrupt the noble Marquess, I think he will find the only exception is a Minister. Otherwise they cannot be quoted in the same Session of Parliament.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: If the noble Lord likes I will repeat it in oratio obliqua. But perhaps he will allow it to stand just on this occasion, and I will stand rebuked. But I hope, therefore, that when the Leader of the House comes to reply to this debate he will be able to announce that the Government have changed their mind with tregard to this provision. Then we shall be able to go ahead in complete harmony. If not, I must say that I hope that an
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Amendment will be tabled and will be voted on. That, however, though a very important Committee point, is still a Committee point. On the general issues raised by the Bill I believe, as I said before, that it represents a fair compromise between widely differing views, and, if it comes to a Division, I will personally support it in the Lobby.
3.53 p.m.
LORD MILFORD: My Lords, I have been warned that in a maiden speech one should never be controversial; but I find myself disagreeing with so much of what the noble Marquess has just said, that I do not know how not to be. I greatly admire the long fight that the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, has waged to initiate such a Bill as this, and I have every sympathy for him and those others who want to get this Bill passed, so that they can get to another place and carry on a more active political career. At the same time I wish to emphasise very strongly that I can never support any measure whatever which helps in any way to perpetuate this Chamber.
This Bill is just such a measure. Although it has underlined the whole extraordinary system of hereditary Peerage and hereditary legislators, as other noble Lords have said, this Bill is a very minor unimportant reform Bill of a Tory Government; a Bill, in fact, to give this Chamber a new look, to make it more acceptable as an apparently democratic institution in the eyes of the people, in the hope of damping down demands for its complete abolition as an anachronism. It does nothing, really, to alter this Chamber in any way. Any reforms of this Chamber that have been wrung from Tory Goverments have gone through only because the Tories see them as a step to perpetuate this House of Lords. Alas! this Bill does not touch on the fundamental questions and problems of this House at all. In spite of the creation of some Life Peers, what is the basic composition of this House? Membership is based on the hereditary principle, and there is no pretence whatever of representing the interests of the British people.
My Lords, what, in fact, are we supposed to inherit? Is it some special ability or talent which enables us to

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function as legislators? No. What we inherit is wealth and privilege based on wealth—a principle which cuts right across every conception of democracy. To-day this Chamber also consists of representatives of the more recently acquired wealth, such as bankers, steel magnates, newspaper proprietors and industrialists of all sorts. It represents, in fact, a more formidable concentration of wealth than that other place has ever done since the working people had a vote. The presence in this Chamber of individuals of high integrity, great abilities and intelligence does not alter the basic character and function of this House; for it is overwhelmingly Tory in composition and will always remain so. Thus as long as it lasts, its functions will be, as they always have been, to stem the advance of democracy, to protect wealth and privilege.
It is interesting to note that this Bill before us is being rushed through by a Tory Government on the eve of a General Election, from which it is quite probable that a Labour Government will be returned. Such measures as are now put forward in this Bill have been opposed by Tories for years and years. The reason for their about-turn is not their concern for democracy, but that they are seeking every means possible to hide the basic reactionary nature of this Chamber, to strengthen it before Labour comes to power, and at the same time to bolster up their completely discredited leadership in another place. In fact, my Lords, because there are a vast number of hereditary Peers on the Tory Benches, compared to the very few hereditary Peers on the Benches of Labour, this Bill would have far more effect in helping the Tory Party than any Party based on the working class. Britain is the only industrial country in which the hereditary principle of choosing legislators still survives; a principle which belongs to the age of the Divine Right of Kings, and which is entirely out of place in this age of automation, space flights, sweeping technological changes; the age of the advance of socialism, the democratic rights of the common people and the national liberation of the colonial people.
It is said that a Second Chamber is necessary to prevent the Government of the day rushing through legislation harmful to the welfare of the electorate. But did it throw out the Government's Tory
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Rent Act, which put hundreds of millions of pounds into the pockets of landlords and speculators and put the security, happiness and health of millions of the electorate in jeopardy? Of course not. It sacrified the welfare of the electorate to increase the welfare of the property owners. What part can a Chamber so constituted play, loaded as it is on the side of the past and reaction, and fighting against the rise of a new society, in solving the problems now facing the British people? In fact, only obstruction.
This House of Lords can play only the part of a constitutional obstacle to progressive legislation; a barrier to progress, as its history has shown. The tragic history of Ireland's fight for independence, the story of the British coalminers, the struggle for social insurance in the days of the great Liberals, are but a few of the many possible examples of the rôle this Chamber has played. To take more modern times, in 1931 this Chamber blocked the proposal to raise the school-leaving age to fifteen, as it did the Agricultural Land Utilisation Bill, which was to give the Ministry powers to experiment in large-scale farming. It fought for the continuation of plural voting, so that property owners and businessmen could have more votes than one. Most of us can remember how this Chamber vetoed the suspension of capital punishment in 1948; and, of course, how it fought to the last ditch to prevent its powers of obstruction from being reduced by the Labour Government from two years to one year.
It is natural that, during the last twelve years of Tory rule, this Chamber has found no reason to try to hold up Government measures. Tory Bills are suited to the majority of this Chamber, and designed to protect its interests. And yet in 1956 your Lordships threw out the Abolition of the Death Penalty Bill, which had been carried by a free vote in another place. The Bill before us does not attempt to alter the nature of this House, and for this reason is of no great value to me or my Party.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Which is that?
LORD MILFORD: If this Bill becomes law, the fact that one or two noble Lords from the Tory Front Bench depart to another place in order to strengthen

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the wavering ranks there will not in any way alter the reactionary outlook of the large majority of this House.
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: May I interrupt the noble Lord?
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: No—it is a maiden speech!
LORD MILFORD: The noble Tory Lords here will leave this Chamber knowing that there are hundreds more remaining who will continue to obstruct anything dangerous to their interests and privileges. For these reasons, I and my Party are for the complete abolition of this Chamber—
LORD LUCAS OF CHILWORTH: Which Party?
LORD MILFORD: —which is such a bulwark against progress. We are also convinced that no second Chamber of any kind is, in fact, necessary to revise the findings and proceedings of a democratically elected, sovereign Commons. We are not alone in these demands. Because of the inevitable rôle of a Chamber constituted such as this one is, the abolition of this House of Lords has very wide support among the people of this country, and also from many persons occupying Labour Benches in another place. After all, not so very long ago the abolition of this Chamber was in the Labour Party programme. The world is moving fast towards a new social system; a system of socialism. It is in the very bones of the British property-owners to strive to maintain the system of capitalism on which their wealth was built up, and which to-day is not only an outdated system but a barrier to the welfare of the British people and to Britain's future.
In its attempts to hold back advancing socialism, the Tory majority in this House will always be in favour of the cold war, always for keeping it hot; always in support of more and more money being spent on armaments, and of this country remaining a forward base of America and so certain of total destruction if war breaks out. I and my Party, along with other progressive people, aim to open up a future of democratic social advance unhampered by the survivals of the past; a future in which, once again, Britain will be playing a
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leading part among the advancing nations of the world. That future can be based only on a socialist society in Britain where all the commanding heights of the economy will be controlled by the ordinary British people who have, by their skill, made the wealth of this country. They will also have complete political power, and their House of Commons, with elected representatives elected by themselves, will be the sole national authority.
This institution will 'always attempt to act against such a new society arising. No amount of reforms, such as this Bill before us, will change that fact. And this House will do all it can to obstruct any progressive measures introduced by a Labour or Socialist Government based on the will and interests of the majority of the people of this country to pass into socialism. Such essential measures for the people as the abolition of the Tory Rent Act will cut at the very heart of the landlords' interests of many sitting in this Chamber. Any form of nationalisation is against the personal, private interests of many of those who now constitute this House. Any threat to landlordism will always rally the Benches opposite.
From time to time Members of this House have put forward that a Second Chamber, not relying on popular franchise, can be important as a steadying influence on hasty decisions of the House of Commons. Fairly recently I read of a noble Peer of famous historic title who claimed that Peers have the tradition of knowing what is the true, considered judgment of the people—a claim which, in practice, means that the rôle of this Chamber would always be to obstruct any legislation which did not come from the Party of conservatism, the Tory Party. Any Bill to bring about a real change in the vital interests of the great majority of British people is sure to be thought by the majority opposite to be "hasty", and therefore to be obstructed by the House in its rôle as "a steadying influence". No one can pretend that this House of Lords has any connection whatever with democracy. It is in direct conflict with the democratic will of the people expressed in the electoral system; which, whatever its shortcomings, has been won by the people in a long struggle against precisely those forces which have always been represented in

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the House of Lords. What we need in this country to-day is not a brake on democratic decisions and legislation, but an accelerator; a movement of people which, together with their elected representatives in the House of Commons, will take off the brakes and let democracy play its full part in driving Britain forward.
4.10 p.m.
EARL ATTLEE: My Lords, it falls to me to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Milford, on his maiden speech in the hope that we may hear him again. Of course, this afternoon we are not dealing with the major reform of the House of Lords; we are removing certain anomalies. There are many anomalies in this country. One curious one is that the voice of the Communist Party can be heard only in this House. That is the advantage of hereditary representation.
This is an interesting little Bill. It does tardy justice. I am sorry that this was not done a long time ago. I look back to 1947 when I presided over a joint meeting of the Leaders of all three Parties and we tried hard to obtain agreement. In fact we did get a very large measure of agreement, Unfortunately, it was rejected by the Conservative Party on the ground that they objected to any restriction on the rights of delay on the part of this House. It was rather shortsighted. We did all in our power to carry that particular provision—which we duly did—but finally lost what was of greater value: a more widely-based reform. It is interesting to look back now and wonder exactly what would have happened if we had carried our proposals in 1947 which would have affected not only this House but the whole of British politics. The noble Viscount might by that time have been in the House of Commons all the time. Who knows? He might have been Prime Minister—to the great advantage of this country. It is possible that the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, might have taken advantage of the change then; he might have been Prime Minister. Now we are trying to regularise this matter.
I think it is very creditable to the Government to have introduced this, because they are removing one of the chief gambles in our public life, the gamble of personalities. It is very interesting to look back and see what
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might have happened through the operation of the hereditary principle. Take the case of Sir Winston Churchill. The mere accident of a provision for the heir of the Dukedom of Marlborough enabled Sir Winston Churchill to be in the House of Commons at a critical time. But for a mere accident he might have been in this House for many years. It is interesting to speculate what would have happened in the war; or what would have happened in this House. What would Sir Winston Churchill have done? He might have stuck to the Army and become a General; he might have stayed in this House. In that case, I am pretty sure that before very long, he would have "bust the show". One can look back over history and see the play of chance in heredity. There was the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, and the Marquess's grandfather, who had a long distinguished career in the House of Commons, Lord Robert Cecil. But for succeeding to a Peerage, he might have been a great Prime Minister in the House of Commons; perhaps then not so distinguished as the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
On looking back, it appears as a great gamble. To-day we are removing one of the great gambling points. It is surprising, really, with a Government that has actually provoked every form of gambling from Bottomley bonds to bingo and betting shops, that it is much more a certainty now that those with ability, whether it arises in this House or elsewhere, will have the opportunity of giving full service to the country. I am rather inclined to agree with what the noble Marquess said about the position of someone who has abandoned his Peerage and served with great distinction in the House of Commons and then wants to come here. It is a point that affects all Parliamentarians that one has either to stay on in the House of Commons when one is perhaps a nuisance, or not of much use, or to give up constant connection with public affairs and with old friends in both Houses. One of the advantages enjoyed by the old men like me is that we are at one end of the passage; we can still keep in contact with affairs at the House of Commons and sometimes, possibly—not on this occasion—contribute something of value to this House. I am inclined to think that the noble Marquess is right on that.

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The other point on which I so strongly agreed with him is that this change ought to be brought in at once and not wait for a General Election. It does create a position of great difficulty, first of all for noble Lords. How are they to stand for election? They have to leave it all practically to the last moment. Secondly, I think it is a great difficulty for the constituents who will want to select their candidate, and I think they will find it difficult to select someone during the interim period; they will probably have to leave it to the last moment. It may also prejudice a noble Lord who wants to return to the House of Commons, because they will say, "We cannot tell what this chap will do". I think there is an injustice to noble Lords, such as, probably, the noble Viscount, who intend to return to the other place. I cannot see why this cannot be brought in straight away.
In regard to the other provisions of this Bill, I think they are very reasonable. It is true that we are increasing the hereditary element by introducing more Scotsmen and some more noble Ladies; but it does not necessarily mean that the Benches will be overcrowded. It is one of the most remarkable things that the Hereditary Peerage may be regarded either as a privilege or as a burden or obstruction. To some it is a denial of the right to sit in the House of Commons; to others, the privilege of sitting in the House of Lords. The remarkable thing is that the majority of noble Lords do not regard it as a privilege—at least they do not turn up. I think we are restoring a proper right of citizenship which should be open to everybody: the right of standing to represent your fellow citizens.
However, I do regret that we did not take rather bolder action in 1947. I believe an opportunity was lost there. I and my old friend, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, were both on that assembly with Lord Addison. I hope that the matter might be settled, because I am not doctrinaire on the matter of the composition of the House of Lords. I agree that it is entirely wrong to have another elected Chamber, with a separate mandate. I do not believe much in a Chamber composed only of old people, who have given great and distinguished service to their country, because the
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tendency always is for the aged to get a bit conservative, and I think the Chamber would be over-weighted there and would not give the young men a chance.
I have never been doctrinaire, because I regard this Chamber largely from a practical point of view, from how it works. There was a strong case for its abolition in 1910, because it did not work; it was simply a thwarting of the popular will and a very unwise action right through. Sometimes, I contrast 1906 and 1945, and the treatment accorded to Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and his Government by the Conservatives of that day and the treatment accorded to the Labour Government in 1945. People sometimes ask me, "Why did you not deal with the House of Lords?" I tell them that, as a Government, we had a great deal on our plate". There was the ending of the war to deal with and all the difficulties left over after the war, and there were many pressing economic matters. We should have been extremely stupid to have gone out of our way to deal with a political issue of that kind—so long as the two Houses worked. They did work from 1945 to 1951.
We do have Members from the country, sonic of them very picturesque, some of them practical. The real issue is: does the thing work? At the present time, this House, and its relation with the other House, does work—sometimes not too well, I agree; but so long as this House has respect for the will of the people, expressed at General Elections, there is not very much trouble. As the noble Marquess pointed out, it worked that way in the period 1945 to 1951. I regret to say that there has been a serious friction recently in the introduction of a Bill entirely opposed by the mass of the people and with no demand whatever for it—that is, the London Government Bill. I regret that. It is a falling away from the standard set by the noble Marquess in the years 1945 to 1951.
Generally speaking, I think that this Peerage Bill is a useful little measure and will certainly remove some of the personal disabilities which are causing a great deal of hardship.
4.23 p.m.
THE EARL OF ARRAN: My Lords, may I speak to your Lordships for two brief minutes? I like this Bill. It seems

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to be practical and wise. If there are indeed Members of your Lordships' House who feel (to use my noble cousin's phrase) that they can serve their country better in another place, then let them go into it. We wish them well. But I should not like it to be felt throughout the country that there are great numbers of Peers who are impatient and eager to be gone. I do not believe that this is so. Indeed, would say that very many of us—though, of course, this particularly applies to this side of the House—are content and proud to sit where our fathers sat, and to try to do the things which they thought, and we think to-day, right. We Back Benchers know our limitations. We do not aspire to high office. We do not carry Prime Ministerial batons in our knapsacks. What we do is simply to speak and vote as we think, again, as our fathers did before us, and as we hope our sons will be allowed to do when we are dead. Indeed, my great regret is that I shall not be there to hear my own son's maiden speech.
There is nothing dishonourable, and much that is splendid in membership of your Lordships' House. Whatever the noble Earl has just said, it is, at any rate to me, a privilege to be in it. I know that nowadays it is the fashion to decry the House of Lords as a primitive, illogical and defunct body. I do not believe it. I believe that even we hereditary Peers have a job to do and a duty to perform. The tradition is strongly implanted in us and I, for one, am glad to have been given this great chance. I believe that, far from wishing to go elsewhere, most of us will be content to remain where we are and to be proud and grateful for our heritage.
4.26 p.m.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I am very glad to follow the noble Earl, Lord Arran, if only because his very existence and personality tend to refute one of my convictions—which is that there is no justification whatever for an hereditary element in this House. The noble Earl has brought remarkable qualities here. He has initiated debates, for example, on leisure, on the Press and, above all, on Christian unity, and it is very doubtful whether those debates would have been initiated in another place. Certainly he has earned his position here. I should like to refer to my
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noble friends Lord Attlee and Lord Alexander of Hillsborough. I would also say how interested I was to hear my old friend Lord Milford in spate. He is not with us, I think, at the moment, but I was of some help in assisting him to become Labour candidate for South Oxfordshire before the war, when I was candidate for Oxford City, and many a time we fought shoulder to shoulder in those old days. Since then, he has changed his Party and I have changed my Church, but here we are. It seems to me, looking at him, that he has been leading a more healthy life than I have. I do not know where he has been—not to Siberia, I fancy—but he looks extremely well preserved, and I am very glad to listen to him again.
I do not wish to echo all that has been said by way of tribute to Mr. Anthony Benn—if that is the correct way of referring to him, because he has been variously referred to. Although others, like the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, have taken part in the fight, this Bill is the heroic achievement of one man, as I think the noble Viscount may be inclined to agree. As one still, so to speak, remaining in confinement, the last thing I should wish to do would be to retard those who are escaping over the wall. I am quite ready to let them do so by standing on my shoulders, if I can be of any service in that way.
It is known to the House that an Amendment which covered my case and also that of the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, to whom I must apologise for not including him in our little category when this matter was discussed, was rejected. In the circumstances, I certainly have no desire to see such an Amendment reconsidered here. It is true that for me, and perhaps for the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, and the noble Lord, Lord Trevethin and Oaksey, it would have been somewhat more flattering if your Lordships' House had turned down this proposal—if, so to speak, your Lordships had insisted on keeping us, instead of the House of Commons insisting on keeping us out: as if your Lordships had said, "We cannot bear to lose you", instead of the House of Commons saying, "Not at any price!". It might have massaged our egos more agreeably, if things had taken that course. But still; there

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it is. As my noble friend Lord Attlee once said about an unpleasant newspaper article: "That's the way is goes". That is the way it has gone, so far as I am concerned. I can only console myself by reflecting, with the poet, and speaking to new Members of this House, including the noble Lord, Lord Milford:
"Grow old along with me,
The best is yet to be."
That is perhaps the only consolation to be derived from it.
I do not wish to speak at any great length—though, like other noble Lords, I have many views on this matter—but there is one point which has not been alluded to in these discussions and which I think should be placed on the table in order to avoid misconception. People sometimes suppose that any noble Lord who wants to leave this House regards himself as a suitable or likely Prime Minister, or, at the worst, as a Chancellor of the Exchequer. I do not think everybody treasures such extravagant claims or aspirations. But the fact about this House is that, in the nature of things, there are hardly any department Ministers here. People say that the noble Earl, Lord Home, the Foreign Secretary, is here and draw conclusions from that; and they say—I think rightly, if I may respectfully say so—that he is an example of how one can be an extremely effective Foreign Secretary in this House. But it is inconceivable that there could be a Labour Party Foreign Secretary, or, for that matter, a Liberal Party—I see they have disappeared again. Oh! I apologise abjectly to the noble Lord; they are not badly represented at all. I was about to say that it is inconceivable that a Party in a permanent minority in this House could appoint one of its number Foreign Secretary. One has only to consider what would occur. The position would then be that the Conservatives, in an overwhelming majority (and here I agree with all that was said by the noble Lord, Lord Milford, about this overwhelming majority) would have only to pass a vote of censure and in the eyes of the world the position of the Foreign Secretary would be impossible.
I remember that when I was a minor Minister in this House back in 1947, in an economic debate, there was a kind
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of vote of censure passed on us. But one could, as a minor Minister in an economic debate, snap one's fingers at it; and that is what the Government did. I think the noble Earl, Lord Home, would agree that if, just as he was departing on some foreign mission, a Vote of Censure were passed in this House, his position would become impossible. In slightly less degree, that position, in my opinion, makes it most unlikely that any appreciable number of departmental Ministers will ever be appointed in this House.
If we take the position at the end of the Labour Government, we find that there were three Members of the Cabinet then in this House, but no departmental Ministers. To-day, with great respect to the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, he is not a full-time departmental Minister, and I think the argument is not in any way diminished by the fact that he has acquired, and no doubt rightly so, a whole number of variegated responsibilities. But this fact makes it very unlikely that an ordinary young man going in for politics can have a very substantial opportunity in this House, because there simply will never be the departmental posts here; and that is particularly true of any Party permanently in a minority. That. I think, should be clearly said, and the question ought not to be confused with dreams of political domination which are sometimes attributed to those who wish to leave this place.
I would make only one other point about the nature of the House—and some interesting things have been said about it to-day. It seems to me that we could be divided into three categories. We are professional politicians; some who have reached what in any other career might be regarded as retiring age, but, at any rate, some senior figures, some in middle life and some quite young: but we are professional politicians. We are specialists in various fields, and we are hereditary Peers. There is some overlapping, but not a great deal, between those three categories.
I would say that if you take our personnel (I have not had the honour of reaching the House of Commons, and never shall; but I venture to make this comparison) and compare our membership to-day with that of the House of Commons—we cannot, perhaps, compare

1037
all our 900 with their membership, but if you take our best 100, however selected, and their best 100—you find that we are indeed more eminent; we have more people with independent national stature and reputation. Our IQs, however you like to test them, would be higher, with people like the noble Lord, Lord Adrian, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell, giving us a sort of unfair advantage at the extreme top. And we are, for good or ill, older, which may or may not be an advantage. On the other hand, we are part-timers; and in another place they are, if not full-timers, nearly full-timers.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: "Over-timers" sometimes.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: And we have been doing some overtime.
THE EARL OF ARRAN: My Lords, would the noble Earl not agree that the House of Lords is the most brilliant debating chamber in the world?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: I have never been allowed to enter into any other debating chamber, except the Oxford City Council, and we are certainly better than they are.
THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND MINISTER FOR SCIENCE (VISCOUNT HAILSHAM): I remember the noble Earl making a most brilliant speech at the Oxford Union.
VISCOUNT STUART OF FINDHORN: The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland is the most brilliant debating chamber in the world.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: In spite of the tribute the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, has just paid me, I doubt whether I shall ever be elected to that body. However, I must not detain your Lordships in this mood. All I will say is that I feel we have a great capacity for discussion.
At the risk of detaining the House, I should like to make one other point, which I have not seen made elsewhere, about Life Peers, or the great change that has come over this House since the coming of Life Peers. I do not think it makes much difference whether they are Life Peers, in the sense of what their titles are or are not based on: that is not what has made the change. In my opinion, the great
1038
change has come about because a number of people have been brought to this House on the understanding that they will perform future services—that is the real change—as compared with people who were rewarded for past services.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: Somebody else's past services.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: Some came for their own, and some for somebody else's. But here we have, for the first time, people in the expectation of future service. The discussions here are of a high quality, as one would expect from what I have said about the personnel. But the voting (I agree entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Milford) is a farce. Those of us who have sat through the discussions on the London Government Bill will not dissent from that. The only solution, in my opinion, is the plan proposed more than once (it was not my invention, but I support it) under which those who receive titles would be able to come here and speak and vote, as now, and those who had inherited titles, unless they were specially given for this purpose, would come here, as now, contribute to the discussions, but not be allowed to vote. That, in my view, is by far the best plan that has been suggested.
I do not want to detain the House further. I remember other words from that same poem that I quoted earlier:
"Trust God, see all, nor be afraid."
I have seen, if not all, a great deal of the House of Lords in the last seventeen years. I am not afraid of the House of Lords, and I do not think they have any reason to be afraid of me. But I do feel that the House of Lords, even with all its ghastly limitations, with its fundamentally wrong structure and its imminent need for reform, draws out the best we are capable of when we come here for a number of years. For that reason, I never like to denigrate the House of Lords, but I think it ought to be fundamentally changed.
4.40 p.m.
THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, before I turn to the main point I want to make in my speech, I want to say that, speaking personally and selfishly, I am very glad that in another place the

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Amendment which would have allowed the noble Earl, Lord Longford, to leave us was defeated, because we should have been that much poorer. We had a debate on this subject three months ago, and since then there has been a debate in another place on the Bill, and we have had the discussion this afternoon. Much as I have thought, and much as I have listened, nothing changes my opinion that this is a wrong Bill, a bad Bill, and I am opposed to it. What have we got? We have a sledgehammer, if I may put it that way, to crack a very small nut. When the nut is cracked and we look at the kernel inside, I personally find that it is almost all bad. I say "almost all bad" because I think the provision which allows Ladies to come here is a right one. But that is the only part with which I find myself in agreement.
I want to go back a little to look, as it were, at the origin of this Bill. There was the Joint Committee on the House of Lords Reform and there is this Blue Book with the Report, together with the proceedings of the Committee and appendices. Anybody who does not know the background here, when they hear something like this has been produced would say: "Well, this must be something pretty important; it must be that the House of Lords has not been working well. Clearly, something must be done to reform it." My Lords, in my opinion, that is not the case at all. I think that in these last years the House of Lords has been working very well—all the better for having Life Peers mixed up with those who have the right to be here under the hereditary principle. I will only say, in that connection, that I fully support the reasons the noble Marquess gave for the continuation of the hereditary principle, both because it ensures our having the benefit of some young Peers, and also because it enables us to have the benefit of those who are independent and knowledgeable.
Be that as it may, we have in front of us to-day this Bill to consider. It is divided into four parts, and the most important part is that of the disclaimer. That is why we have this Bill at all—it suits the convenience of one noble Viscount who wants to be in the Commons. I know this is not the first time that one of your Lordships has wanted to be in
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the Commons. With pertinacity, and carrying on with his point, Mr. Wedgwood Benn—or Lord Stansgate, as I prefer to think of him—has succeeded in gaining his point. I have not the good fortune of knowing the noble Lord, but I remember well his father. I know all your Lordships remember what a brilliant part he played in this House, what a great debater he was, and his readiness to champion any cause when he believed that the rights of human beings were at stake, and when the human being was suffering. I wonder myself whether he would have thought that this was a cause in which the suffering of the individual, the suffering of the human being, was such that it warranted this great change—not a great change, but this change in struture. I personally am all for the individual if he is really being hurt.
Is your Lordships' House such a torture chamber? Perhaps it has been recently, when we had the Whips keeping us up till four o'clock in the morning. But ordinarily I think we manage without having to consider ourselves as a place in which it is unpleasant to be and from which, for the sake of the individual, we must be allowed to get out. If your Lordships' House is not such an unpleasant place, if it is not such a real wrong to find yourselves here—personally I think it is a great privilege—then I think you have to weigh up the wish of one individual against the general good or bad to this House and to our whole Parliamentary constitution.
I am quite clear that this Bill will inevitably weaken your Lordships' House. I know the noble Marquess said that he did not think it would make much difference. I can only say that I personally believe—and I will try to give the reason why I think so—that it will make a serious difference. What is going to happen as a result? Those who have considerable aptitude in the political sphere will not wish to come here when they are young. Indeed, as we have already been told, two or three of the last leaders of this House might well not have been here. What is the sequel to not having the advantage of those people being with us? Surely, it must be that we shall no longer be

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given a number of high offices which we enjoy in this House to-day. The noble Earl, Lord Longford, made that very point. He confirmed my fear that when under a Labour Government it would be very rare to find high office held by members of the Government in this House. What is the sequel? The sequel is inevitably the decline in the stature and the influence of this House in the country. With that decline will go a falling off in the attendance, and generally we are going to be the worse off.
Enough of the general grounds for my opposition to this Bill. Let me turn briefly to the particular points that arise. The first one is this question of a disclaimer. So far as I am concerned, I can find no adequate word to describe what is proposed except a "fiddle"—and that is what it is. It is a "fiddle" with the hereditary principle. I am not blaming the Committee for this proposal—I do not see what else they could have done, with these terms of reference—but I am blaming the Government for having introduced these terms of reference, or having allowed them to go forward. Given these terms of reference, I do not see what else the Committee could have done except to produce this "fiddle". It is a "fiddle" which means that the hereditary principle is rather like the traffic lights: sometimes they are on, sometimes they are off, and sometimes on again, according to the wishes of the individual. In the long run this must strike at, or do damage to, the hereditary principle in which so many of us believe.
I can understand the logic of saying that if a noble Lord chooses to go back to the Commons—and I personally wish that that should not be possible—then that is for all time. That I can understand as something which has logic behind it. Just like one who has served his country well, and has perhaps the honour or the opportunity of being raised to the Peerage—and he, after all, pledges himself for all his descendants, that they shall have the similar honour—so one could conceive a situation when equally an individual could say "No" to it all. But this "on and off" method to me is defensible neither in logic nor in practice.
What a mess it makes of everything! We have heard many of your Lordships this afternoon discussing the question of
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names: are we to be called this, or are we to be called that? The noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, I thought used a rather unfortunate analogy when he talked about how in the entertainment world a man might call himself Duke So-and-so or Lord Somebody else. Are we to think of the Peerage in terms of the entertainment world? I hope not. Then we heard the noble Marquess talking about all various relatives, and he finished up with "his ox and his ass". I feel very much the same way. Perhaps Humpty Dumpty is the best. He would be at home in this world of "You can call it anything you choose or anything you like". I need not say more. So much for the disclaimer.
Then we get Clause 4, which is the question of the Peers of Scotland who are all, under this Bill, to be allowed to be Peers of the United Kingdom. I am not going to talk about this to-day in your Lordships' House, because I have in mind to move an Amendment that this clause should be omitted in the Bill and I should wish to see, as a substitute, a provision that we should raise the number we elect from sixteen to twenty of our number, this change being due to the fact that we should have a number, seven or eight, of additional Peeresses in the House of Lords coming in from the Scottish side. At this moment I would just say that the reason why I oppose Clause 4 as it is in the Bill is that I do do not believe it will work in your Lordships' House to the benefit of Scotland. I need not say more on it at this moment. So far as the clause on the Peeresses is concerned, I have already said how welcome it.
Then there is the last point on disqualification of certain of the Irish Peers who have disabilities. I can only say on that that if there is a real injustice to the Irish Peers I think it should be removed. I think one or two other noble Lords pointed out that we could get some rather curious results. If, for example, the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, decided that he was going to opt out of this Chamber—and I do hope that he will not—then he could stand for election and go into the House of Commons. What would be his name in the House of Commons? He would still be Lord Carrington. And why? Because he is an Irish Peer and can keep

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his title. The anomalies and absurdities we shall get are unending.
I thought of moving the rejection of this Bill but I came to the conclusion that it was hopeless. In the first debate I found that only my noble friend, Lord Esher, was also opposing it, which he did in far more eloquent terms that I am able to do. This time, again, I have found very little support, although I thought that, with a little pushing, the noble Lord, Lord Rea, and all his Party would be with me. Then when I had absolutely despaired, I heard the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Milford, and said to myself that I might get him as a Teller for quite different reasons, and that he and I might go in good company. But I am afraid that might not be sufficient.
So there we are; I can end only with a warning, and it is a warning which was echoed by the noble Earl, Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, when he made his speech at the beginning of the debate to-day. This is seemingly a minor Bill, a Bill of not very great importance, but I believe it is the start down the slippery slope, and at the end of that slope I think the hereditary principle is in great danger; and I, for one, believe that the hereditary principle is one of the main constituents of this House—not the sole one but one of them—so to that extent I regret it.
I also believe that the House as we know it is going to go into decline, and I know that many of the Members in another place welcome this Bill for precisely that reason. They see this as an opportunity to end a Second Chamber and to leave them alone and in control, to the country's misfortune. This Bill must inevitably weaken membership of your Lordships' House, and that, in its turn, will lead to fewer Government posts of importance in this House; and that, as I have already said, means a decline in our status, and our chance to serve our country will be less; and I, for one, am sad.
4.55 p.m.
THE EARL OF SANDWICH: My Lords, while I do not agree with my noble friend Lord Perth that this Bill is going to weaken your Lordships' House—indeed, it is going to result in a large
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number of accessions and a diminution of only a number of Peers whom one could perhaps count on the fingers of one hand—nevertheless, I am grateful to my noble friend for having introduced a somewhat more sombre atmosphere into this debate, which compared with the light-hearted speech by the Lord Chancellor, followed in the same vein by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, and the noble Earl, Lord Longford.
I regard this Bill, I am afraid to tell your Lordships, as mean, jejune and unimaginative, except for its provision for Scottish Peers and Peeresses in their own right, for whom justice is done. I differ again from my noble friend Lord Perth in that, so far from excluding Scotsmen as he would like to do, I should like to include Irishmen. I can see no reason why in modern days the Irish Peers should not be brought into this House at the same time as Scottish Peers. I am told that more land is owned in Ireland—if it is possible to own land at all; the Government ensure that you have very little—by English and United Kingdom Peers than is owned by Irish Peers. A great number of Irish Peers have dwelt in this country for a very long time and owned English property, and there is no reason why they should not come into this House.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Earl, but would he kindly tell us how, then, he would get over the problem of the fact that Eire is not part of the United Kingdom? Yet the noble Lord would have Peers of that territory sitting in ithe United Kingdom Parliament. I should think it would be difficult.
THE EARL OF SANDWICH: We are about to allow to come into this House a certain Baroness De Ros who possesses the most ancient Peerage of all, of Norman descent, I understand, and there are a large number of Peers in this House to-day who derive their titles from lands and languages far removed from the present workaday world of the United Kingdom. Frankly, I would regard Irish Peers in exactly the same light and admit them to your Lordships' House. To test that situation I propose when we come to the Committee stage to move an Amendment to Clause 4 to add the

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words "Peerage of Ireland", and another to delete Clause 5.
On the Second Reading, in the Commons the Government equivocated on what disclaiming Peers were entitled to call themselves, and today we heard from the Lord Chancellor what his views were. They are not strictly in line with the views which were given by Mr. Macleod (in column 466 of the Commons Hansard of June 19; and I will not weary your Lordships with the actual words delivered), nor are they in line with the sentiments expressed by the Attorney General (in column 551 of the same date). Several questions were asked by Members of another place and the Government did not give entirely satisfactory replies. I take it from what the Lord Chancellor said to-day that it would be unpopular and wrong if the "Earl of Potamus", on descending to another place, called himself " The Earl of Potamus, Esquire". But it would be quite right and in order if he took the name, "Lord Lucky".
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Who was he?
THE EARL OF SANDWICH: He was the son of "Potamus".
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: "Who, by a curious fluke, became a most important Duke."
THE EARL OF SANDWICH: Very little, I think, can be done about the main fulcrum of this Bill as it has emerged from another place and from a Joint Select Committee of both Houses, but I do hope that, in Committee, your Lordships will attempt to amend it in some particulars. I would rather, if I may, speak in terms of regret on what has not been done—the sins of omission.
First of all, there was the failure to get wider terms of reference for the Select Committee. My noble friend the Leader of the House on 10 April, 1962, referred to this and also expressed regret. He said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 239, col, 456]:
"… the truth is that … there has been a great contrast between the width of the debate which we have had …"—
that was in your Lordships' House—
"and the relative narrowness of the proposal which is before the House—that is to say, the terms of reference of the Joint Select Committee."
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He went on [col. 457]:
"It is true, of course, that the proposal before the House is narrower, to give only one example, than the Motion which was earlier before another place and which was not ultimately debated. The reason for that, as the noble Viscount rightly said"—
that was a reference to a previous speaker in the debate whose name I have not checked—
"was that the terms of this Motion have been negotiated between the Parties."
Here is an admission of a sinister theme in this matter to which I wish to return at a later stage. Finally, the noble Viscount said:
"Therefore, I do not apologise for the terms of reference of the Joint Select Committee, although I think the narrowness of them has quite legitimately come in for a certain amount of comment and criticism."
My Lords, as the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, said in referring to the Party Conference of Leaders in 1948, we have failed to take up the theme that was engendered then. If I might briefly remind your Lordships of who was connected with that Conference, there were Lord Attlee, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, to whom we are to have the privilege of listening later; the late Lord Addison, the Lord Chancellor of that time and the Chief Whip; and, on our side of politics, the Earl of Avon (Mr. Anthony Eden, as he is here described), the Marquess of Salisbury, the Earl of Swinton (as he is now) and the Earl of Kilmuir (Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe, as he then was); and the Liberals were represented by the late Lord Samuel and the late Mr. Clement Davies. Their recommendations, which I will not go into in great detail, because a number of them have been accepted already, enshrined at least four to which little attention has been paid. For example:
"Members of the Second Chamber should be styled 'Lords of Parliament' and would be appointed on grounds of personal distinction or public service. They might be drawn either from Hereditary Peers, or from commoners who would be created Life Peers.
"Provision should be made for the inclusion in the Second Chamber of certain descendants of the Sovereign, certain Lords Spiritual and the Law Lords.
"In order that persons without private means should not be excluded, some remuneration would be payable to members of the Second Chamber."
Your Lordships will note the words, "some remuneration", as distinct from

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the repayment of expenses which is now given. Finally:
"Peers who were not Lords of Parliament"—
the second use of this phrase "Lords of Parliament"—
"should be entitled to stand for election to the House of Commons, and also to vote at elections in the same manner as other citizens."
These recommendations failed to gain acceptance, owing to a dispute about powers; but, of course, powers are no longer in dispute to-day, because the Labour Party altered the powers. There is no controversy to-day about that aspect. I think it is a great pity that the Government of the day have not gone back to that White Paper, reconstituted the Conference and seen that some of these clearly-thought-out and hopefully expressed sentiments were caught up in current legislation.
There is a great deal of confusion about the position between the Lordship of Parliament and the hereditary principle. I think this differentiation, which has to be made in achieving a right judgment in these matters, comes out most clearly in a Memorandum (I am not going to quote the full extent of it) which was delivered by Lord Curzon to the Select Committee which sat on Vacating of Seats in 1895. This particular Select Committee is referred to in the Report of the Select Committee on the Wedgwood Benn case, but they do not take out this quotation. This Memorandum is chiefly concerned with the way of differentiating between hereditary Peers and Lords of Parliament by means of the Writ of Summons, and as I am going to make that the burden of what I have to say in the next three or four minutes I hope your Lordships will forgive me if I read out from this Memorandum:
"The Writ of Summons to the House of Lords is only issued upon certain information given and certain evidence of succession supplied, either by the peer himself or by some other person, acting on his behalf, to the Lord Chancellor.
"In default of such evidence there is no precedent for any writ of summons to the House of Lords having been issued by the Crown.
"It appears accordingly that the disqualification of a peer from continuing to vote in the House of Commons, if he be already a Member of that House, arises not from his succession to the titles and dignity of a peerage, but from his summons to the House of Lords,
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i.e. not from his inherited status as a Peer of the Realm, but from his acquired status as a Lord of Parliament, this being a familiar distinction in the law and practice of the constitution. In other words, the disqualification is not an inherited but a Parliamentary disqualification, and is based, not upon ennoblement of blood, but upon incompatibility of double service."
That is magnificent language and it speaks truth to me; whether it does to your Lordships I do not know.
This absurd and ancient doctrine of the ennoblement of blood, which some families on the Continent still respect, I understand, has never been part of the law and understanding of England or the practice of the Constitution. It ought not to be thought that when a Peer dies immediately some spirit is transubstantiated from him and the duty of his heir lies in another place altogether. It is for him to decide or for others to select him, not for any automation.
The Throne and the ancient Peerage are upheld by the hereditary principle, but the House of Lords is not. There are 13 Lords of Appeal and Lords Chief Justices; 24 Bishops; 33 Life Peers and Peeresses; and there are approximately 550 Peers who do not come to your Lordships' House at all. That is to say, 620 out of the full complement of 920 who are entitled to come here do not support the hereditary principle in this House, leaving only 32 per cent. of the total number which does. Incidentally, the comparable figure in the Commons for those who support the hereditary principle—that is to say, Baronets and heirs to Peerages—is 30, or just under 5 per cent. The House of Commons, therefore, is no more devoid of the hereditary principle than the House of Lords is devoted to it. What divides this House from the Commons is not heredity but incompatibility of double service, and the machinery for enforcing it should not be a matter of titles but of selection, either by elective or nominative methods or by individual preferment. This, I think, is where the Joint Select Committee have gone wrong.
The elective method is unfortunately ruled out by the terms of reference of the Select Committee, though many Peers, going right back in the distant past or coming forward to 1908 when Lord Rosebery and his colleagues put up a very strong memorandum on this,

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through the 'twenties and 'thirties, when the late Lord Salisbury and Lord Simon put up similar proposals, have advanced suggestions on these lines, but the principle has never been applied.
The other method is the nominative method, and that we have already by exercise of the Royal Prerogative, for the creation both of hereditary Peers and of Life Peers. The method of individual preferment is best effected by the acceptance or refusal of a Writ of Summons. I had thought at one time that the honour and etiquette surrounding the Sovereign were in question here. I had thought that if one vacated one's seat in the Commons, or, if one was not in the Commons at all and one's father died, some Message was sent requiring attendance in your Lordships' House. Not a bit of it! I waited six months and nothing happened. I then had, cautiously, tactfully and most carefully, to make inquiries as to the means by which one came; and I soon found that one had to make a positive application for a Writ of Summons. That is as it should be, and I welcome it. If only the reform could lie in this field, we have the machinery already.
The Writ of Summons procedure was introduced into the Select Committee by my noble friend Lord Salisbury, and it was supported by my noble friend the Leader of the House in a Memorandum. It was turned down by the Joint Select Committee by 15 votes to 4. That turning down appears on page 16 of the Report, and I maintain that November 27, 1962, was just another bad day for the Conservative Party. The Conservative Peers, Lord Swinton, Lord Kilmuir and Lord Colville of Culross voted against the proposal of my noble friend Lord Salisbury. Why did they do so? Were they lazy? Were they aware of a cut-and-dried Party bargain behind the scenes, and told that the Committee was a cover organisation to lend verisimilitude? Why had they not the wit and imagination to turn your Lordships' House into a constitutionally respectable and working Senate by means of a Writ of Summons renewable every Parliament by those who had previously received it? This would have caught up the spirit and purpose of the 1948 Leaders' Conference, solved the problem of the Backwoods Peers and created Lords of Parliament, and enabled them to be paid.
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Alas! Nothing was done. This, I think, is what comes of laissez-faire methods in government.
I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth is not in his place at the moment. I remember well that when he was the Leader of the House of Commons in 1945 he set up a Select Committee to consider the Procedure of the House. He sent it a rough, tough Memorandum and, by the majority on that Committee he forced through the requirements, as he thought they were, in that day and age, of Socialism. The noble Lord, Lord Silkin, is sitting in his place; he must remember that occasion well. This Committee, which would have liked to deliberate at large and to discuss this and that, was powerless. The Conservatives on it were in a minority. We were obliged to come to heel and do what we were told by Lord Morrison of Lambeth, with his large majority in the House of Commons. In the end, not a bad scheme was prepared—indeed, there have recently been some modifications in a more positive sense. Why could not the Government have sent the Joint Select Committee a memorandum of requirements and got them to debate something within a proper context and obliged them to put it through? What happens to our society if one Party uses methods like this and the other does not? It seems to me that inevitably we recede into collectivism. I think the Conservatives on that Committee ought to be thoroughly ashamed of themselves. They framed a Wedgwood Benn enabling Bill and disabled everyone else in like circumstances.
I give one final quotation from a speech made by the Leader of the House, which was rightly acclaimed as one of the noblest efforts in this Parliament. He said on April 10, 1962 [OFFICIAL REPORT, col. 380]:
"… we all loved our fathers and are proud of the stock from which we came. … This is no snobbery; it is shared by all classes in every age. It is not foolish pride. It is common piety that we honour our fathers and our mothers, that we praise famous men, and the fathers who begat us."
My Lords, while this miserable Act is in operation it will force an intolerable choice on people, perhaps many people, between holding to a name of honour in history and being a Member of the most famous Parliament House in the

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modern world—a House which at this moment is being actively reproduced all over the world, even in the most primitive societies. The Committee has indulged in a disgraceful balancing Act. It has accepted a sordid Parity compromise. It has established a ridiculous partition between tradition and opportunity. It has equated inverted snobbery with power, and impotence with preferment. No job could have been worse done. I think it is all too typical of the "double-think" that is carrying this country far down the road to degradation and shame. If only I could gather some of my noble friends now present in the Chamber, who I know will all have gone before we reach the end of our proceedings, I would take them with me into the Lobby in opposition to this measure.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Milford, might act as a second Teller.
THE EARL OF SANDWICH: My Lords, the noble Earl has already rejected him, and I am not going to do what he did not do. Moreover, I understand that the noble Lord has gone.
5.18 p.m.
LORD AUCKLAND: My Lords, we have just heard a fighting speech from my noble friend Lord Sandwich. I do not propose to follow him in the points that he has made. No item of legislation on a matter of this kind can reasonably be expected to command the full support of either House of Parliament, or indeed full support among the Parties themselves. But I think that, with certain reservations, this Bill is in many ways a courageous Bill. After all, for many years people have been asking that a Bill to reform the House of Lords in some way or other should be brought forward. Whether or not this is the ideal Bill by which to do it, I have not been in your Lordships' House long enough to be able to presume to answer.
My main reason for taking part in these proceedings is that I am still fairly young, and the provisions of this Bill will most affect those of my generation who have to carry on the great traditions which the British Parliament has always had. Therefore, I should like first to say a word on the hereditary system of
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this House. I am not a fanatical supporter of the hereditary system, and I feel that perhaps the rules on Leave of Absence could be tightened up. Perhaps it is a pity that the Select Committee did not go further into this problem. I should like at this juncture to pay my tribute to my noble and learned friend Lord Kilmuir, and to the select Committee of both Houses of Parliament and all Parties who worked hard to reach the decisions which have been reached, irrespective of whether they be the right decisions or not. They did not have a great deal of time. The terms of reference were fairly wide, having regard to the time allowed, but, with all its shortcomings, we at least have something to "chew" upon.
It used to be said that hereditary Peers were all rabid supporters of the Tory Party. Well, I think the last few weeks have seen one or two deviations from that principle, and I have to declare a small interest in a recent incident which took place on the London Government Bill. Indeed, only yesterday, on the Weights and Measures Bill, another such incident took place. This has met with the criticism that some Tories in an unelected House have rebelled against the Government. I think that certainly the younger Members on these Benches are, on the whole, clear-thinking people, and all of us think carefully on the merits of a case and do not necessarily always follow what we are told to do by our commanding officers. I believe that, for that reason alone, an hereditary system is reasonably justifiable.
If, as has been suggested by a number of people, the House of Lords consisted merely of Life Peers and ecclesiastical Members we should be faced with the danger of a professional House of Lords, with very little of what one might call impartial thinking being done. Surely the main justification for an Upper House is to have at least a nucleus of independent thought. I think that many of the hereditary Members of your Lordships House on all sides abide by those conditions. Reference was made by the noble Lord, Lord Milford, in his very interesting and unusual maiden speech, to the effect that we are all men of wealth. At the risk of being out-ruled for disagreeing with a maiden speech, I

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cannot myself share that view, because as for myself and indeed for many of us, we make considerable financial sacrifices in order to take part in the deliberations of Parliament. I make no complaint about that; it is something which we have to accept; but I think it is something which the general public at large should realise.
May I say a word about renunciation? It has been said that the terms put forward in this Bill are unreasonable. I am not sure that that is true, always provided that this House can be equipped with reasonable powers and that there is an opportunity for the younger ones among us to be given office if we deserve it. It would be quite intolerable to have a kind of shuttle service between this House and another place; otherwise we should get into a situation where there would be an enormous free fight for a seat, and if the seat were lost and the loser were entitled to come back here as often as he liked there would be considerable difficulties. Therefore, the terms of renunciation, although they may seem hard, are in fact justifiable, because it is an honour to serve in this House and we have a good deal of influence over affairs of State. But it is, of course, completely right that the House of Commons, as the elected body, should have the final say. There are very few people, even the most ardent supporters of your Lordships' House, who would dissent from that view.
This is a Bill which is bound to cause a lot of deep feeling. As to the provision regarding Peeresses in their own right, they are completely admirable. As the noble Earl who leads the Opposition said, the noble Ladies who sit in this House, on all sides, have done sterling work. As one on these Benches who from time to time takes part in debates on social legislation, I would certainly bear that out. I hope that this Bill reaches the Statute Book soon, but I also hope that its provisions will be carefully watched, and if, in fact, shortcomings manifest themselves, I hope the Government will not hesitate in putting them right.
5.27 p.m.
LORD ARCHIBALD: My Lords, I feel that I should start by saying that the first obvious thing in this debate is that there is a large degree of disunity on both sides of the House, and I have a
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feeling that the remarks I am going to make will be as little popular with my Front Bench as the remarks of the noble Earls, Lord Perth and Lord Sandwich, will be with their own Front Bench, but for quite different reasons. I should also like to say how grateful I am to the noble Lord, Lord Milford, for his "non-controversial" maiden speech, which was so wide ranging that, the House having extended the usual courtesy to him, I think it would now be quite impossible for any subsequent speaker to be out of order.
I approached this Bill with very little enthusiasm, but I found that my support for the Bill was considerably increased by the speech made by the noble Earl, Lord Perth. I found that practically every reason he gave for regretting the Bill increased my fervour for its passage. The Bill itself has certain limitations. I particularly regret that the provision for disclaimer of a Peerage does not involve the final and total extinction of that Peerage. I believe that when in due course my son comes to succeed me, he will probably disclaim. I am not committing him to that, but I think it is likely that he will. I feel that it is right and proper that if he does so, that should be the end of the Peerage. I recognise that there is bound to be a different feeling on this among those who are the holders of Peerages which may have been in existence even for centuries. But at least for the Peers of first creation, I think that it would be quite a minor alteration to this Bill, and a useful one, that their sons if they wished to disclaim should have the right not merely to disclaim but to extinguish.
The second suggestion I have to make bears on the question of the hereditary system. I will make it very briefly and it is a suggestion which does not necessarily require legislation; it could be done by agreement between the parties. It is that there should be no further creation of hereditary Peerages, but all further additions to this House as long as this House may remain should be in the form of Life Peers. Such an arrangement would involve, if not a running down of the inflated membership or inflated possible membership of this House, at least no addition to the swollen ranks of its hereditary Members.
Another point which I should like to make, and which would probably have

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been out of order but for the wide range that we have already covered, is that I hope that the next Government, which I take it will be a Labour Government, will have a look at the Ministers of the Crown Act and amend that Act in order that they may increase the number of Ministers who may sit in another place, and thereby reduce the need to have so many Ministers of the Crown in your Lordships' House.
What is practically my final point is that I, like many others, would have preferred to see a Bill dealing with House of Lords reform, although I recognise that this is probably not possible at this time. I should not conceal the fact that I am probably one of a tiny minority in any part of the House, and a unicameralist: I believe in single-Chamber Government. I do not believe in a Second Chamber, whether it is on a hereditary basis, an appointed basis or an elective basis.
I want to look for a moment at the chief claim that is made for the value of this House, and that is that it is a useful and important revision Chamber for legislation coming to us from another place. My impression, from fourteen years' service in your Lordships' House, is that this is a claim which cannot be substantiated. In fact it is a claim which I challenge completely. It would be a very useful exercise if someone, possibly a young political economist looking for a thesis for his Ph.D. degree, would examine the Amend-merits to Bills which have been submitted to this House, say over the past twelve years, and bring out for our information how high a proportion of the Amendments are Government Amendments, and how minute a proportion of the Amendments are Amendments from the Opposition or from any other part of the House. The London Government Bill on which we have spent a little time recently is a very good example of that. The Government used their automatic majority to steamroller Opposition Amendments regardless of their merits. I do not think in these circumstances that it can truly be argued that that Bill came in for effective revision by this House. It only provided an opportunity, in the main, for Government second thoughts, polishing by draftsmen and so on, to be given effect.
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In fact, probably the prelude to House of Lords reform, is reform of the procedure of another place. I should have thought that a fourth stage, or whatever it may be, in another place after a due interval of time would enable the Government of the day to have its second thoughts, to consider its half-promises to the Opposition "to look at it again", and to polish up the work of the Parliamentary draftsmen. Because that is all that was done on that Bill and on many other Bills by this House, and it could quite well have been done by an additional stage in the other place.
There is, as I argue, in fact no effective work by your Lordships' House as a revision Chamber, and if that work were taken over as it could be by another place, we should then be left with what?—broadly speaking, only with our very excellent, very valuable, very high-level Wednesday afternoon debates. And I am bound to say that I cannot see that these by themselves would constitute a really valid and sufficient reason for the continued existence of your Lordships' House. I hope therefore that this small Bill will be followed in due course by legislation which, if it does not lead to the abolition of this House, will at least lead to a recognition of its only real function, which is that of a first-class national debating society.
5.37 p.m.
LORD FERRIER: My Lords, as a Life Peer I am, of course, in a measure disinterested in this Bill from one point of view. But I am deeply concerned from another—namely, that I have tremendous faith in the House of Lords, and I am jealous regarding its place in the body politic. I had not intended to go over what I said in the debate in April last year, to which the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, has referred; but I am tempted to do so to some extent by the unusual maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Milford. And I feel that, as a Life Peer, I am competent to say things about this Bill, about the circumstances of it and about the Select Committee, which it is not so easy for an hereditary Peer to say.
First of all, my Lords, I came to Parliament—and I am approaching the end of a five-year apprenticeship in your Lordships' House—convinced that the hereditary system was an anachronism. I would say at once that it did not take

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me long to reverse that view and to become a supporter of the principle. I wonder whether, perhaps, five years in this House might affect the noble Lord, Lord Milford, in the same way. The system is one whereby a few dedicated young men bred to the task can take a limited part in the proceedings of Parliament if they so wish—at least, that is how I see it. The point about the availability of youth under this system has already been referred to by the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury. I have deliberately used the words "limited part", because I was thinking of what the noble Earl, Lord Longford, had said when he threw out suggestions about how this Chamber might be reformed. It is fair to remember that this Chamber has already had (I think the words are) its "wings clipped" and therefore any part which any Peer takes in the proceedings is in the nature of a limited part.
The noble Lord, Lord Rea, suggested in his speech that if the hereditary system were retained, so that young men so disposed might be able to come to this House, there might perhaps be some additional qualification necessary—some sort of "super-vetting" on top of a family tree. My Lords, I venture to disagree with the noble Lord on that point, because it seems to me to be very difficult to work out in practice; and too much of our progress to-day is based on some sort of arbitrary measurement—unless, perhaps, it was an IQ measurement the noble Lord had in mind. But it remains the fact that this Bill provides for such young Peers as wish to remain indifferent to Parliamentary business or who wish to offer themselves for election to, or wish to remain in, another place. The very fact that this Bill provides an alternative course for them commends it to me. Indeed, perhaps in lighter vein, from one point of view this may occasionally be an advantage to this place. This Bill has been regarded as a measure to reform the House of Lords, and in certain respects it is; but I think it is fair to remember that it is a measure, also in some respects, to reform another place.
I must say that from my experience in Parliament—which, as I told your Lordships, is now longer than it was; and I had little or no experience of politics previously—I do feel that, in
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our bicameral Legislature, it is not necessarily this House which needs reform. One must remember that some people—and I am one of them—hold the view that it is not in the interests of our Parliamentary democracy that a Second Chamber should become too much of an eventide home for Members of a Lower House. That leads me on to two points. One is that I venture to disagree profoundly with the noble Lord, Lord Archibald, about the need for a Second Chamber. It seems to me, from my researches, that I am not alone in feeling that for true democracy, for the sort of democracy that suits this country and our people, a Second Chamber is an absolute condition. The second point I have to make in contending that that Second Chamber should not be an eventide home is that, in saying this, I mean no criticism whatever of any of your Lordships, on either side of the House. Indeed, I am filled with admiration for the dutiful and diligent manner in which many Peers, especially noble Lords on the opposite side of the House, contribute to our proceedings.
The noble Earl, Lord Longford, said that Life Peers came to this House on an understanding that they would take part. Be that as it may, as the only Life Peer who has spoken (and, according to the list, I am to be followed by only one more; one as experienced in these matters as I am inexperienced), I think it is fair to say that if there is an understanding—and to some extent, of course, there is—there is no obligation. There is no obligation on a Life Peer to attend, any more than there is on an hereditary Peer. I make that point, my Lords, because it seems to me to be an important one: that the character of this House should be such that there is no element of election about it; no element of obligation; no looking over the shoulder at any power that sent you here, except your own volition—and if that were to be lost then in a great measure the value of our contributions to Parliament would be impaired. I, for one, do say that I cannot understand any Peer taking part in the proceedings here if he should feel that he would rather be elsewhere—and in that respect this Bill, which I support, is a step in the right direction.
On the subject of Clause 4, I respect enormously the views of the noble Earl, Lord Perth, in so far as he referred to

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the tradition of the Scottish Representative Peers. Again, as a Scottish Life Peer I feel entitled to occupy a moment or two of your Lordships' time on that subject. Whatever the noble Earl's view may be (and he is supported, I know, by other Representative Peers), if indeed it is to be a sacrifice that the system of representation should be abolished—though I myself do not agree that it is a sacrifice—I believe that it is a sacrifice worth making in return for this Bill, which, despite the remarks of the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, to me represents an agreed measure, a step forward without impairing the value of this House. The fact that it has been agreed and threshed out by a weighty and well-conducted Select Committee means that there can hardly be other than support from a wide range of people in both places to terms which make the surrender, the sacrifice, of the Representative Peers worth while—which sacrifice, as the noble Earl, Lord Perth, has himself said, is in a great measure reduced by the addition to our numbers of the Ladies covered by Clause 6.
My Lords, in the absence of the noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery of Alamein, I feel safe to go on for a little longer, if your Lordships will forgive me, to refer again to the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Milford. I would suggest that, when he referred to the Death Penalty (Abolition) Bill of 1956 I was not concerned with the legislation. But sitting, as I was then, on the sidelines, with no idea that I should ever be concerned with the proceedings of this House, I got the impression that your Lordships, in the action you took, were in fact representing the views of the vast majority of the people; and, curiously enough, I include in that the women of this country. I support this Bill, and I hope that it will lead to the success it deserves.
5.51 p.m.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, said most of what I had to say on the Report of the Joint Select Committee, of which I was a member, and when we had the debate on that Report; and I do not want to repeat to-day what I then said. In view of one or two speeches that have been made, however, I would just add this: our terms of reference
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on the Select Committee were very limited indeed. I, myself, should have been as glad to go into a conference on a much wider reform of this House and to go in in company with my noble friend, Lord Salisbury, as I did in 1947. I have not always agreed with him on every subject, but I think he and I have always been agreed on practically every aspect of House of Lords reform. But that was not the field open to us on the Select Committee.
Another thing that must be borne in mind is that if you want to carry a measure of this kind you must carry it with the broad consent of both Houses That, I am sure, is necessary. That is why I think it was so wise to have had a Joint Select Committee. Although we differed on quite a number of points, we differed very amicably. We threshed out all these matters, and although we, quite rightly, expressed our opinions and, indeed, voted on them, at the end we were practically all agreed that, those opinions having been expressed, the Report represented—I would not even say the "lowest common denominator", but rather the highest common factor of what we could agree; and that, having done that, we would all join in supporting it.
There were things I did not like. I could not follow altogether Lord Sandwich's speech about noble blood and so on; but I think I understood him to challenge the nomenclature provision. As a matter of fact, as I said in the debate on the Report, I thought this baptisimal regeneration had not really much to recommend it. But I thought, and I still think, that, on the whale, it is for the other place to decide what they are going to call a man who stands for election in the House of Commons. What he gets called outside is a different matter, and I have no doubt that he will be called quite a number of things. But he will probably go on being called in the country at large, and in his own constituency, by the name by which they have hitherto known him.
I really should not have spoken to-day but for what I think I must call the change that the Bill has made in, I will not say the actual terms of the Report, but what I understood to be the intention of the Report. I think that we who sat on the Committee expected that when the Bill passed it would come into law. I

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must say that that was my understanding. The question of deferring the operation of the Act until a dissolution of Parliament was, so far as I can recall, never considered by the Select Committee at all. Indeed, I think it is obvious from the Report that we expected the Bill to come into force and to operate when it received the Royal Assent.
I think that is clear from the recommendations of the Select Committee about sitting Members of Parliament who succeed to a Peerage. I will quote two passages from page 8 of the Report, where the main recommendations come which I think clearly bear that out. Paragraph 6(f) says:
"…a Peer who surrenders should do so by executing a formal instrument to be deposited with the Lord Chancellor and, in the case of a Peer who is a Member of the House of Commons at the time of succession, notification of surrender should be given to the Speaker within a month of succession, if Parliament is not dissolved;"
Then if your Lordships will refer to subparagraph (m) you will see:
"… a person who succeeds to a Peerage while a Member of the House of Commons should immediately be disabled from taking part in any of the proceedings of that House, such disability to continue until he has executed the instrument of surrender and has duly notified the Speaker; upon surrender such a person should be entitled to resume his status as an active Member of the House of Commons without further proceedings and without breach of privilege or loss of seniority;"
My Lords, I think from that it is quite clear that it was the expectation and intention of the Committee that the Bill would operate in the normal way when it received the Royal Assent. As already has been said in debate to-day, it would be unreasonable and, I think, unfair both to a Member sitting in the House of Commons and to his constituency—which is not less important—if we passed this Act and if his father or relative died and he succeeded to a Peerage, for there to have to be a by-election and for him not to be able to stand at that by-election. That, it seems to me, would be quite unreasonable.
I listened very carefully to what the noble and learned Lord who sits on the Woolsack said about constitutional reasons but I did not find it very convincing. There were the counter arguments advanced by my noble friend Lord
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Salisbury. If we have a great change in the electoral law; if we admit a whole new class of people, as when women received the vote; if we reduce the voting age from whatever it may be—say, 25 to 21—if we abolish property qualifications; or if we have a Redistribution Bill, recasting constituencies all through the country, obviously in that kind of case we must wait for a dissolution before such a Bill comes into operation: because it must apply equally all through the country at the same time. But this measure is not going to affect all the constituencies. It is very limited in its operation. It is limited to Peers who are sitting in this House or may succeed to this House and Members of another place who may succeed to a Peerage.
There are cases where an appointed day is put into an Act of Parliament. That is done for the reason that, when Parliament has approved a Bill, a number of things may have to be done before it can become effective. New machinery has to be created or something of that sort, or Parliament wishes to give people notice about a change in the law so that they can look into their affairs and see whether they will have to adjust themselves or their businesses to a new situation. Therefore, it is reasonable to have an appointed day. But I do not think that there is any really compelling reason why that should happen in this case.
There is one recommendation in the Report of the Joint Select Committee which has been embodied in the Bill but about the wisdom of which, on reflection, I am doubtful. We recommended three different periods of time during which people who are affected by this Bill will have to make up their minds. Where a man is a sitting Member of the House of Commons, obviously we want a decision to be taken as quickly as possible, so that there will be no interruption of his career in another place, if he wishes to stay there, or so that there may be a by-election, if he does not wish to stay there. Therefore, I think it is quite reasonable that, in the case of a sitting Member of the House of Commons, his decision must be taken within one month.
Then we recommended—I do not recollect why we made this distinction; I do not think that we discussed it very much—that where somebody succeeds

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to a Peerage and who, after the passing of the Bill, will desire to disclaim (I think that "disclaimer" is rather a good term for it), he should have twelve months within which to make up his mind. At the same time, we also recommend that a man who has succeeded to a Peerage, and who is already sitting here under his Writ of Summons, should have six months in which to make up his mind. It was considered that it was a serious decision and that he probably wanted to look at it all round, so he ought to have a reasonable time. I seem to remember that my noble friend Lord Silkin suggested—I had some sympathy with it, though I did not vote for it—that it should be two years and not one. At any rate, we considered that one year was enough.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I did move such an Amendment, but I meant it to apply only to young persons, to those who succeeded under the age of 25 or something of that sort.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: Whatever the period, the time begins to run from a man's 21st birthday, so there is nothing between us on that. What I was going to propose is this. I do not see, in logic, in equity or in reason that there is good ground for distinguishing between a Peer who is already sitting in this House and a Peer who succeeds the day after to-morrow. I do not see why the period should not be one year for all such Peers. I think that that would be not at all an unreasonable thing to do.
That does not mean that a Peer would have to sit for a year before he decided. If an Amendment to this effect is put into the Bill, he could, if he liked, disclaim it the day after the Bill became law. On the other hand, he will have a year in which to look round, consider all the aspects of the case and make up his mind. Therefore, if that were acceptable to the House—because these are matters on which we want to act by common consent—I would be prepared to put down an Amendment (or perhaps the Government would put down an Amendment; they draft better than I do) which would assimilate the two classes of Peers who are not Members of the House of Commons. I think that
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that would be a good thing to do. If that were done, it might be easier to accept the proposal of my noble friend Lord Salisbury, which would bring the Bill into force when it receives the Royal Assent. I believe that if we combine the two proposals—bringing the Bill into force in the normal way but giving all Peers a year in which to make up their minds—we shall have a practical measure upon which we should all agree. Therefore I should be glad to make that proposal to the House.
6.7 p.m.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: My Lords, as a Scottish Representative Peer, I feel bound to express my disagreement with what fell from my noble friend Lord Perth. I do so with great reluctance, because my noble friend is a very old friend and I dislike differing from him, especially as I think in the ordinary way that his opinions are worthy of great respect. But, in this matter, he is just absolutely wrong. My noble friend is going to move an Amendment on Committee stage and therefore we need not pursue it far now, but, to put it in a nutshell, it seems to me that in a position where English hereditary Peeresses and Life Peers of both sexes are Members of this House it would be absolutely unjustifiable to exclude a single Scottish Peer from admission to the House. I think that, from the Scottish point of view, that would be quite indefensible. However, we shall hear more about that in Committee.
I desire to add only one word; that is, about the hereditary principle, about which we have heard a good deal this afternoon. I speak as a profound believer in the value of the hereditary principle and I welcome what my noble friend Lord Salisbury said on the matter. The only point I want to make is that I listen always with great interest to noble Lords opposite who disagree with the hereditary principle indulging in paeans of praise of your Lordships' House. My noble friend, the noble Earl, Lord Longford (I must not call him my noble friend because he sits over there, but he is my friend all the same), was at pains to say how superior 100 Members of this House—the "Top Hundred" I think he said—were over

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the "Top Hundred" Members of the House of Commons. I thought that was rather an invidious remark. But if that is so, surely it is in large measure due to the operation of the hereditary principle. I leave it at that, but I do sincerely believe that when we do have a proper reform of your Lordships' House—and, of course, this is not such a reform of the House—it is absolutely essential that we should preserve in some form or another, with proper safeguards, the working of the hereditary principle.
6.10 p.m.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: My Lords, we have had an interesting debate, from which it is pretty clear that this Bill will get its Second Reading without opposition. I cordially agree with two points which were made by the noble Earl, Lord Swinton One was that, if and when these questions affecting your Lordships' House are dealt with by Parliament by way of inquiry, it will be very advantageous if the Select Committee is a Joint Committee of the two Houses. I am quite sure that if there had been two Select Committees, one for the Commons and one for the Lords, it would not have been anywhere near so easy to reach the final substantial agreement in spirit which in fact we reached, although it was the case that we had quite a number of divisions and votes, and we had arguments. The Commons by themselves would have found it much more difficult not to have got heated up a bit more in a Select Committee; and as for a Lords' Select Committee, we should not have known quite what to do, because there would always be the fear of what the House of Commons was going to do about it. Inevitably in this matter the House of Commons was involved, as well as this House. Therefore, I think it was wise to have the Joint Select Committee.
I must pay my tribute, as my noble Leader did, to the ability with which the noble and learned Earl, Lord Kilmuir, the Lord Chancellor during most of the period, presided over our proceedings. He was courteous and considerate; and I must say he was so thorough that he never let us miss a single point, even to the extent of keeping us sometimes a little later than we wanted to be kept.
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That was the thoroughness of the noble Earl, and we were indebted to him for his help.
I agree with the noble Earl, Lord Swinton, and the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, in that I cannot see the point of holding up the operation of the Bill until Parliamentary dissolution. I did not follow the constitutional argument advanced by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor; perhaps he was being kind and making only a brief reference to it. However, we shall probably hear something about it from the noble and learned Viscount the Leader of the House when he comes to reply.
However, it is highly inconvenient and somewhat invidious for a noble Lord who intends to relinquish his Peerage and to stand for the House of Commons (in a number of cases for the first time) if he has to wait until the dissolution before he can respectably, so to speak, get a constituency. It is true it can be said that he can go to a constituency and get himself selected as Lord So-and-so, saying that at the dissolution this Bill will come into operation. But he is at some disadvantage in doing so, and I cannot see the reason why the Bill could not have been operative upon its passing. I do not understand the constitutional reasons. Then the man would be far more free to go and seek a constituency on his own feet as a commoner, and in a far better and more dignified position to do so. It may well be the case that people would be doing it.
There has been a lot of speculation about the Parliamentary future of the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham. It is not for us to interfere with his intentions or decisions, or even to ask him what his noble intentions are—except in private, which I have done. He has up to now declined to satisfy my curiosity. That is to be expected, and I do not altogether blame him. But suppose he did intend in his private, unrevealed mind to relinquish his Peerage and to stand for Parliament. He is in a difficult position in suddenly having to start moving round constituencies and asking—or getting somebody else to ask, which is more likely—for consideration. The noble Viscount would be in an undignified position; and none of us would wish him to be in any way undignified or to be in an undignified position. I

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think it is silly, unless we can get really convincing constitutional reasons why it should be so.
There have been a number of speeches in this debate, all of which we have enjoyed listening to. I forget whether the noble Lord, Lord Rea, the Leader of the Liberal Party, was against the hereditary principle or not; I think perhaps not.
LORD REA: The hereditary principle, as such, and as the only qualification for membership of the House.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: I would agree with that, so far as it goes. The noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, said that you could reform this House by cutting out the dead wood. I follow the argument—namely, that if it was stipulated that there could not be more than x Hereditary Peers here, and the whole body of Hereditary Peers could collectively, say, in their classes of nobility, select them in the same way as the Scottish Peers are selected, then it could be done.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I should not like it to be thought that that was my proposal, but the effect would be the same.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: I am sorry. I was not wishing to misrepresent the noble Marquess. Perhaps I was trying to do an essay in subediting.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I shall be delighted to explain it to the noble Lord.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: Thank you very much. The noble Marquess agrees that it does work out somewhat in that way. There is a lot to be said for it, especially if the number of Life Peers increases. On the other hand, one of the defences of Parliamentary democracy against encroachments by this House is the fact that its composition is irrational. That is why I am against the elective principle here. It would never do for this place to be elected, because for that very reason it would become a more effective rival to the House of Commons. So, while I see the attraction of it, and it would certainly remove the greater part of the hereditary element if the noble
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Marquess's idea were carried out, nevertheless, it would make this place a little too respectable, perhaps at the expense of the other place. I think its power would grow, and the fact that it is irrational, and there is this big hereditary element, makes it more difficult for this House to interfere with the will of the people. But if you ask me whether I can support the hereditary principle, I confess that I cannot. One of the reasons that I support this Bill is that I cannot find a good reason for supporting that principle. But there is a case for preserving it in order that the moral authority of your Lordships' House should not become so great that it could more effectively rival the House of Commons.
THE EARL OF SANDWICH: My Lords, may I put a question to the noble Lord?
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: Yes.
THE EARL OF SANDWICH: I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. Does he think that the American Senate is interfering with the will of the people? Is it not based upon an elective system? Are we constantly hearing of rows between the two Chambers in the United States?
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: There have been strong disagreements between the two Chambers in the United States.
THE EARL OF SANDWICH: Does it do any harm?
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: Not necessarily. But if you ask me whether I would sooner live under our Constitution or the American Constitution, senate and all, I would much sooner live under ours. I think our Constitution works more easily than the American Constitution. But, there again, the Senate is democratically elected by States, and so is the House of Representatives by electoral districts; and the powers of the Senate are, as a consequence of that, equal to the powers of the House of Representatives, including in the important element of finance. More than one useful piece of legislation has been lost in the United States because of the equal powers of the two Chambers and there being no way of getting over the problem.

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Certainly, I think it suits the United States. In fact, one of the greatest tributes I would pay to the American people in the field of democracy is that they make that exceedingly difficult Constitution work. It really was not made to work, because it is more full of checks and balances than ours. But it does work, and I think that is a tribute to the Americans, including the politicians. If you asked me whether I should like it here, my answer would be "No".
The noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, raised the point, as did the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, about giving up the title—a Member of this House who stands for another place, or becomes a Member of another place, being there known as "Mr." whoever he may be. I gathered from the Lord Chancellor that legally there is nothing to prevent him from calling himself what he likes. But in view of the spirit of the and, indeed, the provisions to it, people would expect him to give the title up and revert to the address of "Mr.". I think that is right. I do not think that noble Lords departing from this place ought to have it both ways. If they give up the Peerage, I think they must give up the adornments of the Peerage as well as the privileges of it.
There is a second, and not unimportant, point. I do not want to make it so easy for noble Lords to give up their Peerage and go to another place so that the numbers might become too big. Those who want to do it can take the consequences; but there ought to be some consequences. A man ought not to be able to give up his Peerage and, at the same time, carry his title about with him. Another point of objection was mentioned by some of our colleagues in the House of Commons: that in some constituencies if a man had a title and was running for the House of Commons, he might have an undue advantage over other candidates who were ordinary common-or-garden "Mr's". I think there is something in that, although it would not be the case in every constituency. It might well be the case in a constituency like Marylebone or Hampstead when it might be an advantage to the Conservative candidate to have a title.
But I think it is right that if he goes he must lose the title. For the same reason, I am in favour of the
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drowning of the Peerage for all time once a Peer has said that he will give it up. I think he must drop the whole Peerage. It may or may not be "rough" on his children. It may be an advantage or a disadvantage to them, depending on the circumstances. But I do not like the idea of people being able to dodge in and out of this place—one generation in, the next out, and perhaps the next in. It is not dignified for this House.
I still say that people must consider responsibly and carefully leaving the House of Lords. They ought not to take it too lightheartedly. If there are no disadvantages as well as advantages in leaving it, that is more likely to lead to an irresponsible decision. The noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, rather implied that the Labour Party would like an elected House here as against the hereditary principle. I hope I have not again "got him wrong". But it is not true that the Labour Party advocates an elected House.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I said some of them would not like a Second Chamber at all, and the others did not like the hereditary principle. I therefore assumed that they would prefer an elected House. Perhaps I was wrong.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: I think the noble Marquess, except in a few cases, would be wrong on the last point, for the reason that I gave—that election would strengthen its moral authority as against the position of the House of Commons, and I think the great bulk would take that view. I admit that there are varying views in the Labour Party about the future of your Lordships' House. In fact, I never welcome their discussion of the House of Lords, because it results in a state of confusion about what to do with the place. But I imagine that up to a point there is similar confusion among the Conservative Party as well, if they come to discuss what to do with your Lordships' House. It is a difficult problem.
Of course, the hereditary principle has proved itself in one or two families, and the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, is a case in point. His family has an extraordinary history, of which I can well understand his being proud, as he is entitled to be. They started in the

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days of Queen Elizabeth I as great Officers of State—if not before then—and in between then and now there have been quite a number of Cecils who have played a considerable and, from their point of view, a worthy part in politics and public affairs.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: My Lords, will the noble Lord forgive my interrupting? He said "one or two families". Does he really limit the benefit of the hereditary principle in this House to one or two families?
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: I was not talking about limiting it to one or two families—not at all. I can only say from my own knowledge what I think. There may be some other hereditary families who are good, and who have shown promise and goodness during the centuries, but I do not know enough about them to speak of my own knowledge and thereby sponsor them. The other family—though it is not quite analogous because the present most famous member of the family is a Commoner—are the Church ills, descended from the Duke of Marlborough. Now and again there have been some distinctly promising and active people there, and Mr. Churchill is undoubtedly a very great man, for whose leadership in the war we are all grateful. I mention this only in fairness, and to point out that sometimes the hereditary principle works. But I would say that in the main there is no evidence that it does work. You get a bit of luck now and again. On the other hand, you get a bit of bad luck, not only now and again but rather more often; and I think that must be faced.
We were interested to hear the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Milford. It broke away from tradition, as indeed it ought, in his case. It was not a peaceful, non-provocative, uncontroversial speech. But I make no point of it because the maiden speech I made in the House of Commons was anything but uncontroversial. It was deliberately made for the purpose of being controversial, provocative and, as near as possible, insulting to the Tory Party in another place. So I make no complaint about the noble Lord's speech. Indeed, the Conservative Member who followed me said: "Mr. Speaker, it is the tradition in this House
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that when a new Member has made his maiden speech the Member who follows him congratulates him. Sir, I do so."—finish; or, as the Americans say, "period". And I thoroughly deserved it. I did it deliberately. I meant to be controversial. I meant not to ask for indulgence, because I did not see, as a long-experienced street-corner orator, that I needed any indulgence from a place like the House of Commons, and I never got it. So I cannot complain about the noble Lord on that point.
I will not be controversial at the noble Lord's expense but will give him a little advice. I advise him, as a Communist—though I know it is done in his circles—not to use the words "democracy" or "freedom" too often, because somebody will get up and ask him, at the street corner, if not here, what sort of democracy they have in the Communist countries. He had better get ready to answer that one, if he is going to use the word "democracy" excessively, as I thought he did this afternoon. The other point is that he should not refer to colonialism and liberation, because there are some colonies in Eastern Europe which might be thrown up against him. I say no more now; but some other day, if he makes a similar speech, we will take the gloves off. I may have broken the traditions in another place, and I am trying not to break them here, at any rate this afternoon.
The noble Earl, Lord Perth, as he was entitled to be, was thoroughly reactionary and provocative from that point of view, but he has been left and deserted by the noble Lord, Lord Balfour of Burleigh, with whose observations on that point I rather agree. But still, it is a free country and I am all in favour of Lord Perth saying what he likes. I do not think the Bill will damage the House at all. I really do not. If there are noble Lords who will be happier in another place, provided that it is not made too easy, I say, "Let them go", just as I say it would be dangerous to compel absentee noble Lords to come here. They are better where they are; and I am all in favour of their staying away. The noble Earl referred to a Left-Wing view, but I do not think that he was correctly representing it in this way.
The noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, said that the original Motion setting up the

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Joint Select Committee was negotiated between the Parties, and that he thought that was a bad thing. I utterly disagree.
THE EARL OF SANDWICH: My Lords, I did not say the Motion setting up the Select Committee, but the conclusions of the Select Committee, were, I think, reached as a result of a Party bargain.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: I will come to that. I thought the noble Earl meant the Motion setting up the Committee; but I accept his explanation. I think it was right that there should have been negotiation between the Parties about the wording of the Motion and the terms of reference, otherwise it is probable that the Committee would never have come into existence. That is the British way of doing things. If you have a tricky subject on which there are sharp differences of opinion, but which noble Lords feel it desirable in the public interest should be fairly considered with a view to doing something about it, the only way to do it is by negotiation behind the Chair, and by discussion, so that in the end you can get agreement without sacrificing the principles of either side over the arrangements.
With regard to the conclusions of the Joint Select Committee, I assure the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, that they were not the result of Party bargaining. And I think that will be confirmed by noble Lords opposite who were members of the Committee. There was no Party bargaining. There was free argument, some of it quite keen argument, and at the end of the day somebody got voted down and somebody did not. That was the result. It is true that now and again there were compromises; but, goodness me! there are compromises across the Floor of this House as well as in the other place. I have been trying for compromises on the London Government Bill—though not with much success. We have had some concession—not quite what we wanted but good enough to accept. There is nothing harmful about compromises. If you can never get a compromise in a democratic country you are heading for disaster. It is one of those things that help democracy to move and the wheels to go round.
I assure the noble Earl, who was not there on the Joint Select Committee, that there was nothing in the nature of Party bargaining; or corrupt bargaining,
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which, to do him justice, he did not mention. Honest opinion was voted on. Sometimes there were compromises, and at the end of the day, voting having taken place, the Report having been settled, it was for all political Parties concerned to decide, on balance, whether or not they could accept it. And on balance we all decided that we could accept it. But that is not Party bargaining. That is, again, getting as much as you can in the circumstances of the case; it is eminently proper and right, and is common practice in Parliamentary life.
The noble Lord, Lord Auckland, referred to the Peers who often vote against the Government. Conservative Peers do not often do so, but they do sometimes, and I am all for encouraging them. He gave an example of one or two things that we have achieved in Committee on the Greater London Bill where the Government have been defeated—there were not many, but we welcomed them. The sad thing (I am sorry to mention this blessed Bill to-day, because we are going to deal with it again on Monday) is that I gather most of the Conservative Peers wished they had never seen the Bill, not only because they were kept working, but because they do not like it; though such is their loyalty to the Front Bench and to the Government, which is part of their tradition, that nothing can be done about it. But I will not accept the view that the House of Lords is free and independent and that the Government cannot normally rely upon a majority. Normally, a Conservative Government can.
Most of what my noble friend Lord Archibald said would find general agreement on this side of the House. In fact, if I ever disagreed with my noble friend Lord Archibald, I should be very sorry. But I am not sure that he is right in trying to reduce the number of Ministers in this House. If anything, I am inclined to think that there are fewer than there have been in comparatively recent times, and I think it would be rough on the House if we did not have an adequate service of Ministers. Moreover, it would be rough on some of the Ministers if they had to carry too many subjects in their heads. I would not overdo it: I do not think there is a case for a material increase in the number of Ministers, but there is some case for an increase in the number of Ministers, otherwise a heavy

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burden is left on the others, which is to some extent a disadvantage.
The noble Lord, Lord Archibald, would abolish the House of Lords. I understand that. I cannot remember whether in my earlier days I ever urged that it be abolished, but I was soon cured of it when I became Leader of the House of Commons, because I found it a practical advantage to have two Chambers. It accelerated the passage of legislation and, moreover, it got more consideration of revision and drafting, which is so vital; because you hardly ever finish with a Bill which the draftsman can say is an absolutely perfect Statute. Accurate drafting is exceedingly difficult, and that is why, inevitably, there must be so many stages in order that Members can look again and again at the Bill; so that Opposition, Ministers, lawyers outside and Government supporters can find imperfections and put them right.
The other trouble about abolishing your Lordships' House is that of getting any measure of agreement on what to put in its place. I guarantee that if a Labour Government introduced a Bill to abolish the House of Lords—as they might, if the House of Lords did not behave itself sufficiently well under a Labour Government—and were faced with the problem of what to put in its place, there would be one of the biggest rumpuses that the Labour Party had ever seen. Because there would be almost universal, complete disagreement and friction about what to put in its place. So I beg noble Lords not to provoke a future Labour Government so much that it will bring in legislation to abolish your Lordships' House. We tidied the place up a bit last time, in, I think, the Parliament Act, 1949, which has pretty well solved the problem. I agree with my noble friend Lord Attlee in saying what a pity it was that a matter of three months—which is what it was—at the end divided us. We had to stick to our guns because it meant the endangering of a Parliamentary Session. But it was a pity, because, apart from that, we were together on a lot of these things.
LORD REA: My Lords, I think there was a question of compromise, but neither the Labour Party nor the Conservative Party would compromise, and
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that caused the deadlock. The Liberal Party alone was prepared to accept the middle course.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: I do not know what the middle course was, unless it was six weeks, which is a typical Liberal frame of mind. I do not remember it; and the element of bargaining becomes so narrow over three months. But, of course, really there were the last two Sessions which were involved, and I must admit that that was a point of substance, but it was a great pity it was not done.
I cannot conclude without paying my tribute to the courage, grip and persistence of Mr. Wedgwood Benn as we call him (he, in a way, is the author of this Bill), and, may I say also, the persistence of his father before him, who before he died helped his son to try to avoid the Peerage. It is a great family, the Benn family. That is another family upon which the hereditary case can be argued, if you take Sir John Benn, Wedgwood Benn—even Ernest Benn, that great individualist; and now Anthony Wedgwood Benn. But do not think I am adopting the hereditary principle; I produce three families only to give noble Lords opposite a little comfort in the circumstances of the case.
So we support the Second Reading of the Bill. We may have some points to raise on the Committee, but it will not be much, because we promised to do everything we could to facilitate the passage of this Bill; and that we will do.
6.41 p.m.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, I could not help reflecting, during the course of this debate, that it is now 25 years since I first joined one House of Parliament or the other, and almost exactly half of that time has been spent as a Member of the House of Commons and almost exactly half as a Member of the House of Lords. I will not go into some of the more abstract arguments for or against the virtues of either House which have been canvassed in the debate to-day. I have enjoyed my 25 years in one House of Parliament or the other. I am perfectly sure the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, is right: that you could not work the existing Constitution of the country at

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all without two Chambers. If you wanted to abolish the House of Lords you would have virtually to abolish the House of Commons in its present form as well, in order to get the business done. Therefore, I am quite sure he was right about that.
Whatever be said about the hereditary principle, I am certain that the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, my noble friend Lord Salisbury and Lord Morrison of Lambeth are right: that it is, as matters stand, both something which works, to use Lord Attlee's phrase, and something which ensures that the elective principle has a predominant part in our Constitution. I would also agree with my noble friend Lord Salisbury that it ensures for this House a number of Members of at any rate moderate years, and even younger. I do not pretend to believe in it as an absolute Divine Right, any more than the noble Lords opposite do. I am half American, and when my lineal ancestor put on a pair of silver-buckled shoes to receive the English surrender at Yorktown—buckles I still possess and normally wear at Buckingham Palace only—he certainly did not do it in order to preserve the hereditary principle as such. But, at the same time, I have to admit that there is force in what is said on the conservative side, both by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, and by my noble friend Lord Salisbury.
My own views about the particular topics covered by the Bill were contained in two Memoranda of evidence which I put before the Joint Select Committee. I should be less than honest if I did not admit I still think those views are correct. But if I should appear, as I am afraid I shall, to some of those who have been speaking, a little rigid in my adherence to the Government line in this matter, it is not because if left entirely to myself I should not prefer the views I then expressed, but a conviction which I have and which I expressed when the Joint Select Committee's Report was discussed the first time: that this is in the nature of a package deal—not a bargain, but a package deal—and if Parliament is going to pass legislation of this kind it had far better not try to press points of difference, because they are really infinite.
Turning to some of the speeches which have been made in this debate, I divide them into those which made what I might
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call true Second Reading points and those which adumbrated Committee points, none the less valuable in this debate for that. In one way, the most uncompromising speech was the maiden speech of the noble Lord who spoke from the Cross Benches. Like the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, I am glad that the hereditary principle in this case makes this House slightly more representative than the House of Commons. The Communist Party has a point of view, and, speaking for myself, I am very glad that point of view should be expressed. The noble Lord perhaps felt that he was alone in this House in supporting this view, and he certainly is alone in this House in supporting this view. I think it showed courage of mind to put it forward. I would ask him to remember that we are sufficiently regardful of our own traditions to have listened to a speech with almost every word of which I suppose most of us disagreed profoundly, in comparatively respectful silence. So there is a virtue in tradition as well as in Communism. I hope he will come to us often and get to know us perhaps a little better.
I must ask him to believe that if for a moment he were leading this House on behalf of a Conservative Government he would find it a little less subservient to the Conservative Party than he appears to think from his vantage point. My experience in the last few years has been very largely that, in debate after debate, the Opposition speaker summing-up in front of me is able to say, "This is a debate in which almost nobody has spoken up on behalf of the Government". This is very often true because very largely only those people come who want to criticise, and those who do not want to criticise very often do not come, unless they are provoked by a filibuster such as we have had on the London Government Bill but which I must not deal with to-day. I do not think the noble Lord, whose maiden speech we all were glad to hear, has made out his case.
Apart from the noble Lord, Lord Milford, by far the most uncompromising speech against the Bill was that of my noble friend Lord Perth. His case really was that the Bill would weaken this House. I was not quite able to follow all his arguments. To begin with, I do not believe in the theory of the ugly rush of young Peers to divest themselves of

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their titles under the provisions of the Bill. I shall not argue that, because when the Bill is translated into law we shall see which of us is right, my noble friend or I; but I do not believe in the ugly rush.
The second argument he used was not, I think, logically compulsive. I think it was an inconsistent argument. He took up something the noble Earl, Lord Longford, had said about there being, at least under a Labour Government, great difficulty in finding a sufficient range of offices to man by Ministers in this House, and the noble Earl, Lord Longford, cited the Foreign Office as one. And to that my noble friend Lord Perth said in effect, "There you are; it will weaken this House". But I do not think the conclusion follows. I am perfectly sure that if a Labour Government did come into power, which is perhaps not quite so likely as some of them seem to think at the moment, it is quite true the Foreign Secretary would be in the Commons. But the alternative to his being in the Commons—I say this respectfully to my noble friend Lord Perth—is certainly not that he would be appointed in this House out of the complement of hereditary Peers; even less that he would be appointed in this House out of the complement of hereditary Peers who will, under this Bill, divest themselves of their titles. This is neither proved nor the fact. In fact, if a Labour Government gets into power, as we know from the experience now of three Governments, they appoint Ministers of distinction from the ranks of their own Party and, where necessary, create them Peers. There have been distinguished exceptions, we all know, but in the main that is how they man the Front Bench in this House. Therefore it is not true to say the argument put forward by the noble Earl, Lord Longford, is any support at all to Lord Perth's extreme position.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I am not quite sure whether the account that the noble Viscount has given of my view will lead to a misunderstanding. I do not think there would be any shortage of excellent candidates for the positions. I am not quite sure whether the noble Viscount is implying that the Labour Party would find it impossible to man the top positions from here.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: On the contrary, I was saying that the Labour Party would find its candidates from persons that it would advise Her Majesty to make Peers to give effect to their purpose. This, I am sure, would be true, although I hope that any noble Lords opposite would get a job in the unlikely circumstances which are now being envisaged. I do not want to suggest that they would not merit their place in the Administration. That would be hard after all their efforts.
I do not want to say much about the Scottish position, as I understand this will be discussed on Committee. But I must say that I think it is a little hard of my noble friend Lord Perth. Having got himself elected by the Peers whom he now wants to exclude from your Lordships' House I doubt, if he votes us down on Committee, that he will ever be elected again, because the only constituents he would have would be those whom he had deprived of the chance of coming here. But we shall see.
THE EARL OF PERTH: My Lords, I think the noble Viscount is arguing from a misunderstanding of the position. We are not elected only by those who want us to have the opportunity of a seat. There are 80 or more who have an opportunity of voting for us. I do not want to elaborate upon it, but there is a difference which I do not think the noble Viscount understands.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I do, and I now see the force of what my noble friend is trying to do. He is hoping that the majority of Scottish Peers who do sit in this House will support him in excluding the unfortunate minority who do not and who may beat him by votes at the election.
THE EARL OF PERTH: I think we had better continue with this issue during the Committee stage.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I was only saying that I thought my noble friend was being less than his usual generous self in this attitude of exclusion.
The other main critic was my noble friend Lord Sandwich, with some of whose criticisms I have a good deal of sympathy. But I really thought that they hardly supported his general conclusion that one ought to reject the

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Bill as a whole. So far as I understood them at all, they were, I thought, more in the nature of the kind of criticism which my noble friend Lord Salisbury put forward in his excellent speech, and were really criticisms of detail rather than an attack on principle. But I must confirm what the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, said to him. It is of course true that the terms of reference of the Committee, as I pointed out—and he quoted me to this effect—were a matter of negotiation between the Parties, and I think they were right to be so. I do not feel any sense of shame about that, and I do not think that such a negotiation deserves the epithet "sinister" which he bestowed upon it. But the findings of the Select Committee were not the result of any Party bargain. I think this ought to be expressly stated.
THE EARL OF SANDWICH: My Lords, may I ask a question of my noble friend? Just a few moments ago he used the phrase "package deal". I used the words "Party bargain". Would he differentiate between the two and say whether they occurred at different points of time?
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I think that when my noble friend comes to read Hansard in the morning he will find that I used the word "package" and not "package deal". Certainly that was what I intended to do. My own view about this Bill is that, if this House starts diverting too far from the findings of the majority of the Select Committee, this Bill in one way or another will fall by the wayside, not for want of support by individual Members of Parliament, but simply because, after most careful argument, this kind of package—I use the word deliberately—represents at any rate what I believe to be the highest common factor of agreement which Parliament will pass.
LORD BOOTHBY: My Lords, I beg my noble friend's forgiveness, but could he explain to me what is the difference between a "package" and a "package deal"? He has drawn a sharp distinction. I do not see any.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: It is the difference between buying a parcel and being given a Christmas present in a parcel.
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If I may turn to some of the detailed criticisms that have been levelled, I would turn first of all to the speech of my noble friend Lord Salisbury. This, with some other speeches, has of course criticised in one direction or another the provisions about the name by which a Peer would call himself if he divested himself of, or disclaimed, the Peerage. I must say that I agree with my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack about this. As I said in my Memorandum, I think that names are largely a question of taste and custom, and the less we fiddle about with legislation about them the more dignified, on the whole, we shall become. The noble Marquess knows well that I expressed this view in my Memorandum of Evidence, and I see no reason now to depart from my original opinion.
On the other hand, I would put to the House this argument in support again of what I have described as the "package". I have been surprised, after discussing this question for many years, at the kind of suspicion and dislike of titles which some people seem to have. It is no good denying that, even in this debate where the current of opinion is most favourable to the hereditary Peerage, there have been noble Lords who have said in terms that they think, for instance, that a Peerage ought to be extinguished if a Peer disclaims his title. But I myself differ from that profoundly. There might be a kind of rough justice about it if the only people he can disinherit are his own children. But in most of the ancient Peerages—and we have to deal with a great number in this House—descent is not necessarily to the children of the actual holder of the title for the time being; and although it could be justified if one disinherited one's children in order to go into the House of Commons or if in some other way one wished to disclaim one's title, it could not possibly be justified either in logic or in justice to disinherit either one's younger brother or one's cousin. Therefore, I would be against that, and I do not believe that the House would pass it.
On the other hand, I cite that as an example of the kind of suspicion and dislike in some quarters of hereditary titles. My suspicion is that if you sent back this Bill to another place claiming that a Peer could retain his right to the title by which he was known as a Peer—

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I do not want to enter into the elaborate and learned argument of my noble friend behind me—I believe it would be thrown out. That is another example, I believe, of the virtue of the package as a package. Although I happen to agree, I think, with almost every word that my noble friend Lord Salisbury said, I cannot do so about this particular provision. However, again, we can see.
The only other point, and the only point which I think raised any difficulty, is the provision about the date of operation. I myself do not pretend that there is any profound constitutional necessity to do it one way or the other. I would prefer to look at it from the point of view of the phrase I used in my own Memorandum of Evidence—namely, the balance of public advantage. I agree with my noble and learned friend on the Woolsack that the natural thing in a matter of this importance would seem to be to start the new Parliament with the new system.
I do not agree with either the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, or the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, who think that, pending a General Election, a Peer who would wish to stand as a candidate is under any difficulty at all in the general run of cases. On the contrary, he can perfectly well disclose his intentions, if he does not happen to be in the Government, and present himself to the selection committee on the understanding that when the Act comes into force he will immediately disclaim. Therefore I do not think there is anything in that point at all.
I must say that the noble Lord, Lord Morrison of Lambeth, was particularly tender about his desire to help me in some peculiar way.
LORD MORRISON OF LAMBETH: It shows what a nice chap I am!
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: I never doubted that the noble Lord was a nice chap, but I do not think he is a particularly innocent one. I am bound to say that I rather question whether his proposal was really designed to be as helpful as at first sight it might have appeared. I do not think my position would be any easier if he now caused, as he suggested he would cause, time to be running in this Parliament within which I had to make up my mind—especially if my noble friend Lord
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Swinton's suggestion were not accepted and I had to do it within six months. On the contrary, I can see myself being persecuted by newspapers even more than I am being persecuted by newspapers at the moment, and if I were so much as to visit a constituency in which it was possible that a selection committee might be sitting the most sinister interpretation might well be put upon my actions. I am sure that Lord Morrrison of Lambeth, having heard this personal explanation, will realise that his suggestion, whatever other merits it may have, will not cause me less embarrassment.
I apologise to him personally for not having relieved his curiosity on the more general issue, but I think that in public life, where the accident of fortune, or politics, or chance, or nature, or heredity has put one in the position of holding a Peerage, one must not consider what would be to one's own particular advantage or what would be in accordance with one's own particular liking. One must seriously consider what it is in the public interest to do. I am quite sure that in the present political situation it is not in the public interest to give the noble Lord, Lord Morrison, or anybody else, the smallest hint of my intentions.
I would say that the only really valid arguments on either side in this particular matter would be those put forward by my noble friend Lord Swinton. There is, of course, a chance of a by-election being caused in the House of Commons during the remainder of this Parliament by a Peer who would otherwise wish to disclaim. If a by-election were caused by a Peer who would not wish to disclaim, no inconvenience would be caused to anybody. The other point is that it is possible that there are people in the commonalty at large who might want to take advantage of a by-election to get into Parliament during the end of this Parliament. I think that those are two very small classes and the amount of public disadvantage disclosed by them is quite trivial. In the meantime, I would commend to the House the view put forward by the Lord Chancellor: that the more logical plan should be adhered to, at any rate for the moment. I will certainly report to my colleagues the suggestion made by the noble Earl, Lord Swinton—which was

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new to me—that this should be combined with a prolongation of the period within which a Peer could make up his mind. I do not know what the answer is. He has made the suggestion; I have noted it, and will pass it on.
My Lords, I think that I have covered a great number of the speeches either expressly or by implication. There is only one thing which perhaps I should say, out of courtesy to the noble Lord, Lord Rea. He felt that there were no words too strong to express his condemnation of the policy of the Government in relation to Life Peerages. He said that they had strengthened the Conservative Party in this House far more than the Opposition. I should like to correct the noble Lord there. The fact is that under the Life Peerages Act 12 Conservative Life Peers have been created, 13 Cross-Bench Life Peers have been created, and 17 Labour Life Peers have been created. I agree that the noble Lord is perfectly correct in saying that, apart from one doubtful case, no Liberal Life Peers have been created, and it may have been this which irked him more than the addition to this House of a number of Conservative Life Peers.
LORD REA: My Lords, I was not talking about Party members. I think my words (they will be in Hansard tomorrow) wore "supporters of the Government". I venture to suggest that a great many of the Cross-Bench Life Peers quite frequently support the Government.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: A great number of the Conservative Life Peers conscientiously and consistently vote against the Government, so that I do not think the noble Lord is right about that either. I think that, on the whole, I have covered the debate, and I am grateful to the noble Lords who have taken part in it.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

PIER AND HARBOUR PROVISIONAL ORDER (BEMBRIDGE HARBOUR) BILL
Brought from Commons; read 1a, and referred to the Examiners.
LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (IMPROVEMENTS) BILL
The Chairman of Committees informed the House that the opposition to the Bill was withdrawn: The Orders made on the 29th May and 26th June last discharged, and Bill committed to an Unopposed Bill Committee.
  COAL SALES AND PRICES
  COAL SALES AND PRICES