Sitting of 17 November 1964

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
The Clerk at the Table informed the House of the unvaoidable absence through illness of Mr. SPEAKER from this day's Sitting:—
Whereupon Dr. HORACE KING, The CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANS, proceeded to the Table and, after Prayers, took the Chair as DEPUTY-SPEAKER, pursuant to the Standing Order.

PRIVATE BUSINESS
  SELECTION
  Committee of Selection nominated.—Mr. Brian Batsford, Mr. Arthur Blenkinsop, Mr. Harold Gurden, Mr. Clifford Kenyon, Mr. Kenneth Lewis, Mr. Malcolm MacPherson, Mr. Thomas Steele, Mr. John M. Temple, Sir Richard Thompson, Mr. Wilkins, and Mr. Woodburn.—[Mr. George Rogers.]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  TELEPHONE SERVICE

    Redditch
    Mr. Danceasked the Postmaster-General if he will give an assurance that telephone cables and exchange equipment will be available to keep pace with the expansion of Redditch as a new town.
    The Assistant Postmaster-General (Mr. Joseph Slater): Yes; Post Office officials maintain close liaison with the Redditch Development Corporation and our plans cater for the expected growth of the telephone system there to keep pace with the expansion of the new town.

    Elmbridge Exchange
    Mr. Fisherasked the Postmaster-General when the Elmbridge telephone exchange will become automatic.
    Mr. Joseph Slater: We plan to open the new Elmbridge automatic exchange, with S.T.D. in mid-1966.
    Mr. Fisher: That is a little better than I expected, but may I ask the hon. Gentleman whether he is aware that it is a very bad service at present? I have taken deputations to see his predecessor, and have had endless correspondence over the years. Can the hon. Gentlemen expedite it further? What is delaying the installation of an automatic system?
    Mr. Slater: Perhaps the answer which I can now give the hon. Gentleman in reply to his supplementary question will assist him much more. We are starting to install the equipment this month. It will take about 18 months to do this work.

    Charges (Old-Age Pensioners)
    Mr. Costainasked the Postmaster-General if he is aware of the social value of telephones for elderly and infirm persons; and what proposals he has for the provision of reduced rental charges for telephones to help old-age pensioners.
    The Postmaster-General (Mr. Anthony Wedgwood Benn): As I told the hon. Member for Petersfield (Miss Quennell) on 10th November, I am considering whether the Post Office could help in cases of this kind.
    Mr. Costain: Does the right hon. Gentleman appreciate that his predecessor was investigating the possibility of putting in alarm bells to bring help to old-age pensioners when they were ill or needed special services?
    Mr. Benn: There are a number of specific ideas which I am having considered very actively, and as soon as I am able to report on them I shall do so.

    Maidstone
    Mr. John Wellsasked the Postmaster-General what steps he is taking to improve the telephone service in the Maidstone area.
    Mr. Joseph Slater: I am sorry that the service has been unsatisfactory because of the heavy load on the exchange. It is being extended and the new equipment, which will give S.T.D. facilities, should be in service by the middle of next year.
    Mr. Wells: I am grateful to the hon. Member for that assurance, but most of my constituents would rather have a plain

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    telephone quickly than hang about waiting for an S.T.D. one in the future. May we have an assurance that more lines will be available in the near future?
    Mr. Slater: We are doing all we can to improve the service on behalf of the hon. Member's constituents. As I have mentioned, the new subscriber trunk dialling equipment which we are installing should give a greatly improved service.

    Victoria Exchange
    Mr. Gresham Cookeasked the Postmaster-General, whether he will give special attention to the overhaul and maintenance of the equipment at the Victoria telephone exchange, in view of the number of misroutings and no pick-up calls in recent weeks.
    Mr. Joseph Slater: Yes, Sir. The equipment is being overhauled and the service should improve.
    Mr. Gresham Cooke: Perhaps it is in order for me to put a supplementary question. Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that on one morning this week I got three misroutings and three no-tone calls in a quarter of an hour? Is he aware that the Victoria Exchange has been going rapidly downhill ever since the Labour Government came to power, and what is he going to do about it?
    Mr. Slater: May I say to the hon. Gentleman that the weather has not been very good either? The automatic service given by the Victoria Exchange has been unsatisfactory in recent months, so that we may go beyond the period since the Labour Government came into power. About 5 per cent. of dialled calls have been failing, largely as a result of a no-tone or number unobtainable condition. A special investigation into the exchange equipment commenced in August and is still proceeding. Certain parts of the equipment are being reviewed and an improvement in the service is expected in the very near future.

  POST OFFICE

    Redditch
    Mr. Danceasked the Postmaster-General if he will give an asurance that an adequate number of post offices, sub-post offices and post boxes will be provided to keep pace with the expansion of Redditch as a new town.
    Mr. Joseph Slater: Yes, Sir. We have been in touch with the Development Corporation; and we shall continue to keep in touch with it so that the planning of postal facilities can keep pace with the plans for the expansion of Redditch.
    Mr. Dance: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his reply which I think will give comfort to my constituents. At the same time, can he give me a positive assurance that all the equipment and installations will be completed well in advance of the actual completion of the buildings concerned so that there will be no delay in the services which will be so very much required by my constituents?
    Mr. Slater: As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, we cannot, of course, decide where or how many post offices and posting boxes will be required until we have some idea of how the town is to be developed, and the Director of the Midland Region and the local head postmaster will continue to keep in touch with the Development Corporation.

    Attacks on Employees (Protection)
    Sir C. Osborneasked the Postmaster-General how many attacks have been made on Post Office workers during the past 12 months; if he is satisfied they get all the protection they need; what new steps he is proposing to take; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Benn: During the 12 months ended 30th September, 1964 there were 92 thefts or attempted thefts from Post Office staff in which some degree of violence was either used or threatened. While the present crime rate continues no one could be entirely satisfied with the amount of protection that can be given to staff; but we are constantly reviewing our protective measures to see whether they can be improved and this will continue.
    I should like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to the bravery so often shown by Post Office staff on these occasions.
    Sir C. Osborne: May I ask the hon. Gentleman if the staff have made any representations to the Minister for greater protection, since some of these attacks in rural areas have been of a very brutal character, and do these workers feel that severer punishment would give them greater protection?
    Mr. Benn: There have been discussions with the staff on this matter, and, obviously, they are concerned because of the risks which they run. I should like to express my gratitude to the hon. Gentleman for his continuing interest in this matter.

    Post Office Savings Bank
    Mr. Edward M. Taylorasked the Postmaster-General if a suitable site has been obtained for the head office of the Post Office Savings Bank in Glasgow; and when he expects the building to be completed.
    Sir M. Galpernasked the Postmaster-General whether he will give an assurance that it is still the policy of Her Majesty's Government that the Post Office Savings Bank should be moved to Glasgow; and what steps have been taken to implement the decision of the previous administration.
    Mr. Rankinasked the Postmaster-General if he will make a statement on the progress being made in transferring the Post Office Savings Bank to Glasgow.
    Mr. Benn: I told the House on 10th November that the decision to move the Savings Bank to Glasgow still stands. For a move of this magnitude staff co-operation is indispensable. The first task, which I am tackling personally, is therefore to win the good will of the staff and avert compulsion. I hope that before long it will be possible to make plans for the operation, including choice of an office site, in consultation with them and the City of Glasgow. We are keen to make progress.
    Mr. Taylor: While thanking the Minister for his reply, may I ask him whether he will not agree that while we accept that the detailed administration for the transfer, particularly of staff, will take a considerable time, it is difficult to see why a decision on the site for the office in Glasgow cannot be arrived at, particularly when the corporation promised to make a list of sites available? Further, will the Minister not agree that the people of Glasgow are rather concerned that if a decision is not arrived at this year it is somewhat unlikely that the 6, 000 jobs envisaged will be available before 1970?
    Mr. Benn: I appreciate the point which the hon. Gentleman is making and I understand the desire of the people of Glasgow to get this move through as quickly as possible. On the other hand, the Post Office has a very proud record of dispersal with the co-operation of the staff. I think that the hon. Gentleman is as well aware as I am of the difficulties which have arisen in this case. I am very keen to work with and through the staff about the choosing of the site, which is a matter of concern to them, and I am grateful to Glasgow for having made the offer of the many sites. We shall make progress as soon as possible.
    Sir M. Galpern: Will the Minister consider convening an early conference of representatives of Glasgow Corporation and neighbouring local authorities interested in this project for the purpose of considering practical measures to facilitate the smooth and acceptable transfer of the civil servants from London?
    Mr. Benn: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that suggestion. The first job is for me to meet the staff, and the wives of the staff involved, personally. I have made an offer to meet them in the first instance.
    Mr. Rankin: Is my right hon. Friend aware that he will have the full support of Glasgow in seeking to secure the maximum of good will in this transfer? Does he recollect that last week he said that now a good deal of computerisation—I think that that was the word he used—was involved in the transfer? Would he just make it perfectly clear in what way computerisation should delay the transfer?
    Mr. Benn: In respect of my hon. Friend's first question, I am very grateful for his assurance that the people of Glasgow will make it easy, because it is very important to have good will on both sides. As for the effect of computerisation, the position really is this, that there are 44 million accounts in the Post Office Savings Bank and these are being transferred to computer operation, and to transfer a base, and to alter the basis on which the accounts are kept up to date at the same time, is, to say the least, a difficult operation. That was the only reason I mentioned it.
    Mr. Dudley Smith: Nevertheless, is the right hon. Gentleman aware that

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    the vast majority of the Post Office Savings Bank workers very much resent being asked to move out of London as well as out of England, and will he give an assurance that where these people are to suffer a very great upheaval, and offer good and adequate reasons for their staving, they should be given every consideration and offered comparable employment?
    Mr. Benn: It is exactly for that reason that I have offered to meet the staff, and the wives and families if necessary, in order to ease the difficulty. If I may say so, that supplementary question was singularly unhelpful.
    Hon. Members: Oh.

    Special Stamps
    Mr. Emrys Hughesasked the Postmaster-General if he proposes to continue the policy of the previous Government with regard to the issue of a Burns stamp.
    Sir H. Kerrasked the Postmaster-General whether, to mark the 700th anniversary of Parliament in 1965, he will issue stamps to commemorate the event, bearing if possible a picture of Simon de Montfort.
    Mr. Benn: As I said in reply to the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Mr. Webster) on 10th November, I am currently reviewing Post Office policy with regard to the issue of postage stamps, and will make a statement later.
    In this review, I shall consider the claims for a Burns stamp and a stamp to mark the 700th anniversary of Parliament.
    Mr. Emrys Hughes: Is the Minister aware that his statement will arouse considerable interest in Scotland? Is he aware of the possibilities of a considerable amount of money coming from the Scots through this stamp? Does he realise that many hundreds of thousands of Scots overseas, who were driven there during the years of the Labour Government—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]—during the thirteen years of Tory Government—will be very glad to get a stamp to show that there has been a change in this country?
    Sir H. Kerr: Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that the centenary of
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    the sitting of the first Parliament in 1265 in Westminster Hall requires special notice not only in this country but in the whole Commonwealth?
    Mr. Benn: That is one of the points I am considering, but I must point out to the hon. Gentleman that it is now too late to issue a stamp of this kind in January, and such a stamp, if it were agreed that one should be issued as part of the review of stamp policy, would not be able to come out till later in the year.
    Mr. George Jeger: Would my right hon. Friend bear in mind, when considering the design for a Burns stamp, that Burns was a very enthusiastic volunteer in the Forces, and that if a stamp carries the design of Burns in military uniform it will not only please my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayrshire (Mr. Emrys Hughes) but stimulate recruiting?
    Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Mr. W. Hamilton.
    Mr. Emrys Hughes rose—
    Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. I have called Mr. Hamilton for the next Question.

    Harpenden Post Office (Staff)
    Mr. Allasonasked the Postmaster-General what proposals he has to improve the staffing position at the Harpenden Post Office.
    Mr. Joseph Slater: We shall continue with intensive advertising and also with our efforts to recruit staff for Harpenden from other places. Meanwhile, we are trying to arrange some loans from elsewhere in the area where, however, staffing difficulties are fairly general.
    Mr. Allason: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the service in Harpenden is appalling? They are down to only one delivery a day. In some cases that delivery is at 11.30 a.m., and firms are asked to collect their own mail from the Post Office. Is it enough just to get a few extra postmen from other towns? Cannot the hon. Gentleman do something more definite in view of the scandalous position which exists in Harpenden at the moment?
    Mr. Slater: We are looking closely at all aspects of recruitment to ensure that this service is as efficient as possible, but I am sure the hon. Gentleman will agree

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    that we must be careful to recruit reliable people as postmen.

    London Postal Districts.
    Mr. Atkinsasked the Postmaster-General what changes he proposes to make to the present system of London postal districts following the creation of the new London boroughs; and when these changes will come into effect.
    Mr. Joseph Slater: None, Sir: postal and local government boundaries do not necessarily coincide, and we have no plans for altering the London postal districts when the new London boroughs are set up.
    Mr. Atkins: Does the hon. Gentleman seriously intend to continue addressing half my constituency as "Morden, Surrey", which is not in Surrey? Does he intend to perpetuate the existence of Middlesex which is being done away with?
    Mr. Slater: The existing postal boundaries are designed to give good postal services at reasonable cost. To do what the hon. Gentleman has in mind would mean additional expense for the Post Office and a change of address for many people without compensating advantages in their postal services.
    Mr. Gresham Cooke: Will the hon. Gentleman note that the residents of Twickenham are content to go on being addressed as "Twickenham, Middlesex"?

    Sub-Post Office, Banbury Market Place
    Mr. Martenasked the Postmaster-General if he will now re-establish the sub-post office in Banbury's market place.
    Mr. Joseph Slater: I have carefully considered this matter but I am sorry that we should not be justified in reestablishing the sub-post office. But, when the proposals for the redevelopment of the central area of Banbury mature, we shall, of course, review the need for post offices in the area generally.
    Mr. Marten: Nevertheless, as this redevelopment plan will inevitably come, will the hon. Gentleman in the mean-
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    time realise that Banbury is very much an expanding town, and that it causes great inconvenience to my constituents to have to walk a long way up town to the only post office? Will he give an assurance that he will personally look at this question again?
    Mr. Slater: I understand the hon. Gentleman being concerned about this, but the sub-post office has been closed for three and a half years and the evidence that we have had does not suggest that our customers have been seriously inconvenienced.
    Mr. Marten: I realise that, and for three and a half years I have been pressing to get this sub-post office opened. Nevertheless, will the hon. Gentleman answer my question and give an assurance that he personally will look at this question again?
    Mr. Slater: I have no objection to having a look at this again, but we do not normally provide a post office in an urban area within a mile of an existing office.

    Parcel Services, West Midlands
    Mr. Peter Walkerasked the Postmaster General what action he is taking to improve the parcel services in the West Midlands.
    Mr. Joseph Slater: I am sorry that some parcels to and from the West Midlands are being delayed. These delays are due in the main to shortages of postal staff at Birmingham and some other large offices. We are doing our best to recruit staff but there is intense competition for labour in the areas concerned.
    Mr. Walker: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that there is a large concentration of mail order houses and similar organisations in the West Midlands, and that many of these firms are contemplating going over to their own C licence vehicles rather than use Post Office services? Is the hon. Gentleman further aware that one of the excuses offered by the Post Office has been the reconstruction of New Street Station? Will he look into alternative ways of coping with the problem which might ease the immediate difficulties?
    Mr. Slater: We are always seeking to look at alternative ways for the distribution of our postal services, in addition

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    to our efforts to recruit more staff and thus reduce the delays which occur at certain offices. British Railways, who handle the parcel mails at stations, are actively engaged in tightening up and improving their arrangements to give parcel mail a speedier transit. I am aware that efficient postal services are vital to the well-being of industry and of the community at large.

    Telegraph Poles
    Mr. Brewisasked the Postmaster-General, what proportion of telegraph poles is of home-grown timber; and whether he will revise the specification to enable a larger proportion of homegrown poles to qualify.
    Mr. Joseph Slater: About one-eighth of the poles purchased in the last five years were of home-grown timber. We gladly take all the home-grown poles we can get, and our standards for them are already much less exacting than those for imported poles. I am advised that to lower the standards further would involve undue risks of danger to staff and public and shortening of the physical life of the poles.
    Mr. Brewis: I thank the hon. Member for that reply, but is not there scope here both for saving imports and encouraging our own forestry industry? Will he look at the specification in force in other European countries? My impression is that it is a great deal lower than in this country.
    Mr. Slater: We seek competitive tenders for all our poles, and if the prices quoted for imported poles are lower than those for home-grown poles we normally offer the home growers contracts for the maximum number they can supply at prices equivalent to those quoted for imported poles. In practice, the prices that we pay for home-grown and imported poles are substantially the same.
    Mr. Wingfield Digby: Will the Minister try to take other steps to improve this proportion, particularly in view of the fact that the amount of maturing home-grown timber is increasing, especially from the woodlands of the Forestry Commission itself?
    Mr. Slater: It might be for the benefit of the House and for hon. Members who are interested in this question if I circulated in the OFFICIAL REPORT figures concerning the number of imported poles and United Kingdom poles. This might give some of the information that the hon. Member requires.

    Deliveries (Fareham-London)
    Dr. Bennettasked the Postmaster-General why a letter postmarked Fare-ham 8.15 p.m., 5th November, 1964, whose cover has been sent to him, was not delivered on the next day to the addressees in Piccadilly; and at what time before 9 a.m. on Monday, 9th November, when it was received by those addressees, it was in fact delivered.
    Mr. Joseph Slater: This letter should have been delivered on Friday, the day after posting, and I am sorry that because of shortage of staff in London it was not. I understand that the premises to which it was addressed are normally unoccupied on Saturday, and, as there is no letter box, it seems likely that the letter was delivered around 8.30 a.m. on Monday, 9th November.
    Dr. Bennett: I am glad to accept the hon. Gentleman's apology for this lapse on the part of his Department, but does he realise that a failure such as this at the beginning of the weekend means that a letter of some urgency takes 84 hours to travel 76 miles, which is not a very clever ratio for a 1964 economy?
    Mr. Slater: It is only fair to point out that of the millions of letters which are posted each day the vast majority are delivered first thing next morning.
    Dr. Bennett: Will the hon. Gentleman bear in mind that letters from my part of Hampshire are the subject of complaints by a number of my constituents, which I am passing to him at present? Will he look into the apparent dissociation between Hampshire and London in the matter of postal services?
    Mr. Slater: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will let me have particulars about that, apart from the case he has mentioned. I can then look into it.

    Finance
    Mr. Robert Cookeasked the Postmaster-General what was the profit

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    from telecommunications for the year ended March, 1964, and what profit is forecast for the following year; what was the loss on the postal services for the year ended March, 1964, and what result is forecast for the following year; what increase in wages and salaries will occur during the year; and what the recent wages award to postmen will cost in a full year.
    Mr. Kenneth Lewisasked the Postmaster-General how much of the projected loss in the postal services is due to the increased wages award for Post Office workers announced by the last Government.
    Mr. Wingfield Digbyasked the Postmaster-General what was the profit of the Post Office for last year; what is his estimate of outturn for this year; how much of this profit was made on telecommunications services; and what contribution is being made to the Exchequer.
    Mr. Benn: In the financial year ending March, 1964, the profit from telecommunications was £39 million; the loss on postal services was £8 million. Estimates for the current year show a profit on telecommunications of £34 million; a loss on postal services of £16 million. The recent wages award to postmen will cost £6·7 million in a full year. I cannot yet say what, if any, other increases will be agreed in the current year. The payments to the Exchequer under Section 2 of the 1961 Post Office Act in lieu of taxation amounted to £·.7 million in 1963–64.
    Mr. Cooke: Would not the right hon. Gentleman agree, however, that the loss on the postal services in the year 1963–64 was less than in 1962–63 and that the difficulties in which he now finds himself are largely, if not entirely, due to the substantial wage award made to postmen? Would he bear that in mind?
    Mr. Benn: I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman has got this wrong. The postal services have accumulated a growing deficit. The estimates for this deficit show a likelihood of it growing still further without regard to this particular increase, and that is the problem which confronts the House and the Government.
    Mr. Lewis: Will the right hon. Gentleman now admit that the other day when he announced in the House the losses on the postal services he was really being too clever by about 6 per cent., because he must have known, and must make clear, that although we accept that wage increases come, the public has to be made to understand that when wage increases are made they have to be paid for?
    Mr. Benn: The estimates about the future profitability and financial return of postal services to meet the target of 8 per cent. laid down by the previous Government revealed a shortfall of exactly the kind that I described, of the exact size that I described, last week. Any further questions about what happened last summer should be addressed elsewhere—
    Hon. Members: Oh.
    Mr. Wingfield Digby: Would the right hon. Gentleman say whether the 3d. post is running at a profit or a loss?
    Mr. Benn: That is the subject of another Question.

  WIRELESS AND TELEVISION

    Local Broadcasting Stations
    Mr. William Hamiltonasked the Postmaster-General if he will now allow the British Broadcasting Corporation to establish a series of local broadcasting stations.
    Mr. Benn: I am looking into this whole question and will make a statement later.
    Mr. Hamilton: Can my right hon. Friend say whether he has had discussions with the B.B.C. and other people concerned with this matter since he took office? Can he give us some idea of the time-scale he has in mind? Does he realise the high degree of urgency in this highly imaginative programme which the B.B.C. has in mind?
    Mr. Benn: I have had an opportunity of a first informal talk with the Chairman and Director-General of the B.B.C. and a number of subjects were discussed, including this one, but I am afraid I am not in a position to make a statement, though I appreciate the need for urgency in this matter.
    Sir Ian Orr-Ewing: Would the right hon. Gentleman bear in mind that there are a lot of people who would not wish to see the B.B.C. licence fee increased as a result of activity in this field? Perhaps he would consider, in all fairness, whether some of these stations might not be supplied by local authorities, by universities, or by commercial interests—[Horn. MEMBERS: "No"]—in view of the costs, so that there should be no additional cost to licence holders?
    Mr. Benn: That really raises quite a separate question. The Question was whether the B.B.C. should be allowed to establish a series of local broadcasting stations. If the hon. Member would like to put down another Question on this I would do my best to answer it.

    Programmes (Content)
    Mr.Dempseyasked the Postmaster-General if he will establish a viewers' council to advise on the suitability of television programmes; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Benn: No, Sir. Programme content is the responsibility of the Board of Governors of the B.B.C. and members of the I.T.A. The establishment by me of a viewer's council would tend to diminish the authority of the two broadcasting authorities and, in consequence, their capacity to discharge their responsibility. Also, it would raise doubt as to where responsibility lay: with the broadcasting authorities, or with the council. Each anthority has already its own General Advisory Council, and other advisory committees, through which it can sound opinion on its services.
    Mr. Dempsey: Yes, but is the Minister aware that these so-called advisory councils have in no way halted the growth of suggestive entertainment and of the glorification of thuggery in television, or the unsuitability of programmes at school holiday times? Would he not agree that it would be far more effective if we established a council from a very good cross-section of the British community to advise these organisations and my right hon. Friend's good self on television presentations?
    Mr. Benn: No, Sir. The fact that an advisory council does not give advice of the kind the hon. Gentleman would like
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    it to give is not a prima facie case for setting up another advisory committee.
    Mr. Jennings: Would it not be advisable if the right hon. Gentleman were to look a little closer at some of the programmes which are broadcast on television? Has he, for instance, seen the reputed successor to TW3? Does he realise that some of that programme is in extremely bad taste and in some cases is almost blasphemous, and that in an incident last week—
    Hon. Members: Speech.
    Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. This supplementary question is getting a little long.
    Mr. Rankin: Too long.
    Mr. Benn: I think that the hon. Gentleman had better think this through to its logical conclusion. There are reserve powers invested in the Postmaster-General. If they are to be exercised by the Postmaster-General that means that whoever occupies my office would have the power, on the hon. Gentleman's suggestion, to censor individual progratmmes if he thought, in his judgment, for it could not be anyone else's judgment, that they were offensive to taste, or biased politically. If I were to exercise my judgment in censoring a programme which I thought politically biased or offensive, one of the first people, I think, who would object would be the hon. Gentleman himself, for our views would not coincide.
    Mr. Victor Yates: Would not my right hon. Friend agree to discuss with the broadcasting authorities whether or not a more scientific method could be arranged to decide what the public really think ought to be improved, in view of the large amount of violence which appears on television and the increasing rate of violent crime? I do think that a more scientific method ought to be devised, rather than one which depends on hundreds of viewers having to telephone the B.B.C. to object.
    Mr. Benn: I very well appreciate my hon. Friend's point. Of course, each of us, as individuals, has views—I have—but it is open to all of us now to make any representation direct to the B.B.C., and this is a perfectly proper thing to be done, and is done by hon. Members, and is part of the general accountability of the B.B.C. to the public which it serves.
    Miss Harvie Anderson: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that part of this difficulty arises from the fact that the Scottish programmes have got to take some of the London service, and that standards do differ in some respects, and that, therefore, there should be control in London of programmes which are sent to Scotland, and which are unacceptable to the Scottish way of life?
    Mr. Benn: I recognise that there are difficulties of this kind, but the more difficulties the hon. Lady raises the more impossible does it become for the Postmaster-General to agree to intervene, in view of the regional difficulties which she mentions.

    Colour Television
    Mr. Dudley Smithasked the Postmaster-General what steps he proposes to take to achieve the early establishment of a colour television service in this country.
    Mr. Benn: This is one of a number of questions which the Government have to study in reviewing broadcasting policy generally, and on which its conclusions will be announced as soon as they are reached.
    Mr. Smith: Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether the hints which appeared in the Press this morning that the Government intend to hold up the introduction of colour television are true, and whether he had a hand in inspiring these rumours? Is the Postmaster-General aware that we had undertaken, if we had won the General Election, to introduce colour television at least by 1967? In those circumstances, will he look at the matter again, because if there is ally holdup it will be a severe blow to the electronics industry?
    Mr. Benn: I have had some opportunity of assessing the value of hon. Gentlemen's election pledges in my own Department. In view of the rising deficit that would confront the B.B.C., I very strongly doubt whether it would have been possible to have done that. The answer that I have given is the correct one. We are reviewing this. The standards are being studied in April, and we hope that a decision will be reached in April. After that it is a question of what degree of priority we give to this as against other possible demands on our resources in broadcasting.

    Television Reception, Ferrybridge
    Mr. George Jegerasked the Postmaster-General whether he is aware of the unsatisfactory television reception in Ferrybridge and district; and whether he will take the necessary action to improve the situation.
    Mr. Joseph Slater: Reception of both the B.B.C.'s and the I.T.A.'s television services should normally be good in Ferrybridge and district if suitable receiving aerials are used; but if my hon. Friend has any particular case in mind and will write to us about it, we will gladly have it investigated.
    Mr. Jeger: But I understand that a number of my constituents have sent a petition to the hon. Gentleman's Department, and the purpose of my Question was to stimulate a reply to that petition. Is it impossible to get a local booster station which would help the reception of television in this area?
    Mr. Slater: I am not aware of any petition that has been sent to my Department in regard to the matter mentioned in the Question, but both the B.B.C. and the I.T.A. say that Ferrybridge and district receive a satisfactory signal from their stations at Holme Moss and Emley Moor. The Post Office North-East Region confirms this and says that it has had no recent complaints.

    Low-Power Station, West Dunbartonshire
    Mr. Steeleasked the Postmaster-General if he will now make a statement on the provision of a low-power television station to serve West Dunbartonshire.
    Mr. Joseph Slater: No, Sir. I would ask my hon. Friend to await the announcement, which my right hon. Friend expects to make shortly, about the B.B.C.'s plans for improving television reception and coverage.
    Mr. Steele: Is my hon. Friend aware that this is the same disappointing and unsatisfactory reply that I have been receiving over the years, and that I had hoped for a little more encouragement? Is he aware that many of my constituents will take a very dim view of further extensions to existing channels

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    while they are still unable to receive programmes from one channel?
    Mr. Slater: I am very sorry that I have to give such a disappointing reply to my hon. Friend, but I think that it would be generally agreed that the right course is to present the plan as a whole. My hon. Friend will realise that there are some places which have no service at all, which have first to be considered.

    Armistice Sunday (Programmes)
    Mr. Dempseyasked the Postmaster-General if he will use his powers under Section 14(4) of the Licence and Agreement to direct the British Broadcasting Corporation to refrain in future from sending the Royal Command Variety Performance on the evening of Armistice Sunday.
    Mr. Priorasked the Postmaster-General if he will use his powers under Section 14(4) of the Licence and Agreement to prevent the broadcasting of programmes similar to the British Broad-casting Corporation's television farming programme of 8th November, 1964.
    Mr. Benn: No, Sir.
    Mr. Dempsey: Is not the Minister aware that through the excellent efforts of the British Legion in many towns and cities on Armistice evening these festivals are held in order to commemorate the names of those who died that we might live? Is it not a cynical disregard of the feelings of relatives that such a star attraction should be presented on Armistice evening, especially when it could be presented on one of the other 364 evenings of the year, reserving Armistice evening for more appropriate material? Will he consider this question and realise the feelings of those left behind?
    Mr. Benn: No, Sir, I will not, for the reason that I gave earlier, namely, that if I were to accept responsibility for this it would become my duty—for which I would become increasingly responsible to the House—to observe every single piece of programme planning on all three television and all three sound programmes in order to satisfy myself that it did not clash with any other attraction of the kind that my hon.
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    Friend has mentioned. Such a task would be totally impossible and totally unacceptable to Ministers of either party. I hope that hon. Members will not continue to table Questions of this kind—[Interruption.]—to which there can be only one answer.
    Mr. Jennings: Is the right hon. Gentleman completely disclaiming any responsibility at all for the good or bad taste of broadcast programmes?
    Mr. Benn: The hon. Member must understand that the principles embodied in the Answers that I have given have been accepted by the whole House and all Governments since broadcasting began, namely, that whereas reserve powers are vested in the Postmaster-General, for reasons which the House laid down in Act of Parliament, he does not exercise them for the purposes for which these Questions have been tabled. It is in order for any hon. Member to put down a Question—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]—but the Answer which I will give, and which has been given by successive Postmasters-General, quite rightly in my submission, will follow the pattern that I have given in reply to the hon. Member and my hon. Friend.
    Mr. Bellenger: Although we understand perfectly well that the Postmaster-General is not expected to take up censorship powers, nevertheless, when he is convinced that there is a very strong body of opinion, especially in this House, with definite views on a subject, cannot he himself make representations?
    Mr. Benn: No, Sir. I will not make representations on behalf of hon. Members, since Members of this House can make representations as individuals, or pass a Resolution which can be drawn to the attention of the B.B.C.
    Mr. Hogg: If the right hon. Gentleman is not going to censor broadcast programmes, will he also undertake not to try to censor Questions by hon. Members?
    Mr. Benn: As the right hon. and learned Gentleman knows very well, I make no attempt to censor Questions. [HON. MEMBERS: "Yes."] What I said was that Questions which were put down asking me to use my powers to censor

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    B.B.C. and I.T.A. programmes would meet with the same response, and I asked hon. Members not to put down Questions in the hope that I would vary that decision. This principle has been accepted by the right hon. and learned Gentleman's colleagues, as well as by my colleagues, for a long period, and it is one from which he himself would not for a moment dissent.
    Mr. Shinwell: May I ask my right hon. Friend to understand that we thoroughly understood what he meant? May I further ask him not to pay the slightest attention to "bonkers" from the other side?

    Services
    Mr. Nobleasked the Postmaster-General what degree of priority he is giving to providing wireless and television services to those areas of the country not yet adequately covered.
    Mr. Benn: It is, of course, for the broadcasting authorities in the first place to consider what measures to take in order to improve the reception and extend the coverage of their services. As I said earlier, I am at present considering proposals the B.B.C. has put to me; and I hope to make an announcement soon.
    Mr. Noble: Does the Minister realise that, though the percentage of people who do not get any service or do not get an adequate service may be small, the frustration increases as the number declines and that these are all areas in which we are having difficulty in persuading people to stay in the rural districts? Is the Minister also aware that in many parts of my constituency people can listen only to Radio Caroline and that I hope he will see that the B.B.C. keeps up with private enterprise?
    Mr. Benn: The right hon. Gentleman has taken a continuing interest in this subject in the past and the view he expresses is very much shared by the B.B.C. and by the Department for which I am responsible.

    TRADE UNIONISTS (COURT DECISION)
    Ql. Mr. Hector Hughesasked the Prime Minister if he is aware of the damage which the recent court decision in the cases of Rookes v. Barnard and Stratford v. Lindley has caused to the interests of workers who are trade unionists; and if he will state his plans to minimise or rectify that damage.
    The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): We have undertaken to introduce during this Session a Bill to give workers and their representatives the protection necessary for freedom of industrial negotiation.
    Mr. Hughes: Does the Prime Minister realise that the problems presented by these decisions are of the utmost importance to trade unionists and will he see that solutions are expedited?
    The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. We have made clear that a Bill will be introduced in the House and will be debated.
    Mr. Ridley: Before the Prime Minister redeems his pledge, will he consider whether he is quite certain that it is right to give trade union leaders the right to force people out of employment under the protection of the law?
    The Prime Minister: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will study what I said in a speech to the T.U.C. on this question. I said that we were concerned with putting right that aspect of the law which was never thought to have been in doubt 60 years ago. I said that we did not intend to raise any fundamental question of human rights in dealing with it.

    MINISTRY OF PENSIONS AND NATIONAL SERVICE
    Mr. Ridsdaleasked the Prime Minister why he has not appointed the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance to the Cabinet.
    The Prime Minister: As I said in my speech in the House on 3rd November, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who is of course

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    a member of the Cabinet, will among other duties assigned to him have the task of co-ordinating the work of the social services. In addition, my right hon. Friend the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance will, of course, attend meetings of the Cabinet whenever the affairs of her Department are under consideration, in accordance with the usual practice.
    Mr. Ridsdale: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the direct consequences of some of his financial policies have led to a steep rise in the cost of living? Is he aware that pensioners, whose No. 1 economic priority is stability in prices, would believe that the Prime Minister had that much more in his heart if he appointed the Minister of Pensions to the Cabinet?
    The Prime Minister: I am aware that we have taken early action regarding legislation to deal with the problem of old-age pensioners. Secondly, I am aware that in the whole period of the Conservative Government the only Minister of Pensions and National Insurance who was in the Cabinet was Mr. Osbert Peake, now, I believe, Lord Ingleby, who was a member of the Cabinet for only a few months.

    PRIME MINISTER OF RHODESIA (INVITATION TO LONDON)
    Mr. Wallasked the Prime Minister what reply he has had from the Prime Minister of Rhodesia to his invitation to visit London for talks.
    The Prime Minister: Mr. Smith said on 24th October that he would be pleased to visit London for discussions after the referendum which took place on 5th November. Since then he has made no further mention of such a visit, but on 6th November in a message he made public, he invited my right hon. Friend the Commonwealth Secretary to visit Salisbury. Nevertheless the invitation to Mr. Smith to come to London remains open, as I again made clear in my published message to him of 7th November.
    Mr. Wall: Now that Mr. Nkomo is no longer in prison, will the right hon. Gentleman reconsider sending the Secretary
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    of State to Rhodesia? Would not he agree that a meeting of Prime Ministers might be dangerous until such time as the Rhodesian electorate is convinced that the policy of Her Majesty's Government is not to impose an African majority in the next two or three years?
    The Prime Minister: It is partly a question of what is meant by "Rhodesian electorate". Apart from that, I think it would be extremely valuable if there could be discussions with Mr. Smith, because the right hon. Gentleman my predecessor had very frank discussions with him and I had a brief meeting with him in September. I think it would be helpful if Mr. Smith could come over on the basis I indicated in my speech of 3rd November, when the whole thing could be discussed very frankly between us.
    Mr. Turton: In order to remove ambiguity both here and in Central Africa, could the right hon. Gentleman state quite clearly the terms and conditions under which Her Majesty's Government would grant independence to Rhodesia?
    The Prime Minister: I thought that that was very clearly stated without ambiguity in the communiqué of the Conference of Commonwealth Prime Ministers. As I said on 3rd November, that statement in the communiqué was the basis of our approach to this problem.
    Sir G. Nicholson: Is it not most undesirable that communiqués between two Government should constantly be in public? Should we not get back to confidential negotiations and communications?
    The Prime Minister: I very much agree with the hon. Gentleman about that. I am glad to say that in the latest messages which we have had both ways, Mr. Smith has said that they should be treated confidentially, and we are both doing that. But I think that the hon. Gentleman will agree that it was important that full publicity should have been given to the statement, which was put out and which was not meant as a confidential communication between Governments, warning everyone concerned of the consequences of a unilateral declaration of independence.
    Mr. A. J. Irvine: When my right hon. Friend speaks of the invitation to Mr.

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    Smith remaining open, is it the position that the Prime Minister has intimated to Mr. Smith that he desires him to come to this country for conversations, or has that been left as a matter of inference and implication from Questions and Answers in the House?
    The Prime Minister: This is not a question of inference. It has been stated quite categorically and communicated to Mr. Smith.

    No. 10, DOWNING STREET (CHIEF PRESS OFFICER)
    Sir Richard Glynasked the Prime Minister how the recent vacancy for Chief Press Officer at No. 10, Downing Street arose; and whether the vacancy was made known to other suitable candidates.
    The Prime Minister: I appointed the man whom I thought could give me the best service in this post, which had been vacant, though covered by temporary arrangements, since February.
    Sir Richard Glyn: Can the Prime Minister say what post is now being filled by the former Chief Press Officer? Can the right hon. Gentleman confirm that the normal procedures were followed at every stage of this change-over of Chief Press Officer?
    The Prime Minister: To answer the second point first, the normal procedures were followed. I think that it has been long understood that the position of what used to be called Public Relations Adviser to the Prime Minister has been filled on a direct basis by the Prime Minister in terms of who he thought would do the job best. The new Chief Press Officer's predecessor, who held the position temporarily, has now gone to the Ministry of Economic Affairs. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition made it quite clear when the previous appointment was made that it was temporary and would have to be considered again after the election.

    TECHNOLOGY
    Mr. Maxwellasked the Prime Minister what functions the Department of Technology has taken over from the Ministry of Education and Science, the
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    Lord President of the Council, the Board of Trade, the Treasury and the Ministry of Aviation, respectively; and whether he will make a statement.
    The Prime Minister: I cannot as yet go beyond the information already given to the House by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Science on 5th November. I hope that a further statement will be made shortly.
    Mr. Maxwell: Does the Prime Minister realise that this is causing a great deal of uncertainty and dissatisfaction to research workers in universities, industry and Government Departments and that I hope that a speedy statement will be made?
    The Prime Minister: No, Sir, I am not so aware, but a lot of work is going on on this question which, it will be realised, has been the subject of considerable thought and argument and disagreement over the past two or three years. But only three weeks ago we were being told that some of the workers in these industries thought that decisions were being taken too quickly. We are trying to establish a happy medium between moving too quickly and moving too slowly.
    Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Sir Knox Cunningham—
    Mr. Hogg: Could the right hon. Gentleman tell us when we shall see—
    Mr. Deputy-Speaker: Order. It would assist the Chair in carrying out a difficult job if Front Benchers, like back benchers, did not speak until they were called. Sir Knox Cunningham.
    Sir Knox Cunningham: Can the Prime Minister say whether the new Minister of Technology will deal with the new process of automation in shaving?
    The Prime Minister: I should be glad to answer the question, but I did not hear the last two words of what the hon. Gentleman said.
    Sir Knox Cunningham: I asked the right hon. Gentleman if he could say whether the new Minister of Technology would deal with the new process of automation in shaving?
    Mr. Hogg: Can the Prime Minister tell us when the Minister of Technology will be with us in the House?
    The Prime Minister: I should think that the period of delay will be rather comparable to that which we all suffered so greatly a year ago when we were waiting for the right hon. and learned Gentleman.
    Mr. Hogg: Will the right hon. Gentleman recall the somewhat offensive observations then made from the Opposition benches about the arrangements, and will he accept my assurance that they will not be repeated on this occasion?

    OFFICIAL SECRETS ACT
    Sir Richard Glynasked the Prime Minister what steps he has taken to ensure that the persons who have been engaged in an advisory capacity to assist him or other Ministers or Departments have been informed that they are subject to the Official Secrets Act and to all the instructions as to official behaviour which apply to established civil servants.
    The Prime Minister: It is the duty of Departments to bring the provisions of the Official Secrets Acts to the notice of their staffs, both established and temporary, and new entrants are required to sign, on entry, a declaration acknowledging that this has been done. Departments are also responsible for informing their staff of the instructions governing the conduct of civil servants. This action has been taken in the case of the persons referred to in the hon. Member's Question.
    Sir Richard Glyn: Can the Prime Minister say what steps he personally has taken to satisfy himself on the security aspects of these appointments, bearing in mind the great interest which he has always taken in security matters and also the unfortunate experience of the last Socialist Government with a foreign-born atomic scientist?
    The Prime Minister: The last Government of this country, which was not a Socialist one, also had a number of very distinguished foreign-born advisers and no problem arose. I am quite sure that hon. Members opposite had the fullest confidence in those persons, one of whom has now been reallocated in an advisory capacity in the Cabinet Office. But I very much deprecate some of the statements made, whether in the form of Question
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    at Question Time or in speeches, reflecting on the loyalty of some advisers in respect of whom the security proceedings could not have been more thorough and who have been British nationals for a very long time and have given very good service to this country.

    TEMPORARY CIVIL SERVANTS (NATIONALITY RULE)
    Dame Irene Wardasked the Prime Minister whether the general regulations of the Civil Service Commissioners on nationality requirements were satisfied in the case of the appointments of Mr. T. Balogh, Professor P. Blacken, Mr. H. F. R. Catherwood, Dr. N. Kaldor and Mr. R. Neild; or whether their appointments as temporary civil servants have been made at the discretion of the Departments to which they are attached.
    The Prime Minister: Although these are temporary appointments, the requirements of the nationality rule are met.
    Dame Irene Ward: In view of the fact that there is a new regulation, within these regulations covering entrants to the Foreign Office, coming into operation on 1st January, 1965, which was circulated with an Answer in the OFFICIAL REPORT, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he can now give me an assurance that if any new regulations are brought into operation the House will be informed? I had no assurance in answer to the speech which I made in the House last week.
    The Prime Minister: I made it clear that the existing regulations are being most stringently followed in every case and the most thorough inquiries are made. As and when new regulations are introduced, they will be followed in all cases.
    Dame Irene Ward: In view of the new regulation, which was not reported to the House until I put down a Parliamentary Question, may I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman will kindly give me an assurance about any new regulations—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—I am not making any allegation[HON. MEMBERS: "Yes."]—I am merely asking about the procedure. Will the Prime Minister give me an assurance that when

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    new regulations, such as the one circulated in HANSARD, are brought into operation, the House of Commons will be informed without a private backbencher having to ask a Question?
    The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. Whenever it is appropriate, this will be done, but I think that the hon. Lady will realise that the security services have to operate a very large number of regulations and practices which have never been announced to the House by any previous Government.
    Mr. Will Griffiths: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that during the period of office of successive Tory Governments which we had before he formed his Administration, security procedure has been applied by right hon. and hon. Members opposite in such a way that very small and insignificant people have been ruined and dismissed from the public service and not a word in their defence was said by hon. Members opposite? Yet would not my right hon. Friend agree that at the same time there were most serious breaches of security at a very high level?
    The Prime Minister: These are very difficult subjects, as the whole House recognises, and in the last Parliament we probably spent more time debating security than any of us wanted to. But I think that it is fair to say that there were one or two cases under the recent Government—one a fairly recent one—where there appeared to be a very strict application of a rule in respect of a young woman employee which, when brought to the attention of the Minister concerned, was dealt with in a humane way by the exercise of that Minister's discretion. That is what we have to do in respect of all these appointments.

SOUTH AFRICA (ARMS EMBARGO)
The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Wilson): With permission, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I wish to make a statement.
The Government have decided to impose an embargo on the export of arms to South Africa.
Since the Government took office no licences for the export of arms to South
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Africa have been issued. It has now been decided that all outstanding licences should be revoked except where these are known to relate to current contracts with the South African Government. The contract to supply 16 Buccaneer aircraft is still under review.
Outstanding commitments by the Ministry of Defence will be fulfilled, but, as from today, no new contracts will be accepted for the supply of military equipment. The Ministry of Defence will proceed with manufacturing agreements that have already been concluded, but not yet executed.
Licences for the export of sporting weapons and ammunition will be revoked and shipment will be stopped forthwith. In other cases, when licences are revoked, fresh licences will be issued to the extent necessary to permit the execution of current contracts.
These decisions bring the Government's policy into line with United Nations resolutions on this question, the latest of which was the Security Council resolution of 18th June.
Sir A. Douglas-Home: The Prime Minister has made a statement which could have far-reaching implications, and I wish to ask him several questions, since it is important to elicit exactly what it means.
The right hon. Gentleman said that there would be no further export of arms to South Africa. Is this, in effect, a unilateral denunciation of the Simonstown Agreement, because, if it were so interpreted by either party, there would be an immediate need for a debate in this House, and we should request it.
To turn to the statement itself, what is the meaning of the sentence:
"The contract to supply 16 Buccaneer aircraft is … under review"?
There is a contract for 16. There is the prospect of a good many more aircraft of the same kind being supplied for the South African Government. Can the right hon. Gentleman say whether progress payments have been made in respect of some of these additional aircraft which were to be supplied? It is fairly common knowledge that the South African Government would, in the years to come, have ordered submarines and other naval aircraft from this country. Are these to be cancelled? Is the Prime

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Minister saying the same in respect of South Africa as he said in respect of Spain, and denying the export markets for these?
There is then the question of the strategic implications if this is, in effect, the encl of the Simonstown Agreement. There are not only the communications centre, which is enormously valuable to the Royal Navy and to the allies, and the over-flying rights which the South Africans give us to be considered. If the Suez Canal were closed in any future war, which might relate to an attack by Indonesia upon Malaysia or an attack by China upon India, how could Her Majesty's Government fulfil the commitments which they have undertaken?
The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman said that this statement had far-reaching implications. Not to have made it would have had far-reaching implications—[HON. MEMBERS: "0h."]—for our relationships with and membership of the United Nations and for our relations with a large number of Commonwealth countries in Africa and elsewhere.
The right hon. Gentleman asked whether the statement I have made amounted to the unilateral denunciation of the Simonstown Agreement. No, of course it does not, because nothing I have said in any way involves a breach of the Agreement. Moreover, as the right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well, the Agreement is not capable of unilateral denunciation.
As regards the right hon. Gentleman's reference to the importance of the Simonstown base in the hypothetical circumstances of a future war—he mentioned Suez—I can tell the House that the Government have no intention whatever of embarking on a Suez adventure. I should have thought that that was clear.
With reference to the statement last Saturday by the South African Prime Minister, which was made after these decisions had been reached among us, though before the announcement, I am sure that the whole House will feel that it would be utterly wrong and a complete breach of our relations if there were to be a denunciation of an agreement which can be broken only by mutual agreement.
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But I must add that, if the Leader of the Opposition thinks, or if Dr. Verwoerd thinks, that the Simonstown Agreement can be broken off by the South African Government in this way because they are annoyed about some action we have taken in conformity with our obligations to the United Nations, it will cast doubts in the minds of many hon. Members on what the value of this base would, after all, be in a war if South Africa disapproved of Britain's action in entering that war. It is important, therefore, that the whole House should be thinking about this question of the Simonstown Agreement.
As regards the Buccaneer aircraft, I said that this contract was under review. That is what I meant. No decision has been reached on it. It is true that certain progress payments have been made, as the right hon. Gentleman suggested.
I am sorry to take so long, but the right hon. Gentleman asked a lot of important questions.
As regards the general decision, we are doing exactly what the United States did in conformity with the United Nations Resolution. We are allowing most of the existing contracts to run out. The only exceptions are the one relating to sporting arms and ammunition, which can be used, and have been used, for internal purposes, and the other one on which no decision has been reached, that is, the Buccaneer aircraft contract.
The right hon. Gentleman referred to export markets. It is unusual, as he knows, for the actual figures of these shipments to be given in the House, but he will know, as I do, that, in terms of our total export trade, the arms shipments to South Africa are an extremely small proportion. If I were to feel, or if the whole House were to feel, that the future of our export trade depended on maintaining exports of this kind, then right hon. Gentleman opposite must have left us in an even worse mess than I thought.
Mr. Thorneyeroft: First, on the question of transit and communications facilities which might be put in jeopardy if the Simonstown Agreement or overflying rights failed, does the right hon. Gentleman realise that this goes much deeper than Suez, that we have about one-third of our Forces at present east of

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Suez, and that the ability rapidly to reinforce them at a moment's notice is something upon which the lives of British soldiers, sailors and airmen depend? Has the Prime Minister really entered into full consultation with the Ministry of Defence on a matter so deeply affecting the defence of this area of the world, our allies and the safety of our troops?
Secondly, as to the Buccaneer aircraft, the Prime Minister said that there would be a review. What does that mean? Does it mean that the right hon. Gentleman is contemplating the possibility of a contract honourably entered into being unilaterally broken? Is that a possibility which he has in mind?
Thirdly, I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman will realise that the contract for the Buccaneer aircraft has to be regarded as a whole. That is to say, it is not only a question of the production order of 16. There is also the option on the further 14 and the supply of spares. Would he make it clear beyond peradventure that if the contract is to be proceeded with it is to be honourably proceeded with, and all its implications are to be followed through?
The Prime Minister: First of all, with regard to the question of communications and the Simonstown Agreement, the right hon. Gentleman is making a very strong case with which I agree against the denunciation of the Agreement by either side. But I am bound to say that if he thinks that one consequence of the arms embargo that we have announced would be that the South Africans would or should denounce the Agreement, then I come back to what I said earlier, that it would mean that all the dependence that we have on this communications equipment would be highly vulnerable in conditions of war. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]Certainly it would, because it would mean that we could take only those actions in wartime which had the approval of the South African Government. We are certainly not prepared to feel that the security of this country should be so dependent on the attitude of a Government who do not see eye to eye with us on so many international questions.
Secondly, the right hon. Gentleman asked whether the Ministry of Defence had been fully consulted. Of course it was. There were very full discussions.
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Without my revealing the nature of them, the right hon. Gentleman will know the kind of discussions that they were. Of course that was done.
I said that the question of the Buccaneers was under review. That is what I meant. It is under review, and we shall announce a decision to the House when the review is completed.
Mr. Sydney Silverman: Would my right hon. Friend bear in mind that in the statement which he has just made he has the unanimous support of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen behind him and the overwhelming support of the people of this country?
Is it not the case that under the Simonstown Agreement this country handed over the base to South Africa on certain terms, and that if the South African Government repudiate one of those terms, and thus repudiate the Agreement unilaterally, the base will revert to United Kingdom ownership?
The Prime Minister: All I am aware of is that, whatever opinions may be expressed about this, in this connection we are discharging our responsibilities to the United Nations, and hon. Gentlemen opposite are against our doing it.
Mr. Grimond: Can the right hon. Gentleman confirm that, although Sir Patrick Dean referred in his speech in the debate in the United Nations which led to the resolution of 18th June to a previous speech in which he made some distinction between arms used for different purposes, he, as our representative, voted for the resolution and that he presumably did this on the instructions of the late Government? So it is not only a resolution by which we are bound, but a resolution for which we voted. We should be in most serious breach of our obligations to the United Nations and in breach of undertakings given by the late Government and not the present Government.
Secondly, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman a detailed question about the Buccaneer? I understand that the review of the 16 Buccaneer aircraft is an exception to the general rule that contracts already concluded will be honoured. Is this because there is some doubt about the purposes for which the Buccaneers might be used, because there seems to

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be some doubt whether they would be an effective weapon, for instance, in maintaining internal security? The House would be grateful for a little more information about why this contract is excepted from the general rule.
The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman's account of the voting in the United Nations accords with my own recollection, though it is fair to say, as he did, that Sir Patrick Dean made this verbal reservation at the time, though as to how the Government voted I think there can be no doubt.
We went very carefully through every one of the existing contracts to see whether any one of them could be involved in breaking the spirit of the United Nations resolution if allowed to run on. There was a very minimal amount of spares for certain equipment sent there. This was perhaps arguable, but we decided that the contracts should he fulfilled.
So far as the Buccaneers are concerned, the right hon. Gentleman has mentioned one exception that is appropriate to review, but there are others into which it would not perhaps be helpful to go at this stage but they will be gone into when we make an announcement.
Sir G. Nicholson: Will the right hon. Gentleman accept that there is a very large volume of opinion among people who detest apartheid as much as he does to the effect that to force the South African Government into a position of increasing isolation is the very worst method of influencing their policy?
The Prime Minister: Yes, Sir. I do not doubt that there is a very great volume of sincere opposition to apartheid among those who take a different view from ourselves about the arms embargo, but we believe—it is our view, although we do not expect all hon. Gentlemen to share it—that if one holds that view one must back it with deeds.
Mr. Wall: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that other European countries are already negotiating to complete the contracts that we are giving up? Will he make clear whether the review of the Buccaneer refers to the initial order of 16 and the second order,
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or only to the first order? This is a matter of great importance to my constituency. Can the right hon. Gentleman say how he will redeem the pledge he gave during the General Election to ensure that no unemployment results from the cancellation of these contracts?
The Prime Minister: With regard to the attitude of other European countries, we are proposing to fufil our obligations under the United Nations, and I trust that they will as well. The philosophy that if we do not do it someone else will has always been throughout the ages the traditional apologia for doing things which are known to be wrong. I say quite categorically that the basis of the lowest common denominator of international morality will not be the basis of this Government's actions.
The whole order for the Buccaneers is under review, and I will make a statement when I can, but we have very much in mind—I certainly have—what has been said before the General Election and at other times on the question of employment.
Sir A. Douglas-Home: The right hon. Gentleman's replies to the questions that I asked earlier and the ones that he has subsequently given to my right hon. and hon. Friends raise in my mind the question whether he has thought out the strategic consequences of the matter. He gave a flippant and, I thought, rather cheap retort about the Suez operation. The fact is, and right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite must realise this, that it is quite likely that over-flying will be stopped and it is quite likely that the Suez Canal could be closed, and that we could not, therefore, reach and reinforce our Forces in the Far East if the Simonstown Agreement were lost to us.
I should like to ask whether the right hon. Gentleman will provide a very urgent debate on this in the Government's time. I must give him notice, because I fear the consequences of what he has said today, that if tomorrow or on subsequent days the South African Government strongly react to this I shall ask for a debate in the House immediately under Standing Order No.9.
The Prime Minister: We on this side of the House have never taken the question of Suez flippantly in any way. We

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regard it as a very serious business, and it was important to repeat our attitude so far as that question is concerned.
Of course we have carefully considered all the stategic implications, just as fully as the right hon. Gentleman ever did. I am bound to say that when I hear the right hon. Gentleman making all sorts of suggestions about what might be the quite illegal consequences to this on the part of the South African Government, I wonder whom he thinks he is helping with that sort of question.
The question of over-flying rights is an important one. There are very many other questions of over-flying rights affecting other parts of Africa, as the right hon. Gentleman will be only too well aware. If he is saying or implying—I am sure that he did not intend to do this—that the South African Government would be within their rights in interfering with these over-flying rights or in denouncing the Simonstown Agreement because of their dislike of the United Nations resolution and our action under it—even if he is suggesting that by accident—then he is, by the same argument, implying that the Simonstown Agreement would be worthless in any war that the South Africans did not approve of.
Mr. Bellenger: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. Is it in order for the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition to give deferred notice that he will raise this matter under Standing Order No.9? Surely that Order, amongst other things, raises a matter of urgency?
Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Dr. Horace King): I do not think that what the Leader of the Opposition said was out of order. He indicated that his intention might be to call the attention of the House to a matter of urgent public importance under Standing Order No. 9. When it comes before the Chair, the Chair will take notice of it. This is
208
merely an indication of something that the right hon. Gentleman possibly had in his mind. Can we proceed now?

DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANS
The Lord President of the Council (Mr. Herbert Bowden): I beg to move,
That, during the absence through illness of Mr. Speaker, Sir Harry Legge-Bourke shall be appointed an additional Deputy-Chairman of Ways and Means and shall be entitled to exercise all the powers vested in the Deputy-Chairman of Ways and Means, including his powers as Deputy-Speaker.
I have it in command from Her Majesty to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the subject matter of this Motion empowering a member of the Chairmen's Panel to act as Speaker, gives Her consent thereto.
The need for this Motion, as the House will know, is that Mr. Speaker has undergone an operation which we are all glad to see from reports has been successful.[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] If the House will agree to this proposal that an additional Deputy-Chairman should be appointed until Mr. Speaker is able to resume his duties—and there is reason to hope that this will be for only a very short period—two desirable purposes will have been served.
First, the necessary relief would be provided for the Chairman of Ways and Means and his deputy, and secondly, we shall be avoiding the hazards which would be involved if there were to be, unfortunately, a further indisposition reducing the number of occupants of the upper Chair to one.
It is in these circumstances that the hon. Member for the Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke)—and I mention this with gratitude to him—has very kindly agreed to act as an additional Deputy-Chairman. I commend the Motion to the House.
Question put and agreed to.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  WAYS AND MEANS
  [11th November]
  Resolutions reported,
  For particulars of Resolutions, see OFFICIAL REPORT, 11th November, 1964; Vol. 701 c. 1046–1060.
  First Resolution—Hydrocarbon Oils, Etc. (Customs and Excise)—read a Second time.
  Question, That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 90 (Ways and Means Motions and Resolutions).
  The House divided: Ayes 292, Noes 284.

  Division No. 5.]

  AYES

  3.54 p.m.

  Abse, Leo

  Dunnett, Jack (Nottingh'm, Central)

  Hynd, John (Attercliffe)

  Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

  Edelman, Maurice

  Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)

  Alldritt, W. H.

  Edwards, Rt. Hn. Ness (Caerphilly)

  Irving, Sydney (Dartford)

  Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

  Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

  Jackson, Colin

  Armstrong, Ernest

  English, Michael

  Janner, Sir Barnett

  Atkinson, Norman

  Ennals, David

  Jeger, George (Goole)

  Bacon, Miss Alice

  Ensor, David

  Jeger, Mrs. Lena (H'b'n & St. P'cras, S.)

  Bagier, Gordon A. T.

  Evans, Albert (Islington, S.W.)

  Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

  Barnett, Joel

  Evans, Ioan (Birmingham, Yardley)

  Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (Stechford)

  Baxter, William

  Fernyhough, E.

  Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

  Beaney, Alan

  Finch, Harold

  Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)

  Bellenger, Rt. Hn. F. J.

  Fitch, Alan

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Bence, Cyril

  Fletcher, Sir Eric (Islington, E.)

  Jones, Rt. Hn. Sir Elwyn (W.Ham,S.)

  Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood

  Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

  Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

  Bennett, J. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

  Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)

  Jones, T. W. (Merloneth)

  Binns, John

  Floud, Bernard

  Kelley, Richard

  Bishop, E. S.

  Foley, Maurice

  Kenyon, Clifford

  Blackburn, F.

  Foot, Sir Dingle (Ipswich)

  Kerr, Mrs. Anne (R'ter & Chatham)

  Blenkinsop, Arthur

  Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)

  Kerr, Dr. David (W'worth, Central)

  Boardman, H.

  Ford, Ben

  Lawson, George

  Boston, T. G.

  Galpern, Sir Myer

  Leadbitter, Ted

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

  Garrett, W. E.

  Ledger, Ron

  Bowles, Frank

  Garrow, A.

  Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick (Newton)

  Boyden, James

  George, Lady Megan Lloyd

  Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)

  Braddock, Mrs. E. M.

  Ginsburg, David

  Lever, Harold (Cheetham)

  Bradley, Tom

  Gourlay, Harry

  Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)

  Bray, Dr. Jeremy

  Greenwood, Rt. Hn. Anthony

  Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

  Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

  Gregory, Arnold

  Lipton, Marcus

  Brown, Rt. Hn. George (Belper)

  Grey, Charles

  Lomas, Kenneth

  Brown, Hugh D. (Glasgow, Provan)

  Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

  Loughlin, Charles

  Brown, R. W. (Shoreditch & Fbury)

  Griffiths, Rt. Hn. James (Llanelly)

  Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

  Buchan, Norman (Renfrewshire, W.)

  Griffiths, Will (Manchester Exchange)

  McBride, Neil

  Buchanan, Norman (Renfrewshire, W.)

  Gunter, Rt. Hn. R. J.

  McCann, J.

  Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

  Hale, Leslie

  MacColl, James

  Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

  Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

  MacDermot, Niall

  Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James

  Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

  McGuire, Michael

  Carter-Jones, Lewis

  Hamilton, William (West Fife)

  McInnes, James

  Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara

  Hamling, William (Woolwich, W.)

  McKay, Mrs. Margaret

  Coleman, Donald

  Hannan, William

  Mackienzie, Gregor (Rutherglen)

  Conlan, Bernard

  Harper, Joseph

  Mackie, John (Enfield, E.)

  Corbet, Mrs. Freda

  Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

  MacPherson, Malcolm

  Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

  Hart, Mrs. Judith

  Mahon, Peter (Preston, S.)

  Crawshaw, Richard

  Hattersley, Ray

  Mahon, Simon (Bootle)

  Cronin, John

  Hayman, F. H.

  Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

  Crosland, Anthony

  Hazell, Bert

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

  Crossman, Rt. Hn. R. H. S.

  Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis

  Manuel, Archie

  Cullen, Mrs. Alice

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Marsh, Richard

  Dalyell, Tam

  Henderson, Rt. Hn. Arthur

  Mason, Roy

  Darling, George

  Herbison, Rt. Hn. Margaret

  Maxwell, Robert

  Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

  Hobden, Dennis (Brighton, K'town)

  Mayhew, Christopher

  Davies, Harold (Leek)

  Holman, Percy

  Mellish, Robert

  Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

  Horner, John

  Mendelson, J. J.

  de Freitas, Sir Geoffrey

  Howarth, Harry (Wellingborough)

  Mikardo, Ian

  Delargy, Hugh

  Howarth, Robert L. (Bolton, E.)

  Millan, Bruce

  Dell, Edmund

  Howell, Denis (Small Heath)

  Miller, Dr. M. S.

  Dempsey, James

  Howie, W.

  Milne, Edward (Blythe)

  Diamond, John

  Hoy, James

  Molloy, William

  Doig, Peter

  Hughes Cledwyn (Anglesey)

  Monslow, Walter

  Donnelly, Desmond

  Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

  Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

  Driberg, Tom

  Hughes Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

  Morris, Charles (Openshaw)

  Duffy, Dr. A. E. P.

  Hunter Adam (Dunfermline)

  Morris, John (Aberavon)

  Dunn, James A. (L'pool, Kirkdale)

  Hunter A. E. (Feltham)

  Mulley,Rt.Hn.Frederick(SheffieldPk)

  Richard, Ivor

  Thomas, George (Cardiff, W.)

  Murray, Albert

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

  Neal, Harold

  Roberto, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

  Thomson, George (Dundee, E.)

  Newens, Stan

  Robinson, Rt.Hn. K. (St.Pancras,N.)

  Thornton, Ernest

  Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)

  Rodgers, William (Stockton)

  Tinn, James

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

  Rose, Paul B.

  Tomney, Frank

  Norwood, Christopher

  Ross, Rt. Hn. William

  Tuck, Raphael

  Oakes, Gordon

  Rowland, Christopher

  Urwin, T. W.

  Ogden, Eric

  Sheldon, Robert

  Varley, Eric G.

  Oram, Albert E. (E. Ham S.)

  Shinwell, Rt. Hn. E.

  Walden, Brian (All Saints)

  Orbach, Maurice

  Shore, Peter (Stepney)

  Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

  Orme, Stanley

  Short,Rt.Hn.E.(N'c'tle-on-Tyne,C.)

  Wallace, George

  Oswald, Thomas

  Short, Mrs. Renée (W'hampton,N.E.)

  Warbey, William

  Owen, Will

  Silkin, John (Deptford)

  Watkins, Tudor

  Padley, Walter

  Silkin, S. C. (Camberwell, Dulwich)

  Weitzman, David

  Page, Derek (King's Lynn)

  Silverman, Julius (Aston)

  Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

  Paget, R. T.

  Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)

  White, Mrs. Eirene

  Palmer, Arthur

  Skeffington, Arthur

  Whitlock, William

  Pargiter, G. A.

  Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

  Wigg, Rt. Hn. George

  Park, Trevor (Derbyshire, S.E.)

  Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)

  Wilkins, W. A.

  Parkin, B. T.

  Small, William

  Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick

  Pavitt, Laurence

  Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

  Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)

  Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)

  Solomons, Henry

  Williams, Ll. (Abertillery)

  Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred

  Sorensen, R. W.

  Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)

  Pentland, Norman

  Soskice, Rt. Hn. Sir Frank

  Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

  Perry, E. G.

  Steele, Thomas

  Willis, George (Edinburgh, E.)

  Popplewell, Ernest

  Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael

  Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)

  Prentice, Reginald

  Stonehouse, John

  Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)

  Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

  Stones, William

  Winterbottom, R. E.

  Probert, Arthur

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

  Woodburn, Rt. Hn. A.

  Pursey, Cmdr. Harry

  Stross,SirBarnett(Stoke-on-Trent,C.)

  Woof, Robert

  Randall, Harry

  Summerskill, Dr. Shirley

  Wyatt, Woodrow

  Rankin, John

  Swain, Thomas

  Yates, Victor (Ladywood)

  Redhead, Edward

  Swingler, Stephen

  Zilliacus, K.

  Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)

  Symonds, J. B.

  Reynolds, Gerald

  Taverne, Dick

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Rhodes, Geoffrey

  Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

  Mr. George Rogers and

  Mr. Ifor Davies.

  NOES

  Agnew, Commander Sir Peter

  Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert

  Fell, Anthony

  Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)

  Cary, Sir Robert

  Fisher, Nigel

  Allan, Robert (Paddington, S.)

  Channon, H. P. G.

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles (Darwen)

  Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)

  Chataway, Christopher

  Fletcher-Cooke, Sir John (S'pton)

  Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian

  Chichester-Clark, R.

  Forrest, George

  Anstruther-Gray, Rt. Hn. Sir W.

  Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)

  Foster, Sir John

  Astor, John

  Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)

  Fraser, Rt.Hn.Hugh(St'fford & Stone)

  Atkins, Humphrey

  Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)

  Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Awdry, Daniel

  Cole, Norman

  Galbraith, Hn. T. G. D.

  Baker, W. H. K.

  Cooke, Robert

  Gammans, Lady

  Balniel, Lord

  Cooper, A. E.

  Gardner, Edward

  Barlow, Sir John

  Cooper-Key, Sir Neill

  Gibson-Watt, David

  Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton

  Cordle, John

  Giles, Rear-Admiral Morgan

  Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)

  Corfield, F. V.

  Gilmour, Ian (Norfolk, Central)

  Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos & Fhm)

  Costain, A. P.

  Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)

  Berkeley, Humphry

  Courtney, Cdr. Anthony

  Glover, Sir Douglas

  Berry, Hn. Anthony

  Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne)

  Glyn, Sir Richard

  Bessell, Peter

  Crawley, Aidan

  Gower, Raymond

  Biffen, John

  Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. Sir Oliver

  Grant, Anthony

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Crowder, F. P.

  Grant-Ferris, R. (Nantwich)

  Bingham, R. M.

  Cunningham, Sir Knox

  Gresham-Cooke, R.

  Birch, Rt. Hn. Nigel

  Curran, Charles

  Grieve, Percy

  Black, Sir Cyril

  Currie, G. B. H.

  Griffiths, Peter (Smethwick)

  Blaker, Peter

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Grimond, Rt. Hon. J.

  Bossom, Hn. Clive

  Dance, James

  Gurden, Harold

  Bowen, Roderic (Cardigan)

  Davies, Dr. Wyndham (Perry Barr)

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn. J.

  d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

  Hall-Davis, A. G. F. (Morecambe)

  Boyle, Rt. Hn. Sir Edward

  Dean, Paul

  Hamilton, Marquess of (Fermanagh)

  Brewis, John

  Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.

  Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N. W.)

  Brinton, Sir Tatton

  Digby, Simon Wingfield

  Harris, Reader (Heston)

  Bromley-Davenport,Lt.-Col.Sir Walter

  Dodds-Parker, Douglas

  Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

  Brooke, Rt. Hn. Henry

  Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. M.

  Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Maccles'd)

  Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

  Doughty, Charles

  Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)

  Bruce-Gardyne, J.

  Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec

  Harvie Anderson, Miss

  Bryan, Paul

  Drayson, G. B.

  Hastings, Stephen

  Buchanan-Smith, Alick

  du Cann, Edward

  Hawkins, Paul

  Buck, Antony

  Eden, Sir John

  Heald, Rt. Hn. Sir Lionel

  Bullus, Wing Commander Eric

  Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

  Heath, Rt. Hn. Edward

  Burden, F. A.

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

  Hendry, Forbes

  Butcher, Sir Herbert

  Emery, Peter

  Higgins, Terence L.

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

  Emmet, Hn. Mrs. Evelyn

  Hiley, Joseph

  Campbell, Gordon

  Errington, Sir Eric

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

  Carlisle, Mark

  Erroll, Rt. Hn. F. J.

  Hirst, Geoffrey

  212

  213

  Hobson, Rt. Hn. Sir John

  Mawby, Ray

  Shepherd, William

  Hogg, Rt. Hn. Quintin

  Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J. (Tiverton)

  Sinclair, Sir George

  Hopkins, Alan

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

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

  Hordern, Peter

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Smyth, Rt. Hn. Brig. Sir John

  Hornby, Richard

  Mills, Peter (Torrington)

  Soames, Rt. Hn. Christopher

  Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hn. Dame P.

  Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)

  Spearman, Sir Alexander

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

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Speir, Rupert

  Howe, Geoffrey (Bebington)

  Mitchell, David

  Stainton, Keith

  Hunt, John (Bromley)

  Monro, Hector

  Stanley, Hn. Richard

  Hutchison, Michael Clark

  More, Jasper

  Stodart, J. A. (Edinburgh, W.)

  Iremonger, T. L.

  Morrison, Charles (Devizes)

  Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm

  Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

  Morrison, John (Salisbury)

  Studholme, Sir Henry

  Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)

  Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles

  Summers, Sir Spencer

  Jennings, J. C.

  Murton, Oscar

  Talbot, John E.

  Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

  Neave, Airey

  Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

  Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)

  Nicholls, Sir Harmar

  Taylor, Edward M. (G'gow, Cathcart)

  Jones, Rt. Hn. Aubrey (Hall Green)

  Nicholson, Sir Godfrey

  Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)

  Jopling, Michael

  Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael

  Teeling, Sir William

  Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith

  Nugent, Rt. Hn. Sir Richard

  Temple, John M.

  Kaberry, Sir Donald

  Onslow, Cranley

  Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret

  Kerby, Capt. Henry

  Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

  Thomas, Sir Leslie (Canterbury)

  Kerr, Sir Hamilton (Cambridge)

  Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian

  Thomas, Rt. Hn. Peter (Conway)

  Kilfedder, James A.

  Osborn, John (Hallam)

  Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)

  Kimball, Marcus

  Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)

  Thorneycroft, Rt. Hn. Peter

  King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)

  Page, John (Harrow, W.)

  Thorpe, Jeremy

  Lagden, Godfrey

  Page, R. Graham (Crosby)

  Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)

  Lambton, Viscount

  Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)

  Tilney, John (Wavertree)

  Lancaster, Col. C. G.

  Percival, Ian

  Turton, Rt. Hn. R. H.

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Peyton, John

  Tweedsmuir, Lady

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Litchfield, Capt. John

  Pike, Miss Mervyn

  Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hn. Sir John

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

  Pitt, Dame Edith

  Walder, David (High Peak)

  Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone)

  Pounder, Rafton

  Walker, Peter (Worcester)

  Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Selwyn (Wirral)

  Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch

  Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek

  Longbottam, Charles

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Wall, Patrick

  Longden, Gilbert

  Prior, J. M. L.

  Ward, Dame Irene

  Loveys, Walter H.

  Pym, Francis

  Weatherill, Bernard

  Lubbock, Eric

  Quennell, Miss J. M.

  Webster, David

  Lucas, Sir Jocelyn (Portsmouth, S.)

  Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh (Hendon, S.)

  Redmayne, Rt. Hn. Martin

  Whitelaw, William

  MacArthur, Ian

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

  Williams, Sir Rolf Dudley (Exeter)

  Mackenzie, Alasdair (Ross & Crom'ty)

  Renton, Rt. Hn. David

  Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)

  Mackie, George Y. (C'ness & S'land)

  Ridley, Hn. Nicholas

  Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

  Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain

  Ridsdale, Julian

  Wise, A. R.

  McMaster, Stanley

  Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley)

  Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

  McNair-Wilson, Patrick

  Robson Brown, Sir William

  Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard

  Maitland, Sir John

  Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)

  Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher

  Marlowe, Anthony

  Roots, William

  Wylie, N. R.

  Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest

  Royle, Anthony

  Younger, Hn. George

  Marten, Neil

  Russell, Sir Ronald

  Mathew, Robert

  St. John-Stevas, Norman

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  Maude, Angus E. U.

  Scott-Hopkins, James

  Mr. Batsford and Mr. McLaren.

  Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald

  Sharples, Richard

  Second Resolution—Income Tax (Charge and Rates for 1965–66)—read a Second time.
  Question put, That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said
  Resolution put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 90 (Ways and Means Motions and Resolutions).
  The House divided: Ayes 300, Noes 276.

  Division No. 6.]

  AYES

  [4.8 p.m.

  Abse, Leo

  Blenkinsop, Arthur

  Carter-Jones, Lewis

  Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)

  Boardman, H.

  Castle, Rt. Hn. Barbara

  Alldritt, W. H.

  Boston, T. C.

  Coleman, Donald

  Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

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

  Conlan, Bernard

  Armstrong, Ernest

  Bowen, Roderic (Cardigan)

  Corbet, Mrs. Freda

  Atkinson, Norman

  Bowles, Frank

  Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

  Bacon, Miss Alice

  Boyden, James

  Crawshaw, Richard

  Bagier, Gordon A. T.

  Braddock, Mrs. E. M.

  Cronin, John

  Barnett, Joel

  Bradley, Tom

  Crosland, Anthony

  Baxter, William

  Bray, Dr. Jeremy

  Crossman, Rt. Hn. R. H. S.

  Beaney, Alan

  Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

  Cullen, Mrs. Alice

  Bellenger, Rt. Hn. F. J.

  Brown, Rt. Hn. George (Belper)

  Dalyell, Tam

  Bence, Cyril

  Brown, Hugh D. (Glasgow, Provan)

  Darling, George

  Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood

  Brown, R. W. (Shoreditch & Fbury)

  Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)

  Bennett, J. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

  Buchan, Norman (Renfrewshire, W.)

  Davies, Harold (Leek)

  Bessell, Peter

  Buchanan, Richard (Gl'sg'w, Spr'burn)

  Davies, S. O. (Merthyr)

  Binns, John

  Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)

  de Freitas, Sir Geoffrey

  Bishop, E. S.

  Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)

  Delargy, Hugh

  Blackburn, F.

  Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James

  Dell, Edmund

  Dempsey, James

  Jones, Rt. Hn. Sir Elwyn (W.Ham, S.)

  Pursey, Cmdr. Harry

  Diamond, John

  Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

  Randall, Harry

  Doig, Peter

  Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)

  Rankin, John

  Donnelly, Desmond

  Kelley, Richard

  Redhead, Edward

  Driberg, Tom

  Kenyon, Clifford

  Rees, Merlyn (Leeds, S.)

  Duffy, Dr. A. E. P.

  Kerr, Mrs. Anne (R'ter & Chatham)

  Reynolds, Gerald

  Dunn, James A. (L'pool, Kirkdale)

  Kerr, Dr. David (W'worth, Central)

  Rhodes, Geoffrey

  Dunnett, Jack (Nottingh'm, Central)

  Lawson, George

  Richard, Ivor

  Edelman, Maurice

  Leadbitter, Ted

  Roberts, Albert (Normanton)

  Edwards, Rt. Hn. Ness (Caerphilly)

  Ledger, Ron

  Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)

  Edwards, Robert (Bilston)

  Lee, Rt. Hn. Frederick (Newton)

  Robinson, Rt. Hn. K. (St. Pancras, N.)

  English, Michael

  Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)

  Rodgers, William (Stockton)

  Ennals, David

  Lever, Harold (Cheetham)

  Rose, Paul B.

  Ensor, David

  Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)

  Ross, Rt. Hn. William

  Evans, Albert (Islington, S. W.)

  Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

  Rowland, Christopher

  Evans, Ioan (Birmingham, Yardley)

  Lipton Marcus

  Sheldon, Robert

  Fernyhongh, E.

  Lomas, Kenneth

  Shinwell, Rt. Hn. E.

  Finch, Harold

  Loughlin, Charles

  Shore, Peter (Stepney)

  Fitch, Alan

  Lubbock, Eric

  Short, Rt. Hn. E. (N'c'tle-on-Tyne, C.)

  Fletcher, Sir Eric (Islington, E.)

  Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson

  Short, Mrs. Renée (W'hampton, N. E.)

  Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

  McBride, Neil

  Silkin, John (Deptford)

  Fletcher, Raymond (Ilkeston)

  McCann, J.

  Silkin, S. C. (Camberwell, Dulwich)

  Floud, Bernard

  MacColl, James

  Silverman, Julius (Aston)

  Foley, Maurice

  MacDermot, Niall

  Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)

  Foot, Sir Dingle (Ipswich)

  McGuire, Michael

  Skeffington, Arthur

  Foot, Michael (Ebbw Vale)

  McInnes, James

  Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

  Ford, Ben

  McKay, Mrs. Margaret

  Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)

  Galpern, Sir Myer

  Mackenzie, Alasdair (Ross & Crom'ty)

  Small, William

  Garrett, W. E.

  Mackenzie, Gregor (Rutherglen)

  Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)

  Garrow, A.

  Mackie, George Y. (C'ness & S'land)

  Solomons, Henry

  George, Lady Megan Lloyd

  Mackie, John (Enfield, E.)

  Sorensen, R. W.

  Ginsburg, David

  MacPherson, Malcolm

  Soskice, Rt. Hn. Sir Frank

  Gourlay, Harry

  Mahon, Peter (Preston, S.)

  Steele, Thomas

  Greenwood, Rt. Hn. Anthony

  Mahon, Simon (Bootle)

  Stewart, Rt. Hn. Michael

  Gregory, Arnold

  Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

  Stonehouse, John

  Grey, Charles

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

  Stones, William

  Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)

  Manuel, Archie

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

  Griffiths, Rt. Hn. James (Llanelly)

  Marsh, Richard

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

  Griffiths, Will (Manchester Exchange)

  Mason, Roy

  Summerskill, Dr. Shirley

  Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.

  Maxwell, Robert

  Swain, Thomas

  Gunter, Rt. Hn. R. J.

  Mayhew, Christopher

  Swingler, Stephen

  Hale, Leslie

  Mellish, Robert

  Symonds, J. B.

  Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

  Mendelson, J. J.

  Taverne, Dick

  Hamilton, William (West Fife)

  Mikardo, Ian

  Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

  Hamling, William (Woolwich, W.)

  Millan, Bruce

  Thomas, George (Cardiff, W.)

  Hannan, William

  Miller, Dr. M. S.

  Thomas, Iorwerth (Rhondda, W.)

  Harper, Joseph

  Milne, Edward (Blythe)

  Thomson, George (Dundee, E.)

  Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

  Molloy, William

  Thornton, Ernest

  Hart, Mrs. Judith

  Monslow, Walter

  Thorpe, Jeremy

  Hattersley, Ray

  Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

  Tinn, James

  Hayman, F. H.

  Morris, Charles (Openshaw)

  Tomney, Frank

  Hazell, Bert

  Morris, John (Aberavon)

  Tuck Raphael

  Healey, Rt. Hn. Denis

  Mulley, Rt. Hn. Frederick (SheffieldPk)

  Urwin, T. W.

  Heffer, Eric S.

  Murray, Albert

  Varley, Eric G.

  Henderson, Rt. Hn. Arthur

  Neal, Harold

  Walden, Brian (All Saints)

  Herbison, Rt. Hn. Margaret

  Newens, Stan

  Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

  Hobden, Dennis (Brighton, K'town)

  Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)

  Wallace, George

  Holman, Percy

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

  Warbey, William

  Horner, John

  Norwood, Christopher

  Watkins, Tudor

  Howarth, Harry (Wellingborough)

  Oakes, Gordon

  Weitzman, David

  Howarth, Robert L. (Bolton, E.)

  Ogden, Eric

  Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

  Howell, Denis (Small Heath)

  Oram, Albert E. (E. Ham S.)

  White, Mrs. Eirene

  Howie, W.

  Orbach, Maurice

  Whitlock, William

  Hoy, James

  Orme, Stanley

  Wigg, Rt. Hn. George

  Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)

  Oswald, Thomas

  Wilkins, W. A.

  Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)

  Owen, Will

  Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick

  Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)

  Padley, Walter

  Williams, Alan (Swansea, W.)

  Hunter, Adam (Dunfermline)

  Page, Derek (King's Lynn)

  Williams, Ll. (Abertillery)

  Hunter, A. E. (Feltham)

  Paget, R. T.

  Williams, Mrs. Shirley (Hitchin)

  Hynd, John (Attercliffe)

  Palmer, Arthur

  Williams, W. T. (Warrington)

  Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)

  Pargiter, G. A.

  Willis, George (Edinburgh, E.)

  Irving, Sydney (Dartford)

  Park, Trevor (Derbyshire, S. E.)

  Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)

  Jackson, Colin

  Parkin, B. T.

  Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)

  Janner, Sir Barnett

  Pavitt, Laurence

  Winterbottom, R. E.

  Jeger, George (Goole)

  Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)

  Woodburn, Rt. Hn. A.

  Jeger, Mrs. Lena (H'b'n & St.P'cras, S.)

  Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred

  Woof, Robert

  Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

  Pentland, Norman

  Wyatt, Woodrow

  Jenkins, Rt. Hn. Roy (Stechford)

  Perry, E. C.

  Yates, Victor (Ladywood)

  Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)

  Popplewell, Ernest

  Zilliacus, K.

  Johnson, James (K'ston-on-Hull, W.)

  Prentice, Reginald

  Johnston, Russell (Inverness)

  Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

  Jones, Dan (Burnley)

  Probert, Arthur

  Mr. George Rogers and

  Mr. Ifor Davies.

  216

  217

  NOES

  Agnew, Commander Sir Peter

  Erroll, Rt. Hn. F. J.

  Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain

  Alison, Michael (Barkston Ash)

  Fell, Anthony

  McMaster, Stanley

  Allan, Robert (Paddington, S.)

  Fisher, Nigel

  McNair-Wilson, Patrick

  Allason, James (Hemel Hempstead)

  Fletcher-Cooke, Charles (Darwen)

  Maitland, Sir John

  Amery, Rt. Hn. Julian

  Fletcher-Cooke, Sir John (S'pton)

  Marlowe, Anthony

  Anstruther-Gray, Rt. Hn. Sir W.

  Forrest, George

  Marples, Rt. Hn. Ernest

  Astor, John

  Foster, Sir John

  Marten, Neil

  Atkins, Humphrey

  Fraser, Rt. Hn. Hugh (St'fford & Stone)

  Mathew, Robert

  Awdry, Daniel

  Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)

  Maude, Angus E. U.

  Baker, W. H. K.

  Galbraith, Hn. T. G. D.

  Maudling, Rt. Hn. Reginald

  Balniel, Lord

  Gammans, Lady

  Mawby, Ray

  Barlow, Sir John

  Gardner, Edward

  Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J. (Tiverton)

  Beamish, Col. Sir Tufton

  Gibson-Watt, David

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

  Bennett, F. M. (Torquay)

  Giles, Rear-Admiral Morgan

  Meyer, Sir Anthony

  Bennett, Dr. Reginald (Gos & Fhm)

  Gilmour Ian (Norfolk, Central)

  Mills, Peter (Torrington)

  Berkeley, Humphry

  Gilmour, Sir John (East Fife)

  Mills, Stratton (Belfast, N.)

  Berry, Hn. Anthony

  Glover, Sir Douglas

  Miscampbell, Norman

  Biffen, John

  Glyn, Sir Richard

  Mitchell, David

  Biggs-Davison, John

  Gower, Raymond

  Monro, Hector

  Bingham, R. M.

  Grant, Anthony

  More, Jasper

  Birch, Rt. Hn. Nigel

  Grant-Ferris, R. (Nantwich)

  Morrison, Charles (Devizes)

  Black, Sir Cyril

  Gresham-Cooke, R.

  Morrison, John (Salisbury)

  Blaker, Peter

  Grieve, Percy

  Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles

  Bossom, Hn. Clive

  Griffiths, Peter (Smethwick)

  Murton, Oscar

  Boyd-Carpenter, Rt. Hn. J.

  Gurden, Harold

  Neave, Airey

  Boyle, Rt. Hn. Sir Edward

  Hall, John (Wycombe)

  Nicholls, Sir Harmar

  Brewis, John

  Hall-Davis, A. G. F. (Morecambe)

  Nicholson, Sir Godfrey

  Brinton, Sir Tatton

  Hamilton, William (West Fife)

  Noble, Rt. Hn. Michael

  Bromley-Davenport, Lt.-Col. Sir Walter

  Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N. W.)

  Nugent, Rt. Hn. Sir Richard

  Brooke, Rt. Hn. Henry

  Harris, Reader (Heston)

  Onslow, Cranley

  Brown, Sir Edward (Bath)

  Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)

  Orr, Capt. L. P. S.

  Bruce-Gardyne, J.

  Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Maccles'd)

  Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian

  Bryan, Paul

  Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Maccles'd)

  Orr-Ewing, Sir Ian

  Buchanan-smith, Alick

  Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)

  Osborn, John (Hallam)

  Buck, Antony

  Harvie Anderson, Miss

  Osborne, Sir Cyril (Louth)

  Butcher, Sir Herbert

  Heald Rt. Hn. Sir Lionel

  Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)

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

  Heath, Rt. Hn. Edward

  Perclval, Ian

  Campbell, Gordon

  Hendry, Forbes

  Peyton, John

  Carlisle, Mark

  Higgins, Terence L.

  Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth

  Carr, Rt. Hn. Robert

  Hiley, Joseph

  Pike, Miss Mervyn

  Cary Sir Robert

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

  Pitt, Dame Edith

  Channon, H. P. G.

  Hirst, Geoffrey

  Pounder, Rafton

  Chataway, Christopher

  Hobson, Rt. Hn. Sir John

  Powell, Rt. Hn. J. Enoch

  Chichester-Clark, R.

  Hogg, Rt. Hn. Quintin

  Price, David (Eastleigh)

  Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)

  Hopkins, Alan

  Prior, J. M. L.

  Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)

  Hordern, Peter

  Pym, Francis

  Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)

  Hornby, Richard

  Quennell, Miss J. M.

  Cole, Norman

  Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hn. Dame P.

  Ramsden, Rt. Hn. James

  Cooke, Robert

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

  Redmayne, Rt. Hn. Martin

  Cooper, A. E.

  Howe, Geoffrey (Bebington)

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

  Cooper-Key, Sir Neill)

  Hunt, John (Bromley)

  Renton, Rt. Hn. David

  Cordle, John

  Hutchison, Michael Clark

  Ridley, Hn. Nicholas

  Corfield, F. V.

  Iremonger, T. L.

  Ridsdale, Julian

  Costain, A. P.

  Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)

  Roberts, Sir Peter (Heeley)

  Courtney, Cdr. Anthony

  Jenkin, Patrick (Woodford)

  Robson Brown, Sir William

  Craddock, Sir Beresford (Spelthorne)

  Jennings, J. C.

  Rodgers, Sir John (Sevenoaks)

  Crawley, Aidan

  Jones, Arthur (Northants, S.)

  Roots, William

  Crosthwaite-Eyre, Col. Sir Oliver

  Jones, Rt. Hn. Aubrey (Hall Green)

  Royle, Anthony

  Crowder, F. P.

  Jopling, Michael

  Russell, Sir Ronald

  Cunningham, Sir Knox

  Joseph, Rt. Hn. Sir Keith

  St. John-Stevas, Norman

  Curran, Charles

  Kaberry, Sir Donald

  Scott-Hopkins, James

  Currie, G. B. H.

  Kerby, Capt. Henry

  Sharples, Richard

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Kerr, Sir Hamilton (Cambridge)

  Shepherd, William

  Dance, James

  Kilfedder, James A.

  Sinclair, Sir George

  Davies, Dr. Wyndham (Perry Barr)

  Kimball, Marcus

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

  d'Avigdor-Goldsmid, Sir Henry

  King, Evelyn (Dorset, S.)

  Smyth, Rt. Hn. Brig. Sir John

  Dean, Paul

  Lagden, Godfrey

  Soames, Rt. Hn. Christopher

  Deedes, Rt. Hn. W. F.

  Lambton, Viscount

  Spearman, Sir Alexander

  Digby, Simon Wingfield

  Lancaster, Col. C. G.

  Speir, Rupert

  Dodds-Parker, Douglas

  Langford-Holt, Sir John

  Stainton, Keith

  Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. M.

  Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)

  Stanley, Hn. Richard

  Doughty, Charles

  Litchfield, Capt. John

  Stodart, J. A. (Edinburgh, W.)

  Douglas-Home, Rt. Hn. Sir Alec

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

  Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm

  Drayson, G. B.

  Lloyd, Ian (P'tsm'th, Langstone)

  Studholme, Sir Henry

  du Cann, Edward

  Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Selwyn (Wirral)

  Summers, Sir Spencer

  Eden, Sir John

  Longbottom, Charles

  Talbot, John E.

  Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)

  Longden, Gilbert

  Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)

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

  Loveys, Walter H.

  Taylor, Edward M. (G'gow, Cathcart)

  Emery, Peter

  Lucas, Sir Jocelyn (Portsmouth, S.)

  Taylor, Frank (Moss Side)

  Emmet, Hn. Mrs. Evelyn

  Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh (Hendon, S.)

  Teeling, Sir William

  Errington, Sir Eric

  MacArthur, Ian

  Temple, John M.

  218

  219

  Thatcher, Mrs. Margaret

  Walder, David (High Peak)

  Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)

  Thomas, Sir Leslie (Canterbury)

  Walker, Peter (Worcester)

  Wise, A. R.

  Thomas, Rt. Hn. Peter (Conway)

  Walker-Smith, Rt. Hn. Sir Derek

  Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick

  Thompson, Sir Richard (Croydon, S.)

  Wall, Patrick

  Wood, Rt. Hn. Richard

  Thorneycroft, Rt. Hn. Peter

  Ward, Dame Irene

  Woodhouse, Hn. Christopher

  Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)

  Weatherill, Bernard

  Wylie, N. R.

  Tilney, John (Wavertree)

  Webster, David

  Younger, Hn. George

  Turton, Rt. Hn. R. H.

  Wells, John (Maidstone)

  Tweedsmuir, Lady

  Whitelaw, William

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

  van Straubenzee, W. R.

  Williams, Sir Rolf Dudley (Exeter)

  Mr. Batsford and Mr. McLaren.

  Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hn. Sir John

  Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)

  Third and Fourth Resolutions agreed to

  WAYS AND MEANS
  [12th November]
  Resolution reported,

  TAX REBATES FOR EXPORTS
  That provision shall be made for authorising the Commissioners of Customs and Excise to make payments out of the sums received by them on account of duties of customs and excise and purchase tax for the purpose of affording relief in respect of duties of customs and excise chargeable on hydrocarbon oils, vehicle excise duty and purchase tax incurred in connection with the production, manufacture or carriage of goods exported from the United Kingdom on or after 26th October 1964, for prescribing the conditions for, and the amounts of, such payments, and for supplementary purposes.
  Resolution read a Second time.
  Question, That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution, put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 90 (Ways and Means Resolutions), and agreed to.
  Bill ordered to be brought in upon the said Resolution and upon the other Resolutions reported from the Committee of Ways and Means and agreed to this day and upon the Order [12th November] relating to Finance Bill (Procedure) by the Chairman of Ways and Means, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Diamond, and Mr. MacDermot.

  FINANCE
  Bill to grant certain duties, alter other duties and to make further provision in connection with Finance, presented
  220
  accordingly and read the First time; to be read a Second time Tomorrow and to be Printed [Bill 11.]

  EXPIRING LAWS CONTINUANCE [MONEY]
  Resolution reported,
  That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to continue certain expiring laws, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of such expenses as may be occasioned by the continuance of Section 3 of the Emergency Laws (Repeal) Act 1959 and Part I of, and Schedule 1 to, the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962 till the end of December, 1965, and of the Rent of Furnished Houses Control (Scotland) Act 1943, the Furnished Houses (Rent Control) Act 1946 and (when in force) Part VII of the Licensing Act 1964 till the end of March, 1966, being expenses which under any Act are to be paid out of such moneys.—[Mr. MacDermot.]
  Resolution agreed to.
  Mr. Robert Cooke: I do not know, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, whether I am in order in raising this matter and if not I shall sit down, but before the House votes the money which is referred to I should say that it is for providing funds to continue certain parts of the Licensing Act.
  Would I be in order in asking the Government whether they have any statement to make on the question of the licensing planning areas about which a statement was made last year?
  Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Dr. Horace King): I am sorry to disappoint the hon. Member, but the Report stage of this particular Motion is almost purely formal. It is not in order to discuss anything except whether or not the Report shall be accepted.

  EXPIRING LAWS CONTINUANCE BILL
  Considered in Committee.
  [Dr. HORACE KING in the Chair]

  EXPIRING LAWS CONTINUANCE BILL

    Clause 1.—(CONTINUANCE OF CERTAIN EXPIRING ENACTMENTS.)
    Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.
    4.24 p.m.
    Mr. W. T. Williams: Before the Question of Clause 1 standing part of the Bill is decided may I, for the sake of information, deal with a matter contained in the Clause, in subsection (4), of which I have given notice to the responsible Minister of the Home Department? I do not propose to deal at any length with this matter, but, before I say anything more, perhaps it would be right that I should declare such interest as I have in it. Some hon. Members may know that I have the honour to be a member of the Co-operative Party. The matter I want particularly to raise is one which affects the Co-operative movement.
    The provisions contained in subsection (4) have a history which goes back to 1945. In the Licensing Planning (Temporary Provisions) Act of that year it was laid down that liquor licences in war-damaged areas should be granted only following an inquiry by the licensing planning committees which were set up under the Act to review the circumstances of areas that had been badly damaged during the war to secure that the number and distribution of licensed premises in war-damaged areas met local requirements and in particular had regard to possible future developments.
    Those provisions were incorporated in Part II of the Licensing Act, 1953, to which reference is made in this subsection, but in that Act provision was made subject to an annual renewal under the Expiring Laws Continuance Act. By Section 59 of the 1953 Act no new licences would be granted unless the justices were satisfied that the planning committee had no objection to the grant. By the same Act, however, the Secretary of State was given power, under Section 55(4), to revoke the order constituting
    222
    a licensing planning committee and the licensing planning area if it appeared to him that it was no longer expedient that such an area should be treated in this special way.
    The Home Secretary has used that power in a number of cases, but in a number of cases the local licensing planning areas still continue under the authority of the local licensing planning committees, notably in Birmingham, London and Plymouth, with which, in particular, the Co-operative movement is finding very considerable difficulty arising because of their continuance. The present Minister of State, Board of Trade in the 1962 debate on the Committee stage of the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill moved that Part II of the 1953 Act should be deleted. He said that the licensing committees were redundant. His plea for the abolition of the areas was supported by hon. Members on both sides of the Committee.
    The then Parliamentary Secretary said that the areas needed more time to work out plans connected with the redevelopment of war-damaged areas, but that the Home Secretary would use firmly the powers that were given to him under Section 55 of the Act to end any areas that were regarded by him as no longer necessary. It was hoped continuously to keep these areas under review with a view to bringing them to an end within the next year or two. The present Minister of Land and Natural Resources thought that the Government, by failing to meet the plea put to him on that occasion, was considering vested interests rather than the public interest.
    My right hon. Friend hoped that when the next Expiring Laws Continuance Bill came before the House something more than a progress report would be given. Indeed, in November of last year the then Home Secretary announced the setting up of a Departmental Committee charged with considering and reporting whether, amongst other things, in war-damaged areas there was a continuing need for the licensing planning machinery.
    Despite that undertaking by the Minister, the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill, 1963, and the Licensing Act, 1964, have given a new lease of life to the licensing planning committees. My reason for seeking information arises from the undertakings given by the

    223
    Minister's predecessors, for the position now must be that most licensing planning committees have served their purpose and should cease to be. They were intended to be applied to the extensively war-damaged areas, which for the most part have now been replanned and redeveloped. In fact, licensing planning committees are now largely used merely to refuse grants of more licences within their areas. A virtual monopoly is given to existing licensees.
    The procedure, as can be seen in the London area, with which I am more familiar than with other areas, makes a complete mockery of any suggestion that the only considerations weighing with the licensing planning committee are planning considerations. For instance, when the committee holds its inquiry to see whether any objections are made before the case can be taken to the brewster sessions, as well as the provision of maps, the addresses of licensed premises, and so on, it requires that notices should be sent to the local planning authority and to anybody in the area who might be interested.
    What happens in practice is that, when the licensing committee, consisting of anything between 12 and 16 magistrates, meets the objectors, the objectors are represented by barristersat-law, by solicitors, by "friends" of all kinds, who, for the most part, represent people who have a financial interest in the prevention of competition. Although monopoly value payments were abolished some years ago, in practice the only effect of these special planning areas and planning committees is that monopolies still exist, although those who object to the development now have to pay nothing.
    Generally, the functions of the licensing committee, as anybody who has ever appeared before one knows only too well, and the functions of the licensing bench which follows, if permission is given by the planning committee, are so blurred that the second hearing is nothing but a repetition of the first. The objectors are represented by precisely the same counsel and solicitors. The same arguments are advanced. The licensing committee deals with the matter in precisely the same way as did the planning committee.
    224
    I seek from the Minister some assurance that the licensing planning machinery which has so outlived its usefulness is at least in the process of being dismantled. We have not tabled an Amendment because we want to give the Departmental Committee of inquiry an opportunity to deal with the matter and dismantle the machinery as need arises. As the machinery is not uniformly applied and as it is necessary for applicants to present their cases not only on planning considerations but often in the face of opposition from vested interests concerned only to prevent the development of competition and preserve their own monopoly rights, it appears to us that the time must now be very close when planning committees can be brought to an end, except in areas where it can be clearly shown that there is still a considerable amount of redevelopment following wartime destruction and elsewhere be dealt with before the licensing justices alone.
    These are the matters upon which we should be grateful for information from the Ministry. Before the matter goes to a vote, we should be glad to hear from him that attention is being given to these matters and that the time will not be unduly long delayed when former Ministers' promises are fulfilled by this Minister and these committees brought to an end.
    Mr. Robert Cooke: I wish to add a little to what was said by the hon. and learned Member for Warrington (Mr. W. T. Williams) since I was one of those who raised the matter on 28th November, 1962. It is on the report of that debate that some of the questions are being asked today. Bristol has a problem in the matter of licensing planning areas. I will not go on at great length about that. I have no personal interest in the matter, financial or otherwise, though I have studied the problem and a number of interests have approached me about it.
    It appears that the existing state of affairs mitigates against those who would like to start up in the licensed trade, particularly those who want to sell drink in connection with other things, such as food. Examples of these people are licensed grocers. The difficulty arises because of the considerable wartime bomb damage. It is all very well for the

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    hon. and learned Gentleman to talk about the virtual monopoly of those who were in before the war. I believe that I am right in saying that the way in which it has been arranged is that for every public house or licensed premises destroyed in the war a notional barrellage is taken into account. I am not sure how it is worked out, but the number of barrels indicates to some extent the power and size of the licensed premises.
    Until till the barrels held in reserve from bombed premises in the war are reallocated into new licensed premises, it is virtually impossible, at any rate very difficult, for anybody to get a licence. In the case of the City of Bristol there were an enormous number of public houses before the war. There are still plenty of them. It would seem that the existing machinery is likely to have a restrictive effect for many years to come, unless there is an alteration.
    I draw the Minister's attention to what was said in November, 1962, by the then Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department. My hon. Friend the Member for Oxford (Mr. Woodhouse) said:
    "it will be possible in the next year to revoke licensing planning in something like half-adozen further areas."
    This is the really important statement:
    "We shall continue to keep the matter under review and I hope that we shall bring it to an end in the next few years.—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 28th November, 1962; Vol. 668, c. 625–6.]
    That was in 1962. A "few years" have elapsed. Perhaps with the passing of a few more years we shall see the abolition of the whole system. No doubt the Minister will be able to inform the Committee.
    The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. George Thomas): Sir Harry, may I, first, express the pleasure of us all at seeing you in the Chair for the first time as one of the Deputy-Speakers of the House. As a former member of the Chairmen's Panel, I take a special delight in welcoming you.
    It is strange the things that happen to us in life, and that my first task in a debate in this Parliament should be to speak on licensing. It seems very rough justice indeed. I have now been at the Home Office a month and I am learning
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    a great many things. I am trying to discipline myself, but, of course, there are subjects like this one which have always held a fascinating interest for me.
    My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Warrington (Mr. W. T. Williams) outlined quite accurately the provisions of the Bill and mentioned the difficulties which the present machinery is causing. He expressed the anxiety, as I understood it—as did the hon. Member for Bristol, West (Mr. Robert Cooke)—that the machinery now operating may cause injustice and that the Departmental Committee might not be moving fast enough.
    The Committee was set up only in April last. It is a very distinguished Committee under the chairmanship of Mr. J. Ramsay Willis, Q.C., and its terms of reference are:
    "To consider and report whether,

    (a) in war-damaged areas to which Part II of the Licensing Act, 1953 applies, there is a continuing need for the licensing planning machinery for which it provides;

    (b) in other areas of major redevelopment or more generally there is a need for this or other machinery for securing that the number, nature and distribution of licensed premises accord with local requirements; and

    (c) in either case, if there is such a need, the machinery should apply to on-licences only or also to off licences."

    This Committee has been very active. Appointed in April, it spent the time between April and July in collecting written evidence on the subject. One meeting of the Committee was held before the summer Recess. Two meetings have been held since, and it is hoped that the Committee will be able to meet at least once a month.
    There are at present, if I may now answer the question put by the hon. Member for Bristol, West—18 licensing planning areas covering London, Birmingham, Bristol, Canterbury, Coventry, East Ham, West Ham, Gosport, Grimsby, Kingston-upon-Hull, Manchester, Plymouth, Portsmouth, Sheffield, Southampton, South Shields, Sunderland and Swansea. In 15—that is the important figure—of the 33 areas originally constituted, licensing planning has, with the local committee's consent, been brought to an end in the years 1955–1963.
    This Departmental Committee expects to report next year, and in the light of its recommendations the House will

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    then be better placed to judge what is the need for licensing planning and what form, if any, it should take in the future. It is hoped that the House will have an opportunity of considering these issues before another Expiring Laws Continuance Bill falls to be introduced in 1965. Meanwhile, I am sure that the Committee will agree that there is no reasonable alternative, since the Departmental Committee is doing its work, but to continue the present arrangements for another 12 months.
    Sir Edward Boyle: May I, briefly, welcome the hon. Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. G. Thomas) in his new office. The first speech that I have heard him deliver in this House was on Thursday, 23rd November, 1950, on the subject of whether the Festival of Britain Exhibition should be open on a Sunday or not—perhaps a subject with which we were more immediately associated than the subject of licensing.
    The Committee having heard his explanation, we shall, of course, agree with the Clause at it stands. I only hope that this Departmental Committee, which has started extremely well and has made good progress in its labours, will enable more progress to be made by the next time we discuss a similar Bill. Experience shows sometimes that, as with certain aspects of the criminal law, it occasionally becomes easier to add to the Schedule to the Bill rather than to replace it by permanent legis-lation. I hope that the hon. Gentleman's forecast that we shall have progress reported by next year will be fulfilled.
    4.45 p.m.
    Mr. Robert Cooke: I do not wish to appear more harsh than my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Sir E. Boyle), but could the hon. Gentleman give me an assurance that the Committee will have completed its work by the time we consider a similar Bill next year? Will he also give an assurance that the Government will make it possible to discuss this Expiring Laws Continuance Bill?
    Mr. George Thomas: Although I have been here only a month, I have been here
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    long enough to know that it would be foolish to give a guarantee. I only express a hope. I express the earnest hope that the Committee will have finished its deliberations next year.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 2.—(SHORT TITLE AND APPLICATION TO NORTHERN IRELAND.)
    The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Niall MacDermot):I beg to move, in page 2, line 2, after "1919", to insert "continues".
    I presume that it would be convenient to discuss the next Amendment with this one.
    The Deputy-Chairman (Sir Harry Legge-Bourke): Yes.
    Mr. MacDermot: These are two drafting Amendments which we propose at the request of the Northern Ireland Government so far as the operation of the Bill relates to Northern Ireland.
    I can explain the matter very briefly. I invite hon. Members to look at Clause 1(3) of the Bill. They will see that it proposes to continue in force Section 3 of the Emergency Laws (Repeal) Act, 1959. It also makes a consequential amendment to suspend the effects of Section 10(3) of that Act. The purpose of these Amend-ments is to make it clear that that consequential amendment applies to Northern Ireland as well as the continuation of Section3.
    Sir E. Boyle: I recall during recent years, on a number of occasions, Ministers moving drafting Amendments, and the question whether or not they were purely drafting leading to controversy in the Committee. The Government must not think that all the Amendments described as drafting will be accepted as such, but on this occasion the hon. and learned Gentleman has fully made his case.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Further Amendment made: In page 2, line 3, after first "and", insert:
    "amends section 10(3) thereof, and continues".—[Mr. MacDermot.]
    Question proposed, That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill.
    Mr. G. A. Pargiter: Sir Harry, would it be appropriate here for me to refer to the Commonwealth Immigration Act?
    The Deputy-Chairman: Consideration of that matter must wait until we reach the Schedule.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

  Schedule.—(ACTS CONTINUED.)
  Mr. R. T. Paget: I beg to move, in page 2, to leave out lines 13 and 14.
  At this point, we are considering what are the rights, obligations and liberties of about 2 million foreigners who are either in this country or will he here during the forthcoming year. Of this total, 1½ million will be visitors, but 500, 000 will be here on a more permanent basis, some on labour permits, some on education permits and some permanently resident amongst us.
  This is a subject which we English hon. Members, at any rate, should take a particular interest in since if it had not been for wave after wave of foreigners coming here most of us would probably simply net exist. We are the products of one wave of immigrants after another, for England is the great mother of Europe. That has been so for 500 years, because this is the land to which people who chose liberty have come.
  We have those who fled from Germany and the oppression of the Empire, the weavers who came from the oppression in the Netherlands by Spain, the Huguenots from France, and those who lied from oppression in Russia. All these people came to England. They have enriched our nation, brought us their skills and made England what it is. My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary is here because of the Social Democrats who chose freedom here from Russia. I am here because the Huguenots chose religious freedom in Britain.
  Upon that basis this nation is built up. Yet we in this House are, for the fiftieth time, to deny these people the most elementary of human rights—the right to live under the rule of law. That is what this provision means. We are renewing emergency wartime powers given to the Government on 4th August, 1914, and re-
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  newed again without discussion in 1919 and renewed annually since then. These emergency powers give complete control to the Executive over the liberties of these people who come here. They are now more or less consolidated in the Statutory Rules and Orders, 1953, which provide the most Draconian powers to the Government.
  Entry to this country is subject to the say-so of a number of immigration officers and from their decision there is really not even an appeal to the Executive. The immigration officer can say, "Back you go"—as he did to the Williams family of Cape coloureds who came to this country because they wanted to work in freedom here rather than in the oppression in their own country. But the immigration official, whether rightly or wrongly, said "No", and back to sea went the family again. Meanwhile, people intervened so that when their ship returned here, back they came with it.
  This seems to be an excessively autocratic power to be exercised by a single official. We had a similar case with the two Canadians who came over to visit their grandmother, hoping to maintain themselves while they were here and before they went back home. Back across the Atlantic they went on a single issue on which there was not even an Executive appeal. The Williams' case was sad because the family had spent £1, 500 for their passages and the decision of the immigration official appeared to wipe that out.
  There is also the question of the "black book" which the Estimates Committee heard about. It is a book containing about 7, 000 and more names and is supplied to immigration officers. It sets out the people who are not to be admitted. I have not the slightest doubt that the vast majority of the people in that book are properly excluded from our shores as criminals of various types, as subversives or as security risks.
  But in a book like that there are almost bound to be mistakes. People may have been put there as a result of false information, or because their names happen to resemble others. Yet there is no procedure of any kind whereby any man can ever get his name out of that book. He is merely turned away and given no reason or indication as to why. If any hon. Member has tried to find out, he has

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  been told that he cannot be given the reason because it is a security matter.
  But, of course, only a very small percentage of the 7, 000 names in that book have anything to do with security. As so often happens, security is an excuse for arbitrary behaviour when that is convenient to the Executive. When the aliens do get into the country, they are subject to arbitrary arrest without charge and without explanation. They can be arrested by the Executive and they have no right to be told why. Sometimes they are not told why. If there is no country to which they can be sent they can be indefinitely imprisoned without charge.
  These are all powers which we are being asked to give once more to the Executive. It is not unreasonable that, if foreign visitors do not behave themselves, we should ask them to go. Nor is it unreasonable that we should tell them why. But with residents here it is a very different matter. Many residents have never seen any other country with their "knowing eye" They came here as babies. They are married to citizens and their children are citizens but, simply by an executive act, they can be exiled from this country which is the only country which they have ever known and can be separated from their wives and children. Those are not reasonable rights.
  5.0 p.m.
  We take power not only to expel them, but to expel them on a particular ship to a particular destination where the Government might want them for purposes of punishment, thereby by executive action, as in the case of Dr. Soblen, which hon. Members will remember, finding a way round the extradition procedure.
  Lest us compare what we are doing today with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as passed by the General Assembly of the United Nations. I will quote a few of its Articles. Article 7 says:
  "All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law."
  That we are denying to all these aliens. Article 9 says:
  "No one should be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile."
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  That is precisely the power which we are now giving to the Home Office.
  Article 10 says:
  "Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights…"
  This, again, we are denying to these aliens among us.
  Article 15 says:
  "No one shall be…denied the right to change his nationality."
  We provide no right at all in these directions. That may go outside the Bill and I will not proceed further with it, but if hon. Members do not like my quotations from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as it comes to us from the United Nations, there is a more ancient provision which will be found in the Bible and which says:
  "One law shall be to him that is home born. and unto the stranger that sojourneth among you."
  There is something to be said for that, at least as a proposition.
  I should like to quote from something which the present Attorney-General said on this subject last year. He put it so well that I cannot do better than quote it. He said:
  "The treatment of aliens is one of the tests of how a country conducts itself, or, at least, it ought to be. The deportation of aliens, going as it does to the root of individual liberty, is a matter of great concern to all those who have any interest in human rights…
  In my view, there is a need for a fundamental review of the aliens law for many reasons. It is a basic principle of the administration of our justice and, indeed, of the rule of law itself, that the law should be certain and ascertainable. Another basic principle of the fair administration of justice is that the administration of the law should be frank and impartial and should be seen to be frank and impartial. In my submission, the present aliens law infringes both those principles of the rule of law."
  Of course it does.
  My right hon. and learned Friend went on to quote what Mr. Justice Barry said about the incomprehensibility of this law and went on to say:
  "The use of the power of a Home Secretary to choose the carrier and to put an alien upon an aeroplane is a use which enables extradition to be accomplished by means which deprive the alien of the remedy, or the protection, of reference to the court of his case. If it is desired that the Home Secretary should be given this power and that the principle of the non-extradition of political offenders

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  should no longer be honoured by this House, let the law say so in terms, let not this immense power be given administratively, so to speak, through the back door."
  That is what we are doing now. My right hon and learned Friend went on to say that we could say to an alien:
  "'Get out and stay out.'"
  He added that we should not say:
  "Get cut and go to the place I choose you should go to.'"
  Finally, my right hon. and learned Friend said:
  "The exercise of the Home Secretary's discretion in a fundamental field of human liberty is in effect unchallengeable. There may be more than one lawyer in the House today who has had experience in court itself of the sense of frustration, indeed almost shame, that some of our judges have felt about this wholly oppressive and unsatisfactory arrangement."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th November, 1963; Vol. 685, c. 300–5.]
  It is not only my right hon. and learned Friend who has spoken in these terms. My hon. Friend the Minister of State at the Home Office and one hon. Member after another has spoken of the utter unsatisfactoriness of arbitrary administrative powers affecting liberty to this degree.
  Why should we put ourselves in this position? After all, apart from short periods of unfortunate administration, on the whole our treatment of foreigners has not been too bad. These horrible arbitrary powers have, on the whole, not been used more arbitrarily than the powers which, less arbitrary in substance, other nations have. Why should we put ourselves into this false position and have to hang our heads at the United Nations and say that we cannot ratify the Declaration of Human Rights? It seems so unnecessary.
  The Americans have done it. By their Law 414 of 1952, the Americans, in effect, have brought foreigners within the rule of law. They have provided tribunals to look into and to ascertain the facts and to give judgment in all those matters where we act arbitrarily. They have set the example. Why do we have to go on doing it in this way?
  I shall make a suggestion about the manner in which we should deal with this matter. We need legislation. Of course, that legislation must provide wide discretions to the Home Office on matters of
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  policy, for, in general, whom one admits and does not admit to the country must be a matter of policy. It may be that we should look at the policy rather differently and that one's object should not be to find a reason for keeping people out, but to find a reason for bringing them in.
  I know of no greater enrichment which a country can find than having ready-made and skilled operatives which it has had neither to rear nor train coming to it. One used to think of nations being rich because of their natural resources, but all our experience since the war has taught us that the one natural resource which matters is the supply of skilled labour which one has or can attract.
  The miracles we have seen, the German miracle, the Hong Kong miracle, the French miracle and our own miracle, for that matter, if one goes back to the Industrial Revolution, have all sprung from the supply of skilled workers who could take up the expansion and add to the wealth of the nation. The idea that we need to keep out people who would wish to bring their skills and capacity to us is erroneous.
  However, although in general it is a matter of policy that the Home Office must have discretion, political asylum is an ancient and proud tradition of our nation and I do not see why that should be a matter of discretion. In extradition proceedings the courts try the issue if it is raised and decide whether it is a case for political asylum. Why cannot they try all such claims?
  Finally, why should not reasons be given? It is occasionally said that one must not breach security, but so rarely is security involved and so often is it the mere excuse for arbitrariness. In all conscience, the Americans are not less security conscious than we are and they do it.
  While there must be discretion about who comes here, when they are here why should they not enjoy the same rule of law that we have? There may be some instances for exception and one could consider those, but in general why should aliens not be under our law and have the same conditions of freedom from arbitrary arrest?
  While discretion about the expulsion of visitors should probably be given to

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  the Home Office, surely residents are entitled to be given reasons for their expulsion and surely when expulsion means the destruction of a family or is an offence against human rights, it is not a matter for executive decision taken privately behind doors, but is a matter which justice requires should be decided in the courts.
  I ask the Home Office to agree to this. It is the procedure which we adopted when we got the Army Act. It is a procedure which I claim to have invented. For years, the Army Act was a collection of orders and regulations and year after year everybody said, "Well, of course, we would like to have an Act, but it can never be done". But with a Conservative Government, then with a narrow majority, we put up some obstruction, and Lord Head came to see me—I was running the obstruction—and I said, "What we want is an Act, and I will tell you how to do it. Set up a Select Committee of the House and a Committee from the War Office. Let those two Committees, working together, work out what can be done and when they have done that let us have the Parliamentary draftsmen to draft the Bill."
  That is exactly what we did. It took us about 18 months. We worked as a Select Committee—and a Select Committee forgets what party it belongs to. We worked as a unit. We had a job to do and we did it. After 18 months, we brought out a unanimous Report and the Bill came before the House. That was the present Army Act. The Government and the House accepted it without a single Amendment. Five years afterwards, when, according to its provisions, the Act came for review before this House, I think that only three minor Amendments were necessary.
  This seems to be an example of highly efficient legislation suitable for this sort of occasion, and suitable particularly where a Government have a narrow majority and are hard-pressed for time on the Floor of the House. The advantage of this procedure is that it will take no time on the Floor of the House at all. We go upstairs and work this out. We get the services of Parliamentary draftsmen at the right end of the year. We cannot ask for them during the 100 days, or whatever it is called, with the rush of
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  legislation taking place, but when there is a slackening that is the time when we can do this kind of work. It seems to me that this is the way to do it.
  I would make one other addition, because I believe that this Committee would have the advantage of 1952 Law 414 of the American Laws. They are the people who work by our system of law. It seems that this is the way that it should be done and I believe that we would, as we did in the Army Act, come to a unanimous recommendation.
  I would end with this final plea. There is this further thing to be said. Here we are concerned with the rights of individuals and the protection of individuals against the arbitrariness of the Executive. This is what all this is about. If Parliament has any right or justification to exist at all, that is its most important purpose. Therefore, legislation dealing with this, which is so particularly Parliament's business—more Parliamentary business even than Government business—is the very kind of legislation in which the House of Commons should have a very special part in its creation, not in its mere approval.
  5.15 p.m.
  I would urge that the Government accept this suggestion, get away from the excuse which we have heard year after year, "Yes, but it is not the time now." and now that 50 years of this prevarication have gone by say, "Let the House of Commons solve this as they solved the other".
  Mr. J. Grimond: The hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) has a most honourable record on this matter. Year after year he has raised this question of the treatment of aliens, and I believe that the Committee is much indebted to him and will also admire the way in which this afternoon he has overcome a certain disability of voice, and once more put before us this question which is, as he says, of great importance for individual liberty and for the good name of our country.
  There are several objections to the present method of our treatment of aliens. First, as was eloquently said by the Attorney-General last year, it is uncertain. Secondly, it is liable to be oppressive. In saying that, I certainly do not want to criticise in any way the humanity of the Home Office. Home

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  Secretaries are liable to get into very hot water at very short notice and they have extremely difficult matters to administer.
  The record of the present Home Secretary's predecessor is well known to the House. He indeed got into very hot water. I believe that he was made the scapegoat in many ways for procedures which were not his own responsibility, and I am sure that he discharged his duties as conscientiously and humanely as he possibly could, within the procedures laid down. While there is no doubt that occasionally our regulations are seriously oppressive, much more often, I think, they are mildly oppressive in that more and more people travel the world these days and expect to be treated as members of the human race and not as members of some nation to be put through a different Customs entrance procedure, to be made to fill in different forms and so on. It is important for us to keep up to date in the general world movement of the obstacles to travel being removed.
  This brings me to the next objection to our regulations; they are ineffective. As is often pointed out, it is easy for train robbers to leave the country or for M. Bidault to enter it, certainly easier than for respectable members of the community to do so, for the great bulk of aliens when travelling must fill in forms and the information be filed, docketed, examined and the details eventually stored somewhere in a Government Department, in which, we have been given to understand, there are some 2 million cards, no doubt periodically examined.
  Occasionally we find on the record details of how the hon. and learned Member for Northampton has entered the country by filling in the necessary forms describing himself as Adolf Hitler. I have no doubt that in due course someone will get around to this and a question will be addressed to the hon. and learned Gentleman. Needless to say he will find little difficulty in establishing that he is not Adolf Hitler. This all goes to show that a great deal of time is wasted under the present system.
  The next objection which is often raised against these procedures is that they are not incorporated in permanent
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  Statutes which have been properly discussed in the House but are subject to this annual procedure. For my part, I am less convinced by this objection. I believe that by chance, so to speak, there is a certain amount to be said for having an annual debate on this Act. It enables us to examine certain issues that arise from time to time. But I believe that our treatment of aliens is not one of the proudest features of our legal system. It is certainly uncertain and I believe that it is failing in its main object.
  Mr. Paget: There is the procedure under the Army Act, wherein machinery was provided for an annual debate. Under the Act we are discussing, surely it could be provided that the Home Secretary should make a report on aliens and that that would be debatable each year?
  Mr. Grimond: I appreciate that, and it certainly might be one of the matters which the Committee could consider.
  Being a member of the Liberal Party has this feature: one has not recently had to rebut in office speeches made in opposition. Naturally, for my hon. Friends in the Liberal Party and I this is a temporary feature of our position, but at the moment it allows us a certain latitude in debate. I recall powerful speeches made on this subject by practically the whole legal representation on the Government Front Bench.
  The Attorney-General has made the same suggestion as the hon. and learned Member for Northampton. Several columns in HANSARD, much of it lucid, forceful and full of logic, are attributed to him, and I have no doubt that the officials of his Department will inform the Home Secretary of the intent of those speeches. The Home Secretary has taken part in these debates in past years. He is highly humane and logical, as a result of which he, too, must be impressed by his previous speeches. I am not so sure about the Under-Secretary.
  Another feature of these debates is that most of those who take part in them would not have been in this country had they not got in as aliens. That applies to myself and the hon. and learned Member for Northampton. Considering the number of people bearing his name, it is obvious that it must have been easy for his forefathers to enter the country.

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  I will leave that matter there, for there is no need for me to go over the arguments in detail. The Minister without Portfolio, as well as all the others, is prominently on record as having drawn attention to many of the existing failings. These arguments surely need not be deployed yet again, particularly to a Labour Front Bench.
  Sir E. Boyle: There is one slight difference between the suggestion made by the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) and that made by the Attorney-General last year, in that the precedent suggested by the Attorney-General concerned the establishment of a Royal Commission. The hon. and learned Member for Northampton has suggested the establishment of a Select Committee. I need not mention the rather unhappy history of the Liberal Party in recommending Select Committees, both at the time of the Maurice debate and in 1924. It would be interesting to know where the Leader of the Liberal Party stands on that point now.
  Mr. Grimond: What about the precedent of the Marconi scandal? If the Government were anxious to cover up anything, this might be a useful precedent. But Select Committees can bring out facts. I hesitate to cross swords, particularly when it comes to historical knowledge, with the right hon. Gentleman who now represents the Home Office on the "shadow" Front Bench, but I cannot think that his are particularly powerful precedents. In any case, I do not think that either the hon. and learned Member for Northampton or myself are particular about the form of the inquiry, so long as it follows the general procedure used over the Army Act.
  It would be a useful inquiry. As the hon. and learned Member for Northampton pointed out, it might find that we should have an annual debate on this matter. It might find that in many ways wide discretion must be left to the authorities to deal with aliens. I do not think that he or I want to prejudice the findings of the inquiry by suggesting what it might recommend.
  It is high time that we reconsidered the whole position of aliens, for the situation has changed out of all recognition since the First World War, from when
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  this Statute dates. I should have thought that many of the arguments which have been urged in previous debates are valid today and therefore, without tying myself to any particular form of inquiry, I suggest that the case for an inquiry has been made out and I have no doubt that the Home Secretary will view it sympathetically and will accept the idea.
  Mr. Sydney Silverman: For the past 20 years we have had a debate every year along the lines which are still proceeding today. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) comprehensively, lucidly, powerfully and eloquently restated the case, and I certainly have no intention of taking a large part of the time of the Committee saying "ditto" to him.
  In each of those years a group of hon. Members have repeated most of the arguments, no doubt not so well, but quite substantially, that my hon. and learned Friend advanced again today. I am happy to think that I have taken part in, I think, every one of those debates.
  Among the little band of people who on every occasion during those 20 years have taken the time of the Committee to deal with this question, there are a number who now sit on the Government Front Bench. There is the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General and the Minister without Portfolio.
  The Leader of the Liberal Party said what an advantage it was to be an hon. Member of the Liberal Party because he did not have to repudiate in office what he had said in opposition. To me it is an even happier lot to be an hon. Member of the Labour Party, because when in Government one can give effect to one's speeches made in opposition.
  Mr. Grimond: Would the hon. Member include himself in that?
  5.30 p.m.
  Mr. Silverman: What I am saying is that the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General and the Minister charged with responsibility for law reform—and I see coming in my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies, who has made powerful and eloquent speeches on this subject—now have the responsibility and, indeed, the opportunity of doing what the right hon. Gentleman was emphasising

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  the Liberal Party could not do, namely, to give effect to the propositions which, year after year and over half a generation, have been advanced to the House of Commons.
  Something has been said about the practice of the Home Office. This has varied. There have been periods when most of us have been thoroughly ashamed of its practice. There have been other periods when it has acted with a reasonably civilised approach. Reference has been made to the predecessor in office of my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary. I am not concerned to deny his sincerity. I am not concerned to deny that he acted responsibly and as he thought humanely according to his lights. But I think that most of us would agree that his lights were often lamentably dim. There were many things which he could not see which were plain to the rest of the world and certainly to the rest of the House of Commons. One has only to mention one name, Soblen—and I do not want to take time by mentioning more—to realise that it would be difficult to say a single word to rescue the reputation of this country from the ignominy with which the Soblen case and its handling by the then Home Secretary surrounded our reputation in the world.
  I do not wish to take longer or to repeat any of the arguments. Like others, I am not wedded to the proposal which my hon. and learned Friend has made. Our difficulty on these occasions is that we cannot discuss details. We cannot propose Amendments. We can only say "Yes" or "No" to the proposition that the Act shall remain law for another year. We have said "Yes" for not merely 20 but 50 years. I do not see why a Select Committee would not be a good way to deal with this matter, and the precedent of the Army Act seems to me apt. But if this is not the case let us deal with the matter in some other way. Now we have the opportunity to practise what we have been preaching for so long. Let us not neglect the opportunity to put this arbitrary power behind us and make sure that people who live in our midst live on the same terms as the rest of us and are not subject to the arbitrary power of the Executive or of a Minister in any way or in any circumstances in which other citizens are not subject.
  Mr. George Thomas: I am not seeking to bring the debate to an end. I thought that it would be for the convenience of the Committee if I intervened at this stage.
  It has long been established in the House of Commons that when human rights are at stake hon. and right hon. Members on both sides show a very deep interest. It is not surprising, therefore, that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget), who has such an honourable record in this regard, and the Leader of the Liberal Party referred to the number of my right hon. and hon. Friends who have made great, stirring speeches on this subject. I was interested in the statement of my hon. and learned Friend and the Leader of the Liberal Party that they would not be here if we had not permitted aliens to enter this country. I am a Welshman, and to the Welsh the English are immigrants because the Celts were here first.
  I believe that our treatment of aliens is not a matter of secondary importance. It is an indication of the basic values on which our public policy is founded. The refusal of permission to land or a decision to deport an individual is fraught with such enormous consequences for the person concerned and for his family that the Committee is justified in exercising a jealous scrutiny of the way in which the Executive conducts itself in these matters.
  We are dealing not with chattels but with people. Hon. Members on both sides will, I hope, concur in our view that there are no unimportant people in the world. Above all, we want to deal with people seeking entry to our shores on a basis of compassion and humane consideration. There are basic humane rights which no civilised immigration laws can or will ignore. Respect for the dignity of all people, regardless of whether by Providence they are born here or in another land, is a fundamental prerequisite for a good society, and this is the basis on which this Administration approaches the question of immigration law.
  It is true that aliens lack protection because they are not citizens of our land, and our obligation to exercise the utmost care in taking decisions whether to allow them to land or to deport them is a very strong one indeed.

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  In view of the very large number of new Members of the House, I think that it would be useful if very briefly I outlined the basis on which control is exercised. As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton said, we work from the Aliens Order, 1953, which consolidated previous Orders as amended by the Aliens Order, 1957 (which eased the requirements regarding registration at hotels), and the Aliens Order, 1960 (which exempted resident aliens from police registration). All three Orders were made under the 1914 Act as extended by Section 1 of the 1919 Act. They enable the Secretary of State to exercise such control over foreign nationals as may from time to time be necessary. I believe that on both sides of the Committee there will be recognition of the fact that such control is necessary from time to time. They provide in particular for such matters as the landing and embarkation of foreigners, the control of their employment or occupation here, the registration of addresses and personal particulars, and, of course, the deportation of undesirables.
  There has been much criticism of the fact that what was originally granted as a temporary measure has come up for renewal for 40 years and more. The right hon. Member for Hampstead (Mr. Brooke) last year, when he was Home Secretary, acknowledged the basis of the criticism that this annual procedure of what I might term the aliens legislation had to be gone through. I believe that everyone now agrees that the Alien Restriction Acts of 1914 and 1919 must eventually be superseded by permanent legislation. The Committee will appreciate, however, that this Administration has been in office for one month only. We have not had time to formulate definite propositions.
  The general objective is, however, clear enough. It is to reconcile an effective control with a compassionate and humane treatment of the individuals arriving here and to face up to the question of permanent legislation. My right hon. and learned Friend agrees that it is undesirable that legislation concerning the life of so many people should be dealt with in this way. My own instinct is in full agreement with that of hon. Members who want to see permanent
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  legislation. I understand, however, that there are many complications in this matter, and I must ask my hon. Friends and the rest of the Committee to give us time to examine the problem. My right hon. and learned Friend will look at this matter very carefully indeed.
  It is clear that under contemporary conditions we cannot revert to the open-door policy of last century. Individual foreign nationals against whom there are serious personal objections have to be guarded against. Every country in the world has to do this. But it is important for us to ensure that no foreign national who may be eligible for entry is turned away in undue haste or without full consideration being given to what is urged in his favour. We are resolved to ensure that even when people are refused permission to land there shall be very opportunity for them, not only to advance the arguments in their favour, but, where necessary, to make contact with their relatives or other connections who are here.
  Mr. Sydney Silverman: Would my hon. Friend include in what he is saying, which we are listening to with great sympathy, the right of a man who is refused entrance to know why, so that he has an opportunity of replying to it, or of explaining it away?
  Mr. Thomas: I do not think that I can give a categorical assurance about all cases on this question, but I can assure my hon. Friend that we will look at the point that he has made.
  Mr. hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton also reminded us that we ought to be more concerned about getting people in than keeping people out, and he referred justifiably to the great heritage which we in these islands enjoy, particularly the various groups of people who have come from other lands. The process still continues. Roughly, 16, 000 aliens stay here every year as it is, and I hope to give the Committee figures which will put in perspective the question of those people who are not allowed admission, but I want to deal a little further with what my hon. and learned Friend said.
  One of the main criticisms advanced against our present system is that there should be a formal right of appeal for

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  any alien refused permission to land, and my hon. and learned Friend referred to that this afternoon. My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary would not be averse to such a right of appeal if a practical way could be found. He certainly would not rule the suggestion out, but any appeal would have to be directed purely to fact finding, for the ultimate responsibility as to whether an alien is to be admitted or not must at the end of the day rest with the Secretary of State and nobody else.
  During the year ended 30th September last nearly 2½ million foreign nationals were granted leave to land; nearly 2½ million foreign nationals, just about equal to the entire population of Wales—I must be forgiven for making these important illustrations; an increase of 250, 000 or 12 percent. over the corresponding period of 1962–63. Against the total of million arrivals of foreign passengers the figure of 3, 515 refusals of leave to land during the same period can be seen in a better perspective: 3, 515 refused leave to land, 24 million people given permission to land. This works out at about one refusal for every 700 people admitted to our shores.
  The Committee may wish for some indication of the kind of cases involved. Nearly half of the total, 1, 568, were refused admission because they had come to work here but they lacked a valid labour permit; 563 had insufficient means to support themselves during their proposed stay in this country; 74 were unacceptable on medical grounds; 95 were stowaways: 316 had no valid travel document and 57 were coming without a visa when they should have possessed one; 273 were seeking permanent settlement for which they were ineligible; and a further 279 were what were called technical refusals.
  5.45 p.m.
  I looked into this. I discover they are largely passengers in transit through this country, and most of them, it is true, are Stateless aliens. They are allowed to continue their journey under suitable arrangements. A refusal of leave to land may be necessary because an alien has been deported from some other country and is passing through the United Kingdom on his way home, or it may be on account of difficulties over his
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  documentation, which may be of very restricted validity.
  The remaining 290 people who were refused permission to land on our shores could be described as undesirables for various reasons, and it is unfortunate that, although there are no unimportant people, in the world there are people whom to admit would create a social problem here or aggravate problems which already exist.
  Mr. Sydney Silverman: I am sorry to interrupt my hon. Friend again, but he said people who were refused leave to land were undesirable people. It would be fairer—would it not? —to say that they were refused leave to land because it was thought they were undesirable people, because it might well have been that if they had had some knowledge of what was alleged against them and had had some opportunity of dealing with it perhaps the Home Office might have been convinced in a large number of cases that they were not so undesirable as they seemed.
  Mr. Thomas: I would not like the Committee to feel that I had suggested that all who are refused are undesirable.
  Mr. Silverman: No, but those deemed to be.
  Mr. Thomas: I only said it of just over 290. I do not wish to quarrel with my hon. Friend. It may be—who knows? —that some of them might be able to establish a case, but the immigration officers, to whom I should like to pay high tribute, have an exacting task. They are given a task which no hon. Member in this Committee would like to assume. Let me say to the Committee that after being in this office a month, and having myself to take decisions which affect real people, I know that it causes salt tears and heartbreak if the decision is a wrong one. It is not an easy thing to do, to decide whether other people shall stay here, or go out, or whether they should be admitted. I do not like the job of doing that. At least, I like my job—it would not be honest to say otherwise—but I do not like that part of the job. I am sure that the right hon. Member for Hampstead and other hon. Members who have occupied positions at the Home Office will agree that it is a test of stamina

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  to have to deal with these human cases. If it is so for me, it is so for the immigration officers. I salute these people who, dealing with millions coming to our shores, are able satisfactorily to deal with the overwhelming majority.
  Hon. Members are understandably anxious about the question of deportation and the manner in which deportations are conducted. The number of foreign nationals deported in recent years has been of the order of 100 a year. In 1963, the total was 60. During the first nine months of this year, 44 deportations were carried out. When it is proposed to deport an alien who has been settled here for two years or more, the practice since 1956 has been to give him, except in a security case or where deportation is recommended by a criminal court, an opportunity to make representations to, and to be legally represented before, the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate at Bow Street. Since these arrangements were made, 109 aliens have been eligible to make representations. Only 59 have decided to avail themselves of the opportunity. The Chief Magistrate has considered 57 of these cases and concurred in the proposal to deport in 42 cases. So far, there has been no deportation when the Chief Magistrate did not concur when the matter was put before him.
  Since the total number of aliens in the United Kingdom is always well over 400, 000, the deportation figures are an indication that the overwhelming majority of these people who have come to live amongst us are well-conducted people whom we are glad to have as neighbours.
  My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton raised the question of how we should proceed about permanent legislation and I am sorry that I did not deal with the point earlier when I turned to that subject. My hon. and learned Friend has suggested a Select Committee. Another suggestion was for a Royal Commission, and the example of how we dealt with the Army Act has been quoted. There were, of course, differences between the Army Act and the Aliens Act which, my hon. and learned Friend will be quick to realise, raise quite different issues. The aliens orders are not particularly complicated and while permanent legislation to replace them will be considered, the issues are of a different kind from those arising
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  on the Army Act. They are issues of public policy such as Parliament itself might wish to debate in the ordinary way rather than to refer them to a Committee upstairs, however select might be its membership.
  The Committee will realise that my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary and those of us who are privileged to serve with him in the Home Office are resolved to see that the treatment of aliens is dealt with in a manner commensurate with the rich heritage of these islands. We dislike the necessity for controls, but in the world as we find it they are essential in the national interest.
  I assure my hon. and learned Friend that what he has said this afternoon will be borne in mind. The assurance which I can give to the Committee for my right hon. and learned Friend and for the present Administration is that if in the administration of these aliens laws we make mistakes and errors of judgment—and it would be remarkable if we or any other Government made no mistakes—we are resolved to err on the side of compassion and human kindness. We want the aliens laws to operate in a way that will at once not only protect our national interest, but also protect our good name.
  Mr. Henry Brooke: I liked the speech of the Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, and I liked particularly and wish to endorse his tribute to the immigration officers. I assure the hon. Gentleman that I am not seeking to find fault with him by rising this afternoon. I recognise that he has had only a few weeks in office. I know how much I felt that I had to learn after three or four weeks. The hon. Gentleman has done very well in his first speech on behalf of the Home Office in a debate on a Bill.
  I hoped, however, that the hon. Gentleman would be a little more forthcoming as regards permanent legislation. In corresponding debates on previous Expiring Laws Continuance Bills, I made it clear that in my view it was essential in the next Parliament to put this matter on a permanent basis. It is not possible to defend much longer the continuance of the control by this method from year to year. I recognise the difficulties. I listened to what the Joint Under-Secretary said, but he did not appear to me to have

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  gone any further in pledging permanent legislation than I had gone towards the end of the last Parliament.
  Mr. George Thomas: The right hon. Gentlemen will, of course, know that he had taken no steps whatever to provide permanent legislation for this Session of Parliament.
  Mr. Brooke: I entirely agree. I am not blaming the hon. Gentleman for not producing it on this occasion. This is a very big matter, and I should like to illustrate that by bringing to the notice of the Committee the sort of question which the House of Commons will have to decide before it puts this subject into permanent form.
  First, however, I should like to invite the attention of the Committee to the fact that the figures quoted by the hon. Gentleman showing the very small percentage of people who are refused permission to land is a tribute to the reasonableness of the Home Office over the years. It is not true to say, as the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) said, that the Home Office is apt to act arbitrarily in these matters for the convenience of the Executive. I know, and everybody else who has held office at the Home Office knows, that the difficult cases are considered with great care. It is not true, as I have seen alleged, that somebody may be turned back at the ports because the immigration officer on duty happens to have a headache, or something of that kind. Difficult cases are referred right up, maybe to the Home Secretary himself. In my view, very few mistakes are made, although, as the hon. Gentleman said, none of us would claim that the immigration control never makes a mistake at all.
  6.0 p.m.
  I thought that the deportation figures which the hon. Gentleman quoted also illustrated how reasonably that power in respect of aliens had been exercised, and that should be so. But I am certain he would agree that we need the power of deportation, because some people may arrive in this country and then information may come to light which indicates that they should not be here and should he got rid of as soon as possible.
  I admired the hon. Gentleman's words about approaching all these immigration cases with compassion and sympathy, but
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  there was very little compassion or sympathy from the party opposite when an American Fascist named Rockwell arrived in this country. The party opposite showed no sympathy or compassion towards him and demanded that I should get rid of him as quickly as possible, which I did. I think the hon. Gentleman will find that compassion and sympathy are not the prerogative of any one Government or any one Administration. As I say, individual mistakes may have been made, but in general this work has been well done, and I hope will continue to be well done.
  I agree that the question of appeal is a difficult one. I gave a lot of personal thought to it, but I do not as yet see the answer. It has been suggested that other countries do this better, and that they give greater opportunity to people to establish their case to come in. But if one is going to give greater opportunity in twat sense by way of appeal, there must be some kind of Ellis Island procedure, on which so far we have firmly turned our backs. We shall need an Ellis Island procedure by which, when a person who arrives cannot satisfy the authorities that he has a right to be allowed to stay here, he can be kept somewhere—I hope not in a police cell—for possibly some considerable time until he has exercised his appeal rights, or whatever they may be, and the matter can be settled.
  This is one question which the Committee or the House will have to face when we come to permanent legislation. Do we, or do we not, want a kind of isolation hospital where a person who has arrived here, but cannot immediately establish his right to land, shall be kept for days or maybe weeks until the matter is finally determined by the Home Secretary on the recommendation, perhaps, of some appeal tribunal? It is not an easy question.
  I was aware of this difficulty in the Williams case. Everybody had much sympathy with the Williams family, but that family were doing what we never allow aliens to do, that is to say, they came here with no work permit, and with a desire to come here to look round for work. If we allowed that in the Williams case, why not in hundreds or thousands of other cases where aliens would dearly

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  like the chance to come to this country and look round for work?
  Hitherto we have taken the view that, this not being a country of general immigration, it is right that those who are hoping to work here should obtain a work permit, and, indeed, a firm prospect of a job before they can be allowed to come. I think that that is the appropriate way of proceeding. The hon. Gentleman said that he and his right hon. and learned Friend were going to ensure that anybody who was stopped at the port was given every opportunity of getting in touch with friends or relations in this country. There is no new departure in practice there. There is no change at all. That was the instruction to immigration officers throughout my term of office, and, so far as I know, for years back. Anybody who arrived at the port and appeared not to be able to justify his being given leave to land was offered the fullest opportunity to get in touch with friends or relations by telephone, or with a Member of Parliament, or anybody else. Nobody was denied that, and I hope that that situation will continue.
  Let me quote one other case which occurred towards the end of the last Parliament. Somebody came here claiming political asylum. He had no papers with him. He had no identification at all. The immigration officers knew virtually nothing about him, except what he said. One cannot just let in somebody like that without taking time for inquiries, because, if it were possible to get in in that way, many of the most undesirable types might arrive, say that they were being persecuted in their own country, and ask for political asylum. One could, therefore, not accept that man's request for political asylum point blank, but the difficulty I have mentioned arose acutely. One was sympathetic to the man concerned, yet it was very difficult to know what to do with him until one could obtain further information from our representatives in the country from which he came.
  The principal point I am seeking to make is that if one is going to alter the control in the ways which have been suggested by the hon. and learned Member for Northampton, the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Sydney Silverman), and others, it may be that
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  the House will have to accept some kind of Ellis Island concept for this country, which hitherto we have thought distasteful, and I confess I was not at all inclined to change our procedures in those directions.
  Having said that, I conclude by thanking the hon. Gentleman for what he said, wishing him and his right hon. and learned Friend good fortune in their administration, and expressing the hope that they may have fewer really difficult, terrible cases to deal with than happened to me in my time.
  The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sir Frank Soskice): May I cordially re-echo the hope expressed by the right hon. Member for Hampstead (Mr. Brooke). I feel it very strongly, and I greatly hope that his desire will be realised and that I shall not have any of the difficult cases which he had, and which I recognise he had.
  I have held this office now for one month, and one thing that I have learnt in the course of that month is that it is an office which confronts the holder with a number of extremely difficult decisions. It is very difficult to please everybody. The first example that I had was when I found a very friendly and delightful policeman standing outside my home. Shortly afterwards I received a letter from a neighbour who said that he was proposing to ask his insurance company to reduce his burglary insurance rates. I then received a rather angry communication from another neighbour, an elderly lady, who said that she strongly objected because it looked as though a crime had been committed in the street and that lowered the tone of the neighbourhood.
  My hon. Friend has spoken fully in this debate, and I entirely endorse what he said, and only, as the debate has travelled wide, venture to intervene for a short time to give some indication of my own view of some of the matters which have been raised.
  I differ from nobody in the Committee in thinking that we ought to have permanent legislation. It is not satisfactory that matters which touch the freedoms of a large number of individuals should be left to delegated legislation consisting of an Order in Council made under an Act passed in 1919 which, in a rather odd, lopsided way amended a war-time

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  Act passed in 1914. I should have thought that, with the possible exception of the Leader of the Liberal Party, we would all take the view that it is time, as and when we can, to convert this hybrid type of enactment into something permanently on our Statute Book. But, starting from that, we do not get very far if all that we do is to take a Statutory Instrument and, by legislation, write it into a permanent Act of Parliament.
  The purpose of those who feel that there should be permanent legislation is not merely to write into an Act, in terms, an existing Statutory Instrument. What they are asking is that the whole framework of legislation should be looked at in order to see whether it should be changed. In that connection, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) says that the right way to go about it is to appoint a Select Committee, as was done in the case of the Army Act, in order that the necessary legislation, which may be complicated, can be worked out by the processes of that Select Committee.
  I join issue with him on that. I see the force of his suggestion, which he voices with great eloquence, but the feeling that I have about it is that if there is to be a change—and all the more if it is to be a fundamental change—in the legislation affecting aliens in this country, it surely is a direct responsibility of the Government. So far as I can speak from one month's experience, I feel that it is a matter which should be decided—or at any rate that the outlines of it should be laid down—by the Secretary of State for the Home Department with the assent of his colleagues, and that it should be a matter by which the credit of the Government should be judged, as in the case of other legislation.
  If we shuffle it off, so to speak, to a Select Committee, we are abrogating a responsibility which should rest upon the Minister, and my view is that if legislation on these lines is enacted and takes a different form from the regulations which at present exist, it should flow from the consideration of the Minister concerned, with the approbation and consent of his colleagues, and it should be proposed to the Committee on that basis. I do not feel that great advantage will be gained by asking a Select Committee, in effect, to do that work for the
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  Minister concerned. Therefore, accepting as I do that as soon as we reasonably can we should translate this ephemeral legislation into something more permanent, I do not see any great advantage in asking a Select Committee to work out the changes that are necessary.
  I pass from that to the question of appeals. As my hon. Friend has said, the Government are not averse to the idea of appeals. In the month during which I have been at the Home Office consideration has naturally been given to the matter, and I have received the extremely skilled and valuable advice which Ministers normally receive from their admirable advisers. There is the difficulty that the right hon. Member for Hampstead indicated—the Ellis Island difficulty. There is the difficulty that arises as to the number of appeals which may be taken to whatever tribunal is set up to judge them. Are we to have a panel of Queen's Counsel, or something of that sort, or a panel of non-legal people?
  As my hon. Friend has said, last year there were 3, 515 refusals. In what percentage of those cases were there likely to have been appeals? Where are the appeal tribunals to sit? Are they to sit in the courts, in London, so that a would-be appellant would have to go to London to prepare his case and present it there? I hope that the Committee will agree that while appeals are desirable in principle there are many real practical difficulties to overcome before we can accept the view that they must be set up.
  I do not accept that aliens are so completely unprotected as some hon. Members have said. An alien in this country is protected by our laws in the same way as is anybody else. He is in some circumstances liable to arrest. If he lands without permission he can be arrested. So long as the decision whether or not he should be allowed in remains an executive one for the Government, it is difficult to say that the Executive should not have some power of arrest, especially in the case of an alien who lands without permission. But once he is permitted to land he can become the owner of property and can reside in this country, even on a temporary basis, and people cannot assault or injure him without his being able to have recourse to the courts, as would be the case with anyone else.

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  It has been said that he is unprotected, but I put it to my hon. and learned Friend that he has exaggerated the degree of helplessness of the alien in this country.
  6.15 p.m.
  Mr. Paget: With great respect to my right hon. and learned Friend, although an alien is here and may have acquired property, if my right hon. and learned Friend orders his arrest that alien can be arrested. He has no right to apply for a writ of habeas corpus. The order of my right hon. and learned Friend is sufficient, and no reason for his arrest need be given. The security reason is considered adequate.
  Sir F. Soskice: If he is to be deported there are powers. I will not take up the time of the House in discussing their precise nature and import, but it is wrong to refer to the alien as completely unprotected by our laws. He is not. If it were practicable to do so, however, some right of appeal should be accorded to the alien. In that I think that I have the agreement of my predecessor in office, and I can say that I will certainly examine that question. We have not been able to get very far with it in the course of one month, but I do not rule it out. I see the justice of the proposal.
  It may be complacent to say it, but I think it not improbable that a Minister may become departmentally-minded and for him to be quite conscious that he is becoming departmentally-minded and, as a result, be the more careful to examine the advice that he receives and take the view that it would be useful to have the advantage of a new and independent mind in coming to a conclusion on a certain issue. With regard to somebody's name getting in the black book and there being some inaccurate information about him, this is a risk which in many contexts it is extremely difficult to avoid, much as one hopes to avoid it. It is suggested that an alien should always be told the reason why his entry is refused, if it should be refused. As my hon. Friend told the Committee, the great majority of cases are cases where the travel documents are incomplete, where the alien has no credentials, or where something of that sort arises. He may have no work permit to take up paid employment. In such cases it is rare that the alien does not know
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  why he is being refused permission to enter.
  In the case where an alien is regarded as undesirable, he may not be told that it is suspected, for example, that he is a drug pedlar, or that he has criminal propensities, or a bad record, but I hope that the Committee will agree that it is not easy to inform aliens, or would-be aliens, in all circumstances, that those are the reason why they are not being allowed to land, or what the grounds are for the refusal. That seems to be the only reasonable approach that one can take in dealing with that kind of difficult problem, which is bound to arise from time to time.
  Mr. Harold Lever: Can my right hon. and learned Friend say why we cannot tell people who are refused entry because they have a criminal record that we are refusing them entry because of that criminal record? It must be known to them.
  Sir F. Soskice: I said that sometimes an alien is not told. Very often he is, or he can understand pretty clearly what the reason is for his being refused entry. If a man tries to land here after having committed a number of offences in France and he is refused entry he can draw an inference, if he is not told in terms. But he would probably be given a pretty clear explanation why he is thought to be an undesirable immigrant.
  I do not exclude from consideration many of the proposals that have been made, nor am I averse to the general approach indicated by hon. Members on both sides on this question. I recognise that human freedoms are involved, and that large numbers of persons have decisions made in respect of them which are of the utmost importance to them, and that it is incumbent upon those making those decisions to see that the greatest possible care is taken to avoid injustice to any individual.
  In those circumstances, I hope that the Committee will agree that the Amendment should not be accepted, but that we should be allowed to carry on the aliens control, as it is at the moment, for one more year.
  Mr. Eric Lubbock: It seems that the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Sydney Silverman) is

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  going to be disappointed. He implied that everything said by his hon. and right hon. Friends when on this side of the Committee would automatically be accepted by the Government Front Bench now that his party is in office. Yet he has just heard a proposal, put very eloquently by the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) and backed by my right hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond), which has been turned down by the Home Secretary, and somewhat to my disappointment. I do not accept the argument that these changes are the direct responsibility of the Government of the day and of the Home Secretary.
  I think that there was a great deal of force in the argument put by the hon. and learned Member for Northampton that individual liberties and the way we treat aliens are matters of such universal interest to hon. Members that this should be treated as a House of Commons matter and not something which should be merely a prerogative of Government. I do not see that this would abrogate a responsibility which should rest with the Minister, as the Home Secretary put it, and I think it a rather odd description to refer to this legislation as ephemeral. To my mind there seems to be great danger that if we allow this to be revised in the Home Office we may be having precisely the same discussion next year or the year after that for time immemorial because the previous Home Secretary, I seem to remember, gave exactly the kind of assurances which we have had this afternoon in a similar debate a year ago.
  I wish to refer to one matter which I hope will be considered by the Home Secretary when he reviews the legislation and which I would much prefer to have been considered by a Select Committee, or some type of review of the kind referred to by the hon. and learned Member for Northampton. It is a case which occurred last summer, that of Dr. Bert Bensen. I spoke on this matter in the House during an Adjournment debate raised by the hon. Lady the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart). I also went to the then Under-Secretary of State about it, and I am extremely dissatisfied with the way things turned out in respect of that case.
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  The present Joint Under-Secretary of State referred today to the rules and regulations which had been made in consequence of the Aliens Act of 1919. He did not refer to the European Convention on Establishment of which we are signatories. In that it says that if an alien has been resident in this country for more than two years he shall not be deported without the right of representation to the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate. Dr. Bensen's solicitor went to the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate to make such representation and it was not until the solicitor had arrived there that he was told that Dr. Bensen was being deported on grounds of security. I think that is the first unsatisfactory feature of the case. He should have been told immediately.
  Mr. Sydney Silverman: I hope that I am not wrong, but I think I heard my hon. Friend say that in every case, except where security was involved, where a man had been formerly resident in this country for two years or more and it was proposed not to renew his permit to remain, he was told what was wrong and given an opportunity to answer and the right of legal representation. I think that none of these things was ever offered to Dr. Bensen, nor has it ever been said in Dr. Bensen's case, so far as I know, that any question of security was involved.
  Mr. Lubbock: I am sorry if I missed that part of the speech of the Joint Under-Secretary of State. The situation is that Dr. Bensen did apply through his solicitor to the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate to show reason why he should not be deported. It was not until the solicitor arrived at the court that he was told it was because of security. I may say that the then Home Secretary was extremely disingenuous about this. On 4th June I put down a Question to the right hon. Gentleman in which I asked
  "if he will state his reasons for asking Mr. Bert Bensen, a citizen of the United States, to leave Great Britain."
  His reply was:
  "I have asked Mr. Bensen to leave the country because I am satisfied that his continued presence here would not be in the public interest."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 4th June, 1964; Vol. 695, c. 188.]

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  If that had been the reason, and if that was all there was to it, Dr. Bensen would have been entitled to make representations before the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate. When I put this point specifically to the former Joint Under-Secretary of State she said that this phrase was always interpreted as meaning that imperative considerations of national security applied. I particularly underline the word "imperative". I put it to the Joint Under-Secretary that there would have been no point in putting in the word "imperative" unless there were certain security cases in which representations to the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate might be very necessary. The answer to that was that the European Convention on Establishment gave Governments and Ministers complete right to decide what these considerations were.
  I believe that Dr. Bensen got into bad favour because of his membership of certain peace organisations and because of his association with certain people who were involved in organisations which were not popular with the Government. I consider this a totally inadequate reason for deporting anyone. If I am correct in my supposition, it is a most reprehensible thing that deportation should be allowed to take place on the ground of security when that has nothing to do with it. These organisations are not considered to be a threat to security, and therefore individuals who belong to them, or associate with members of such organisations, should not themselves be treated as an imperative threat to security. It would be interesting to know how many of the 44 cases involving deportation this year were actually cases where security was involved. If he can give me an answer to that question I should like the Joint Under-Secretary to do so, because I think it important.
  Are there a large number of cases in which deportation is being carried out for reasons which really have nothing to do with security but in which this phrase is used? That is what I want to establish and what I hope that a Select Committee or the Home Office, if new legislation is to be drafted there, will consider very carefully. I wrote to the present Home Secretary on 28th October
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  asking whether the deportation order against Dr. Bensen might be withdrawn. I should be grateful if that could be considered now. I gave the right hon. and learned Gentleman notice that I was going to raise this matter and I hope it will be possible to say that Dr. Bensen can continue to reside in this country because, so far, no reasons have been given for his expulsion. I have never had any explanation from the previous Government that security would be involved and no explanation has been given to Dr. Bensen himself about the real reason. I hope that the Home Secretary will be able to withdraw that order.
  Mr. Harold Lever: I shall not detain the Committee too long and I hope that I shall not convict myself of illiberalism by saying that during the 20 years that I have been dealing with the Home Office I have found nothing which would make me believe that anybody has been deported from this country because he had joined some organisation which is unpopular with the Government. I find that very difficult to believe. My own experience has been that in the execution of its onerous duties under this unsatisfactory legislation the Department has been zealous, fair-minded and meticulously fair. Other people may have had different experiences. I can only testify to my own. It in no way obscures the fact that the legislation, as it now stands, is utterly unsatisfactory.
  I am concerned that the Home Secretary seems to think it is a good enough answer to the proposals of my hon. and learned Friend to say that there is a better way of dealing with the matter than that proposed by my hon. and learned Friend, without giving the Committee an explicit assurance that he intends to adopt that better course. We were all very impressed with the reputation of both the Ministers and the uneasiness felt by the Home Secretaries and their assistants for the last 20 years about the totally unsatisfactory denial of justice, at any rate in theory, which exists under the legislation. But until we get an explicit assurance that some action will be taken to remedy this state of affairs all that the Committee is being treated to is emotion without consequence. The reference to Ellis Island by the former Home Secretary typifies an attitude which justifies the facilities and the doing of

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  nothing to remedy the present state of affairs. Because it is found that the Ellis Island proposal has objections an even more objectionable state of affairs is continued, of people having no right to appeal. One, of course, finds it easy to raise a number of difficult questions, and if one asks those questions before setting up tribunals one simply does not set up tribunals. These questions are difficult, but one could find the answer if one were determined to do so.
  6.30 p.m.
  As for the suggestion of an Ellis Island isolation hospital type of accommodation, made by the former Home Secretary, the right hon. Member for Hampstead (Mr. Brooke), we all know the right hon. Gentleman's delicacy in these matters. But rather than deny visitors or aliens the right of appeal against refusal to land we might set up the equivalent of an Ellis Island. It need not be in the nature of an isolation hospital, and it certainly need not resemble a prison cell. It could be more in the nature of a Customs bond where people who felt that they had been unfairly deprived of their rights should have the opportunity of consulting their lawyers, seeing their relatives and making adequate representations to the authorities.
  My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary, who enjoys the deep affection and respect of both sides of the Committee, is rather touchy on this question of expecting authority to vouchsafe its reason. It is characteristic of authority that it equates its own wisdom and knowledge with what is desirable in the public interest and maintains taciturnity as long as it possibly can. When I asked why criminals were not admitted because they had a criminal record, my right hon. and learned Friend seemed to think that I had made a tactless and inappropriate intervention. It seems to me the most natural thing in the world and to correspond with natural justice that one might tell a man what one found wrong with him. He might then find that one had made a ghastly mistake.
  Where there is a reasonable case and one puts it to the Home Office it is dealt with, as I have said, in an immaculate and open-minded manner by those who have the responsibility, but what about the thousands of cases of those who are
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  turned away from all sorts of places in the world without their having gone to their Member of Parliament to put their case for them?
  Many years ago, about 1948, I took up the case of a Greek shipowner who had a considerable business to do in this country in insuring and arranging freights for his ships, much to the advantage of this country. He was refused permission to remain in this country and when I pressed for the reason I was told by a right hon. Friend who is not in the present Government that the man spent more time in this country than could be justified by the business which he came here to transact. Apparently he ran a string of horses and was in the habit of visiting the stables. This was not approved by somebody who had given him a visa. That kind of nonsense can be fairly readily put right, but in humbler cases without access to Members of Parliament much injustice may result. It is no justification of bad law and bad power exercised by the Executive to say that the power is rarely exercised. An alien has the protection of our law in almost every respect, but is there any reason why he should not have the protection of our law, our principles and beliefs in natural justice, in all respects?
  This preoccupation of ours with security matters is much overworked. In 1944 it was not found necessary to protect the security of the nation by depriving a British subject of legal rights founded in natural justice and on the long traditions of our land. There is no more danger to the State in this day and age from a foreigner coming here than there is from an English subject, and the long history of sedition and treason and the like, especially in recent times, seems to suggest that it is in the resident and the subject here that such danger might be found to exist.
  We may have come down in the world as a nation in terms of power, but England's name is still a magic name in many parts in respect of its institutions and its pattern of justice. Instead of giving a good example in this matter of aliens, we are setting a bad example with bad law, and putting off time and again an obvious remedy. I beg my right hon. and learned Friend to give more firm and satisfactory assurances than we have had so far.
  Mr. Paget: I also find this a very unsatisfactory answer. We are told, as we have been told for half a century, that there ought to be permanent legislation. We are then told by my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary, as again we have been told for half a century, that legislation would be very difficult. One suspects that the same result will come about and that we shall continue without legislation.
  My hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, in a delightful speech, said that the position with regard to the Army Act was different because the position which we are now discussing raises issues of public policy. What on earth did the Army Act raise? There was a great issue of public policy there. It was a highly important one of what rights a citizen army should have against the Executive. The question which we have to consider here is what rights aliens should have against the Executive. It is very much the same sort of public question, and very much the sort of public question with which the Committee should particularly interest itself—the rights and the protection of the individual vis-à-vis the Executive.
  My right hon. and learned Friend said that permanent legislation ought to be the responsibility of the Government. It must be, of course; but since Government for half a century have failed, why not let a Select Committee of the House of Commons make some suggestions? The Government can either accept or reject those suggestions but they would have something to look at and work on. What is the objection to this? It succeeded in the case of the Army Act. If we Members of Parliament as a Select Committee are prepared to do this work for the Government, why should not we do it? After all, this for both parties over the years has been an example of Government failure.
  I do not know about withdrawing the Amendment. I feel on occasions that the House of Commons has lost its reputation and has become too much the servant of Government. If there is to be an association between two institutions, that association does not work if one institution is always to have its way. Sometimes Government ought to give way to Parliament and to the House of Commons. If the House of Commons
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  insists on occasions, that does not mean that the Government are going to resign. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is not a Dr. Barbara Moore and is not going to threaten suicide if he does not have his way.
  If the Committee were to insist on the Amendment, it would not mean that the Government would resign, and it would not mean that we would cease to have any law to control aliens. It would merely mean that Parliament had said to the Government, "We do not find this satisfactory and you have to think it out and come to us with better ideas on the Report stage." I am not at all sure that that is not what we should say to the Government. I ask them to think again or we may very well say it.
  Sir E. Boyle: I hope that the Home Secretary will not completely turn down without further consideration the suggestion made by the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget). As a member of the former Government, I take my full share of responsibility for the fact that we have no permanent legislation on this subject. None of us in the former Government speaks with a clean sheet here. But the fact remains that we are operating, basically, under legislation dating from 1919. I thought that the hon. and learned Gentleman made a good point when he referred to the Declaration of Human Rights and the fact that much has happened internationally since then which has a bearing on this matter.
  I am not fully convinced that a drastic revision of the law is called for. I am, however, quite sure that a clarification of the law is called for and new statute law on this subject is certainly called for. No Government have done what is necessary in this respect in the post-war period. In the circumstances, there seems to be a prima facie case for saying that a Select Committee of the House of Commons might be given a chance to look into the matter.
  This history of Select Committees of the House of Commons is a chequered one. Someone, very properly, referred earlier to the rather unhappy precedent of the Select Committee on the Marconi case. No one will suggest that a Select Committee on legislation affecting, say, the steel industry would be particularly

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  useful at this time. Yet one remembers that the procedure did work in 1952 over the Army Act. I remember those days very well. It seems to me quite arguable that this is a case in which a Select Committee, taking expert evidence and working with Parliamentary draftsmen, might have something to contribute.
  As I understand the hon. and learned Gentleman's proposal, he is not suggesting that the Home Secretary should be deprived of the necessary executive decision or that the Government should be denied final decision about legislation which they recommend to Parliament. No one feels more strongly than I do that it must be the Government who ultimately decide what legislation they recommend Parliament to pass. There is, therefore, no intention that the Select Committee would usurp the Government's functions. All I am saying is that this is a particular case in which the hon. and learned Gentleman's suggestion at least deserves sympathetic consideration. It is not a political issue. It is very much an issue between representatives of constituents, on the one hand, and the Executive, on the other, and the proposal was put forward in a reasonable mood this afternoon.
  I have a good deal of sympathy with the doubts and hesitations which have been expressed on the subject of some sort of appeal procedure for aliens. I entirely see the important questions which arise here, particularly on the Ellis Island point. In his delightful speech, the Joint Under-Secretary of State told us that there had been one refusal for 700 people admitted. Those figures suggest that, perhaps, the administration of my right hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead (Mr. Brooke) was not in all respects quite the sink of illiberalism which is sometimes suggested, and I am sure that we on this side are glad that those figures were given.
  I shall say no more about it. Perhaps we can bring this debate to a close shortly. I ask the Home Secretary not finally to turn down the proposal made by his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton.
  Sir F. Soskice: Most certainly I do not turn down the suggestion. I was indicating difficulties which seemed to me to be in the way of it and objections which occurred to my mind. Having received a
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  very courteous letter from my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) indicating that he would make the suggestion, I was giving my prima facie reactions. I can see the merit of his proposal, and I definitely undertake that I shall give it the most careful thought. If I ultimately decide that it is not a course which I can adopt, I assure him that that will be only after a most careful reading of his speech and considering the reasons which have been advanced.
  Mr. Paget: In the light of my right hon. and learned Friend's assurance, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  6.45 p.m.
  Mr. A. R. Wise: I beg to move, in page 2, to leave out lines 17 and 18.
  I must first make clear that my suggestion not to continue the Commonwealth Immigrants Act is purely formal. There was no other way of bringing the case forward. I support the Act. I voted for it on Second Reading. I wish to extend its provisions. In my view, it should be strengthened in the light of knowledge which we now have since the Act was passed. I say this very firmly not only in the interests of the old inhabitants of this country but also in the interests of all our new arrivals, for it is their livelihood which will the first to be threatened if any serious danger of unemployment were to arise.
  This is no idle fear. Unemployment could arise under any Government. If the present Government do half the things they said that they would do in the carefree days of Opposition, it will certainly arise and arise quickly, and the danger will then be upon us.
  I shall deal with one or two concrete suggestions in a moment. First I wish to resolve one point which has been puzzling me. Do I congratulate hon. and right hon. Members opposite on at last seeing sense on immigration, or do I sympathise with them on all having developed leprosy? One has only to think of what they said when we were passing the Act. It was opposed bitterly and viciously the whole way through. There is a certain macabre humour about the fact that it is now the Labour Party

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  which is seeking to extend its operation for another year.
  It is probably just as well that the Foreign Secretary's electors was as discriminating as they were in not returning him at the last election. I recall very readily what he said about the Act at the time when it was going through. He denounced it in no uncertain terms, saying that it contained
  "bare-faced, open race discrimination… written not only into its spirit… but into its very letter. The more I have studied the Bill, the more I have come to the conclusion that it is ill-conceived, that it will not work … and that it will do irreparable damage to the Commonwealth."—[OFFICAL REPORT, 16th Nov., 1961; Vol. 649, c. 706.]
  Yet the Government of which the right hon. Gentleman is a distinguished member are proposing to extend the Act for another year, with, I may say, the warm support of everyone who has considered the problem of immigration at all seriously.
  Perhaps it is just as well that the right hon. Gentleman is not with us because I am quite certain that, as an honest man, he would be driven to oppose this extension of the Act, and we should find him in open conflict with the Prime Minister, a most unedifying spectacle on the Front Bench. He could hardly speak and vote in favour of doing irreparable harm to the Commonwealth.
  I had the honour of representing Smethwick for 14 years. I hope that I shall be pardoned before adding my protest to those which have been voiced against the quite unjustified smear made by the Prime Minister not only on my hon. Friend the Member for Smethwick (Mr. Peter Griffiths) but on all those who voted for him. What had these terrible sinners done? They rejected a Member whose majority had been, over four elections, progressively reduced from 12, 000 to losing the seat. Who can blame them if they had come to the conclusion that they wanted a Member with more local knowledge and a great deal more local interest than their previous Member had shown? That hardly justifies—
  Mr. B. T. Parkin: Why did they chuck the hon. Gentleman out?
  Mr. Wise: It is customary to rise when making an interjection.
  Mr. Parkin: Will the hon. Gentleman also analyse the causes of his own defeat?
  Mr. Wise: In fact, they did not; but we can go into that another time.
  As I was saying, what the Smethwick electors did hardly justified an accusation of moral leprosy from the Prime Minister, particularly in face of the Labour Party's past record in that constituency of dealing with a problem which the constituents obviously felt was of great local moment. They wanted a Member who had studied their problem and had obviously shown some sense of understanding it. Certainly they were not prepared to give their support to those who indulged in this frothy talk about "irreparable harm to the Commonwealth" in 1961 and then, as the General Election drew nearer and they found it electorally unsuitable, became much more tolerant in their view of the Act.
  None the less, so furious was the right hon. Gentleman at the crossing of his will that he decided to outrage Parliamentary procedure and tradition by delivering an attack on a Member who had not yet made his maiden speech, and on one to whom he had given no previous notice of the attack, which is something which, to my knowledge, has never been done before.
  What an attack it was! It may well be that the right hon. Gentleman has arrogated to himself the right to judge moral and political leprosy, or he may be relying on his two notorious supporters, the Bishop of Southwark and Canon Collins, two churchmen much more noted for their politicsthan for their Christianity. [HON. MEMBERS: "Shame."] For myself, I am prepared to rely on a remark by Talleyrand when he had been abused by the great Napoleon in very much the same way as my hon. Friend the Member for Smethwick was abused in this House. On leaving the room, Talleyrand said:
  "What a pity so great a man should be such a vulgarian!"
  When one considers the campaign after campaign of innuendo, smear and everything else—
  The Deputy-Chairman (Sir Samuel Storey): Order. The hon. Gentleman is getting very far from the Amendment which he has on the Order Paper.
  Mr. Wise: I apologise, Sir Samuel. However, I do not apologise for feeling some heat on this question, because my Black Country men are dear to my heart—[Interruption.] If hon. Gentlemen opposite will for a moment restrain their efforts at semaphoring their message across the Committee, they will see as I go on that my statement is true, whichever way one takes it.
  Was it a belief in racial equality or merely fury at his will being crossed that led to the right hon. Gentleman's outburst? I do not know. I have suspected dictatorial symptoms on the other side of the Committee before now. I will not go into the behaviour of one or two Ministers at Question Time, because that would he out of order, except to say that they have confirmed my ideas that they are not all that attached to the normal processes of democracy.
  The Labour Party's opinions about the whole question of immigration have been muddled throughout from the time they first opposed the Bill because they thought it electorally desirable to do so. Indeed, the hon. Lady the Member for Cannock (Miss Jennie Lee), who now holds office in the Government, gave us a very entertaining speech on immigration. She pointed out how desirable it was to have more of it because nearly all immigrants voted Labour when they got here. Hon. Members opposite have now discovered that that it is not the case, and they are, therefore, prepared to take a more rational outlook on the problem of importation of other persons.
  One of the most futile suggestions put forward by progressive thinkers hitherto is that this problem could be solved by agreement with the Commonwealth. This was put forward when the original Bill was being discussed. It was said that nothing could be easier and that all that one had to do was to ask them to restrict their emigration. Hon. Members forgot that it is not so easy to do as all that. Nor is there all that great willingness to do it. Let us be quite clear on this. Such agreement was sought and, of course, it was not found. In any case, this country had no right to abdicate to others the responsibilities for its own government.
  Recently we were told, I believe with a flourish of trumpets, by some progressive circles that the Prime Minister of Trinidad had put forward a wonderful
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  scheme to enable us to control immigration with the full agreement of the Comnmonwealth. I should think that even hon. Members opposite would realise that Trinidad is not India and that there are not 50 million unemployed in Trinidad as in India, and that the possibility of an unrestricted flow is very much less from the Caribbean than it is from far more overcrowded and, per head, far poorer countries.
  Whether we like it or not, there is an immigration problem and we must face it. There are various things that we have to do. We cannot expect Trinidad to do them for us. First of all, we must realise that, in spite of this Act, more people are arriving annually in this country than we can comfortably assimilate. The figure is not as large as many feared, but it is still too large. Also, unfortunately, we do not know accurately how serious the problem is. We know that there is overcrowding in a number of our cities, but we do not know to what extent there is overcrowding because local authorities have been very neglectful in the past about trying to find out where there is overcrowding. This is understandable because if they track any down and enforce the overcrowding Act, they have then to rehouse the people they turn out of the overcrowded house, and they immediately get into endless trouble with the persons on their ordinary housing list. This is one of the great problems with any local authority. However, we could find out. We could make local authorities find out, without imposing on them the obligation to enforce the overcrowding Act, where the overcrowding is and how bad it is and whether there is any possible solution.
  My experience in the southern part of the Midlands is that the overcrowding—and, indeed, the whole immigrant population—is not as serious a problem there as it is in many other places. We have, of course, an immigrant population in my constituency, but it is not nearly as big as most of my constituents think. However, I should like to know—and I should like the Home Office to make certain that the local authorities find out for me and others—exactly what the problem is, how many immigrants there are and whereabouts in the borough they are situated.
  It is all very well to say that we have an electoral register, even if it were complete, which any hon. Member knows

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  is not so. A very large number of people do not appear on it for understandable reasons, perhaps because their landlord would be distressed if it were discovered that he had far too many people in his house. Apart from that, this information is not traceable from the register. Many immigrants have names which are precisely similar to ours. One can find out where Indians and Pakistanis live, but one cannot find out where Jamaicans live. John Smith may have come from Kingston upon Hull just as well as from Kingston, Jamaica. This research requires to be done, and thoroughly done, so that we can understand what the problem is before we proceed to amend the Act, which I am convinced is very highly necessary. One can also understand the education problem as well.
  7.0 p.m.
  We already have certain checks before people are allowed into the country. They have to produce vouchers to show that they have jobs waiting for them. I think that it is possible to tighten up the procedure to make certain that these vouchers are genuine and that there is no evasion in their production and distribution. But, more than that, it seems quite reasonable to ask that there shall be accommodation available before an immigrant is allowed in. If that were the case, we would not have this overcrowding.
  This again is, to my mind, very much in the interests of the immigrants as well as ourselves. As it is, we refuse a man entry if he has a criminal record. What is more likely to encourage him to start a criminal record if he has not one already than to shove him into overcrowded accommodation at excessively high rents? It is almost forcing him into crime.
  We reject, quite rightly, people on health grounds. What is more likely to produce ill health than to shove a family or a single immigrant into overcrowded accommodation, again at too high a rent and where both malnutrition and all the disadvantages of a very hard climate to one who has come from a sunny country will produce ill health? It is no good having this check at the ports, however good it may be, and then allowing conditions over here which will
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  cancel out the effect of our original precautions.
  The next problem is that of education. This is extremely difficult, but there is no doubt that a genuine education problem exists in a large number of towns. Where there is a very large proportion—in some cases even a majority—of children who cannot speak English in a primary school, it must follow quite obviously that the education of the whole school will suffer and be retarded. What the solution is, it is not for me to say tonight. It is for the Department of Education to work out. But we should take some precaution before allowing in immigrant families and thereby make certain that the children can be educated without disrupting the education service.
  I admit that this is no easy task but there is no doubt that the education problem is the one which has given rise to more complaint than any of the others which have been brought forward against the inflow of immigrants—more so than overcrowded housing and their alleged way of life. Our schools are very important in the minds of those who have lived in this country for a long time and they are terrified at the possible reduction of standards which may occur from the sort of conditions which I have just described.
  That brings me to the fact that it is not too late to solve the problem. We shall not solve it, however, just by continuing the operation of the Act by a year. It is a temporary Measure and I trust that it will be replaced with a more comprehensive and thoroughgoing Act.
  This immigration started as part of a demand for cheap labour. There is no getting away from that. There is nothing immoral in looking for cheap labour. It is legal enough, and if it is legal it is natural that industry—including nationalised industry—and the local authorities, which are responsible for transport and other services, should look for cheap labour that they cannot get in this country.
  Mr. R. W. Sorensen: Do I understand the hon. Gentleman to suggest that coloured immigrants now working in London Transport are being "sweated" by being paid under the rates that the unions have established?
  Mr. Wise: No. I am confining myself to the English language. If the hon. Gentleman cannot understand it, that is not my fault. It is quite clear that the wages which are available in London Transport are not sufficient to attract enough of the older inhabitants of this country. London Transport has, therefore, had to get immigrants who will accept those wages. I really cannot be much more specific than that, although I am doing my best.
  Mrs. Lena Jeger: Does the hon. Gentleman include nurses in the cheap labour to which he refers?
  Mr. Wise: Yes, certainly. By "cheap labour" I do not necessarily mean underpaid labour but labour at a price—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—I find it hard to explain this to what I must confess I consider to be a very stupid collection of people opposite. I mean labour which is employed at a price at which the inhabitants of this country will not work. Is that now clear and simple enough?
  Mr. Ted Leadbitter: The hon. Gentleman makes a point that there is nothing wrong in employing cheap labour. Those were the words he used. Does he, therefore, condone this in the case of coloured nurses, coloured doctors and coloured transport workers? We do not accept that theory on this side of the Committee.
  Mr. Wise: In his anxiety to make some form of interruption, the hon. Member has got a long way from the Bill. I am not condoning or approving anything. But there is nothing immoral in looking for labour at the lowest price one can get it for. I have no doubt that, when the hon. Member is thinking of paying his valet—as, no doubt, he will soon have one with our new affluence—he will not pay the man more than he has to. That is all that I have been saying.
  I hope I have made it clear that my advocacy of continuing and tightening up the Act is as much in the interests of the immigrants as it is of the original inhabitants. Many immigrants will ultimately return to their home countries. Nearly all the Irish do and I believe that a very large number of Jamaicans do.
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  But others will settle here and be assimilated. There is nothing new in this; nor it is impossible. From the year 1880, an enormous number of Central European immigrants have come to this country. They have been assimilated over quite a long period. When they came here they had totally alien views on life and the majority of them could not speak a word of our language.
  Mr. Maurice Orbach: How did they do in the schools?
  Mr. Wise: They did not have them in those days.
  Mr. Orbach rose—
  Mr. Wise: I cannot give way again.
  By degrees the assimilation of our earlier immigrants has been very nearly totally completed. Now it is very difficult indeed to trace who is an original immigrant from Central Europe and who is not. The same thing will undoubtedly happen again in the end, provided that we are allowed adequate time for this assimilation to take place and do not overcrowd our economy with more people than it can conveniently absorb at any one time. I have no doubt that, with a reasonable extension of this Act, we can do that.
  Having said that I want these provisions to be tightened, I must make one proviso and ask for an exception to be made. This is a matter purely of sympathy rather than of practical politics. There are many Asiatics who for three generations and sometimes more have been resident in our ex-African colonies. They have no homeland except that in which they are resident at the moment. They cannot even speak the language of their country of origin. I have a number of them in my constituency with whom I converse in Swahili, which is their, native tongue, not Hindi or Urdu.
  These people went to those colonies under the encouragement and protection of British administration. That is why they went there and that is how they managed to stay there. For good or ill, that protection has now been withdrawn and these people are faced with persecution and very hard ill treatment. Anybody who has looked at the pronouncements of some of the new Governments in dealing with their Asiatic subjects will know that that is only too terribly true.

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  These people should be admitted to this country because, whether we like it or not, it is our fault that they are in this state and we ought to do our best to find homes for them when they ask us. This is where Government interference and Government direction would be justified. They could be found homes where they would not be overcrowding the existing working population. [HON. MEMBERS: "Where?"] These people are mostly craftsmen and there is always room for craftsmen in many different parts of the country. [HoN. MEMBERS: "Rugby?"] I am not trying to be funny about this. Nor do I think that hon. Members opposite are showing a decent appreciation of the plight of these people when they try to make out that I am. Hon. Members opposite should be ashamed of themselves for neglecting the sufferings of their fellow creatures. With that final plea, I ask the Committee to support my Amendment.
  7.15 p.m.
  The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sir Frank Soskice): We are obviously faced with a very important social and human problem. The Committee will not be surprised if I do not emulate the tone of the opening remarks of the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. Wise). He fairly soon got down to solid argument, and I will try to respond to him in the tone in which he thereafter conducted his speech.
  It will be of most assistance to the Committee if I seek to divide my answer to the hon. Gentleman's speech into separate compartments. As I have said, we are faced with a problem and we have to deal with it. It is no good pretending that it is not there, and we cannot simply take a merely negative attitude towards it. As a great nation, we have to take a positive attitude. When we on this side of the Committee say that we believe that our positive approach should be to take steps to try to prevent the coloured immigrants from being regarded as, or feeling themselves to be, second-class and not first-class citizens, I think that we will have the approbation of the whole Committee.
  In my approach to what I would venture to describe as the positive aspect of our dealing with this matter, I will first endeavour to make some evaluation
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  of the extent of the problem itself. One cannot form a view as to what is the right way to tackle it unless one knows its dimensions. I hope, therefore, that the Committee at the outset will bear with me if I retail what I hope will be not an excessive number of figures in order to enable hon. Members to evaluate for themselves the scope of the problem with which we have to deal.
  Part I of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act came into operation on 1st July, 1962. The Committee will no doubt have studied its provisions, but perhaps it would not be unhelpful just to remind hon. Members of the general scope of the Act in order to see how its Sections have acted on particular streams of immigrants.
  Hon. Members will remember that those who have vouchers issued by the Ministry of Labour are entitled to entry. There are other categories who are also entitled to entry under Section 2 of the Act, namely, the wife and the children under 16 of an immigrant who is given leave to enter, or who is already here; students who wish to seek entry to this country for the purpose of pursuing their studies for a substantial part of the time that they are here; and, of less importance in terms of numbers, persons able to maintain themselves.
  May I again remind the Committee how the system of Ministry of Labour vouchers works? They are divided into three separate categories. Category A relates to would-be entrants who have a job to go to in this country and for whom employers have actually asked. Category B is a very important category, because it comprises immigrants who have special skill. In practice it relates very largely to doctors from Commonwealth countries, nurses, teachers and other people possessing professional ualifications—in general people who have some training which would enable them to be of great value to our economy. The remaining category, category C, broadly comprehends other would-be entrants, namely, workers who do not fall within categories A or B, and it includes a large body of unskilled workers.
  What happens is that vouchers of the A and B categories are given precedence and the allocation made by the Ministry of Labour of vouchers for a long time has been taken up almost entirely by A

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  and B vouchers. In other words, the entrants have been either workers who have come here to jobs for which they were actually required and for which they had been asked, or persons with particular training or special qualifications, such as nurses and doctors. It is not necessary for me to remind the Committee how essential their help has been to the running of the National Health Service. I think that I would have the agreement of everybody, particularly my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health, if I said that it would be disastrous if their help were withdrawn from the National Health Service. Nor is it only doctors and nurses who come into category B, but teachers and other persons possessing specialist qualifications.
  What happened with category C was that by the middle of this year a very big backlog of applications had been built up, largely from India and Pakistan. The backlog had reached the figure of practically 300, 000 applicants and, because of this very great backlog, in June, 1964. the last Government decided that they would accept no further non-priority category C applications from India and Pakistan, from where the great majority of the category C applications came.
  So, if one tries to get a view of the scale and format of the immigrant problem, the position is that those workers who are now coming in are either those actually wanted for specific jobs and whose presence is necessary and helpful to the economy, or persons who have specialist qualifications which result in their being of very great value to the community. The National Health Service, for example is helped by them. Equally, as everybody knows, immigrants have played a valuable part in our transport services. So we are dealing with people who come here and contribute a great deal. The A and B category workers are of very great value to our economy.
  The next figure with which I would venture to trouble the Committee is this. Hon. Members may say, "How many immigrants from the new Commonwealth countries"—I exclude Australia, New Zealand and Canada—"are physically here at the moment?" That is obviously a crucial figure to know in order to ascertain
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  the dimensions of the problem. The best estimate that my Department can give of that figure is that there are now here 800, 000 immigrants from the new Commonwealth countries. In order to complete the understanding of the situation, one must ask how many of that 800, 000 have arrived since the control began to work, in other words, since 1st July, 1962. The best estimate I can give of that figure is that since 1st July, 1962, something in the region of 120, 000 have arrived, so if we deduct from the 800, 000 that 120, 000 and make allowance for the normal natural increase of the immigrants who live here, we get an idea of what the effect of the control has been and how it is running at the present moment.
  Sir E. Boyle: Is that from July, 1962, until June of this year or September of this year?
  Sir F. Soskice: It is an approximate estimate, but it is until the end of September, 1964.
  Mr. David Renton: For the sake of accuracy in the use of words, I would point out that the right hon. and learned Gentleman said that 120, 000 was the number who had arrived from the new Commonwealth countries since 1st July, 1962. I think that if he studies his own figures he will find that many more than that have arrived and that the figure of 120, 000 represents the net increase, that is to say, arrivals in excess of departures.
  Sir F. Soskice: I accept that correction. The right hon. and learned Gentleman is perfectly right. That is the net amount, the number who still remain here after deducting from the total number of arrivals those who have left. Those 120, 000 have remained here and are included in the figure of 800, 000 which I gave. I think I have given a general idea of the problem.
  Mr. Charles Curran: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman similarly give figures for Irish immigrants?
  Sir F. Soskice: I certainly can give similar figures, but I would sooner pursue the train of my argument and give those figures later; otherwise it disrupts the thread of my argument.

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  In order to investigate the problem further, I propose to give some breakdown of the voucher holders of A, B and C categories who are included in that 120, 000. I shall deal in round thousands in order not to complicate matters. Of the voucher holders of the three categories from 1st July, 1962, until the end of September, 1964, some 46, 000 have arrived. Not all the vouchers issued are taken up, but we have found in recent months that the percentage of those that are issued that are in fact taken up and represent arrivals in this country are some 75 per cent. I hope this is not becoming too complicated. Of the arrivals since control some 46, 000 are A, B and C voucher holders. As I have reminded the Committee, that does not latterly include any C voucher holders; the only voucher holders now coming in are A and B.
  The second major category of immigrants which goes to account for the arrivals up to the present date comes under the heading of dependants, and I would remind the Committee that under Section 2 children under the age of 16 and wives are entitled to come here. In point of fact, immigration control has not been quite as strict as that, and when an immigrant who is here and is working or who seeks entry and is going to be granted permission to enter wishes to bring with him a child who is over 16 or a near relative who is dependent upon him, the Immigration Control have granted the right to such persons to enter on, broadly speaking, humanitarian grounds which I feel the whole Committee would approve. Therefore, if we ask, under that second heading, how many arrivals there have been since 1st July, 1962, when the control began, to the end of September this year, the figure is 61, 000 dependants.
  I want now to draw a contrast. When one sets the figures of net balance of immigration against those of immigrants who are, as it were, settled under a right which they possess to come to this country, it seems to emerge that there is a certain balance which is difficult to account for except upon the hypothesis that there is some degree—I cannot say how much because it is very difficult to say—of evasion of control.
  If one makes the addition of those arrivals who consist of voucher holders and those arrivals who consist of de-
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  pendants, and adds the two figures of 61, 000 and 46, 000 together, one gets a figure of 107, 000, which represents those who since control began up to the end of September, 1964, arrived and who, without any question, are entitled to settle here and in fact have become resident either upon a permanent basis, or upon a more or less permanent basis—because some ultimately will go back to their countries of origin. If one looks to see during the same period how many immigrants have landed on our shores and take from that figure the number who have left our shores during the same period, we find the figure is considerably greater than the figure of 107, 000. That figure is 138, 000.
  The question immediately arises: what is it that accounts for the difference between 107, 000 and 138, 000, namely, some 31, 000? When I mentioned the figure of possible evasion, it was that which I had in mind. If one asked, "What is it that accounts for that discrepancy between the two figures?" it would seem to be that it must be accounted for by one of two hypotheses, or both. In the first place, students are entitled to come in and I am certain that the Committee will agree that the more students who come and receive training or education in this country the better for everybody, not only for this country but for the world as a whole. We have very much to offer to overseas students who come here, and the Committee will be glad to think that students have been coming here at the rate of about 18, 000 per annum. That is obviously a very large number.
  In addition, there are visitors who during the operation of the control have been allowed here on a purely discretionary basis. They have no right to come. They do not fall into any of the categories that have an unchallengeable right to enter this country, such as voucher holders, or students, or residents here. But visitors who seek to come here from Commonwealth countries can be allowed in at discretion.
  Since the control began, nearly half a million visitors have come into this country, but it is difficult for me to inform the Committee what is the number who went out because Commonwealth citizens leaving the United

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  Kingdom are not, under the existing system of control, classified.
  When Commonwealth citizens leave one does not know whether they are workers, visitors or students, because no record is kept to classify them. It is difficult to think otherwise than that there must be a certain number of visitors who stay on—although they are admitted only as visitors—and thereby evade the control, and, possibly, a far lesser number of students. That is obviously a problem of some seriousness.
  Another way of looking at those figures—which brings them, as it were, more up to date and brings out a point which I should put before the Committee as one of some importance—is to make the same analysis of the figures for the first nine months of 1963 and contrast it with the figures for the first nine months of 1964. If for the first nine months of 1963 one takes the net balance of arrivals less departures, one finds that the figure is 56, 000. If one then contrasts with that those who are allowed to settle here, being holders of vouchers or dependants, one finds that for the first nine months of 1963 that figure is 40, 000. The first question one asks oneself is, "What is the explanation of the excess of 16, 000 in the figure of 56, 000 over the figure of 40, 000?
  7.30 p.m.
  At first sight that looks a substantial excess, and one then asks whether there is a considerable measure of evasion concealed in that figure of excess; but I should inform the Committee that one must take into account, as a counterbalancing factor, the last three months of 1963. In that period, from September to the end of December, a large number, particularly of immigrants from the older Commonwealth countries, left. So, if one takes out those who left in the last three months, the excess—that is, the excess of the total number of arrivals over those admitted to settle—is reduced to about 6, 000.
  In the comparable period of 1964 those who were admitted as settlers, workers, dependants and so on again totalled 40, 000, a slight diminution, but the net arrivals in the first nine months of 1964 were right up to 69, 000, an excess of 29, 000. One asks again, does that conceal an unacceptable scale of
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  evasion? It would be made up, as I have said, largely of visitors and, to a much smaller extent, of students.
  Many students may, when they come here and finish their studies, think that they would like to stay on and, under the existing system, when an immigrant has passed the control barrier he disappears into the community and no further record is kept of him. Whether the 29, 000 will diminish in the last three months of 1964, as the 15, 000 diminished in the last three months of 1963, it is impossible for me to say; but it would seem, from the figures at present available, that there must be some measure of evasion to which one cannot afford to turn a blind eye.
  Mr. Wise: Having been slightly dazed by that bevy of figures, and not being in possesion of a slide rule, can the right hon. and learned Gentleman say how, when he is talking about evasion, we are able to know, other than by a rough calculation that there has, in fact, been evasion, and to what extent it has taken place?
  Sir F. Soskice: As I said, under the existing system of control—and I wish to emphasise "existing system"—a good deal of what I am saying must be a matter of conjecture. Further, when one finds the sort of surplus I have described—between those who settled as workers and dependants and the net arrivals—it would appear that there was a measure of evasion.
  Mr. Wise: How does one know when they have settled as workers or dependants?
  Sir F. Soskice: I have explained that there is bound to be an element of conjecture in this because the precise whereabouts of those who settle is not recorded in any system of control. But if a person comes here and is wanted to work in, say a factory, or if a doctor arrives here to join the staff of a hospital, then the inference I am drawing is that such a person has permanently settled here or, at least, has settled on a long-term basis. At any rate, such a person has in no sense evaded the control. That is as far as I can answer the question.
  Sir E. Boyle: We are extremely grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for deploying the figures so fully

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  on what we all recognise to be an extremely difficult and important topic. I am certain that the whole Committee will gladly give him all the extra time he may require so that he may make it clear when he is talking about the old Commonwealth and when he is referring to the new Commonwealth. It is important that we should be clear about this.
  Sir F. Soskice: I have the figure with me and I had intended to spare the Committee these details. I did not want to give a further breakdown. I was attempting to abbreviate my speech and so make it less wearisome to hon. Members.
  I think that it is, broadly speaking, accurate to say—and I will give two examples to support this—that the old Commonwealth countries represent less than one-tenth. I spoke of 40, 000 admitted to settle in the first nine months of 1963 and 40, 000 in the first nine months of 1964. If one breaks down that figure of 40, 000 between the old and the new Commonwealths one sees that the figure for the old Commonwealth in 1963 was 3, 000 and the new Commonwealth 37, 000; and in 1964 the figure for the old Commonwealth was 2, 000 and the new Commonwealth 38, 000. That is the best answer I can give without going into an interminable recitation of figures.
  Mr. John Harvey: We very much appreciate the helpful way in which the right hon. and learned Gentleman is giving the Committee this information, but I wonder whether he has seen the figures quoted by the Economist some time ago. Although they almost tallied with those he has given, they included a particularly odd aspect. They indicated that in the second year of control 90 per cent. of all immigrants from the Caribbean countries were non-workers—were, in other words, presumably dependent on people already here. Is the figure really as high as 90 per cent.?
  Sir F. Soskice: I would be surprised if it were as high as 90 per cent, but it nevertheless is the case that the figure of dependants is higher than the figure of actual breadwinners, if I may call them such. Nevertheless, my remarks on this must be a matter of conjecture. I have not taken advice on this from my
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  officials. I may be wrong and I speak subject to verification.
  If that is the general nature of the problem, one must then ask oneself what is needed in the way of changes. Do these figures want adjustment or are they well within the economic absorbtive capacity of the country? To answer that we must first look at the credit side of the balance sheet. To regard these immigrants as people who do not contribute a service to this country is very wide of the facts. They are extremely valuable citizens, especially when we bear in mind the category B workers. I hope that I am not unnecessarily repeating myself when I say that this is borne out when one goes to the hospitals and sees how many coloured nurses are working in them and inquires of the hospital staff how they do their work. They are a very valuable addition to the complement of our citizens and render great service. The same is equally true of doctors and other skilled people. So that on the figures alone, which prima facie seem large, one would form a misleading impression unless one were to bear that fact very prominently in mind.
  May I test what I have just said by giving the unemployment rate among the immigrant population in this country. It is now only 2·5 percent. of total adult unemployment, which is, comparatively speaking, a low figure. In other words, a large number of immigrants are exercising their skills to the advantage of the other citizens of this country.
  I mentioned evasion. Since the control has been operating for only just under 2½ years, it is perhaps too early to form accurate computations of the scale of the evasion. One sometimes uses the phrase "an acceptable scale," and that means minimal evasion. But obviously if the evasion reaches a scale above that no responsible Government can turn a blind eye. They must take steps to deal with it. But those steps are not at all easy to frame.
  If one seeks to go further than the existing scheme of control whereby, as I have said, once the immigrant is past the barrier he disppears into the population, one has to contemplate, I do not say an over-severe form of control, but the type of severe control which we apply to aliens. This carries with it the necessity for the person to make a report to

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  the police and notify any change of address. Without going further into detail, the Committee will readily realise that there are serious difficulties in the way of imposing that type of control in the case of students and people from the older Commonwealth countries as well as those from the newer Commonwealth countries. I do not say that it is in practice impossible, but it would be very much resented, as the Committee may well conjecture. Therefore, one greatly hesitates about that. I am examining the problem very closely, but, unless a control of that sort must be imposed and unless the figures are imperative and require it, I hope that the Committee will understand hesitancy on my part about taking steps to impose it.
  I turn to the question of the dependants. I suppose that by being more severe on dependants, who are admitted on a discretionary basis, we could reduce the number of dependants coming here. Human considerations require that we should not do this. Once the breadwinner is here, his family should be kept together. The Act gives the right to children under 16 to come here, but I hope that the Committee will agree that the previous Government were perfectly right in allowing a fairly wide measure of immigration to people who did not strictly come within the definition in Section 2 because they were too old, or because they were relatives who were dependants or because they were mothers and fathers. I therefore greatly hope that there would be no question of the Committee and the country thinking it necessary to limit the number of dependants. Whatever one does, one must be human and try to keep families together. That is in everybody's interest, and I am sure that everybody would approve it.
  7.45 p.m.
  That brings me to the question of the voucher holders. This is a matter particularly within the province of my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour. It is proposed that, if he is fortunate enough to catch your eye, Sir, he should wind up the debate and indicate the considerations which, from the point of his Department, led him and the Government to the conclusion that, at any rate for the time being, the existing scale of applications which he grants—between 1, 600 and 2, 000 a month—should be continued.
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  Obviously, the matter must be subject to review and closely watched as the problem develops.
  That leads me to the conclusion of what I ventured to describe as my outline of the problem and of my indication of measures which could be taken, if they were thought necessary, to reduce the numbers. But that is only part of the case. The case which I feel the Committee would wish to consider is that concerned with the more positive approach to this problem. It would be quite appalling if in our country, with all its great tradition of tolerance and fair play, of insistence on the rights and dignity of the individual, there were allowed to develop some sort of division between citizens in this country according to which they became first or second class citizens. Whatever we do, we must fight hard against that sort of thing.
  I feel quite certain that if the Government give a lead, there is an enormous fund of good will among the people of this country towards any effort made either centrally by the Government, or locally by local authorities, or voluntary organisations, to which we should give the maximum help in any effort they make, to integrate new arrivals in the fullest sense into our community. I know that I will have everybody's agreement when I say that it is idle to pretend that we do not have a formidable task, but it is a task which, with good will, tolerance and understanding, we can surmount. After all, we cannot consider this matter purely in a national context. One of the greatest changes in the pattern of the modern world is the emergence of many new nations to independence whose citizens are coloured. I think that I am right in saying that, if one looks at the debating chambers in the United Nations, the majority of nations represented at the United Nations are coloured nations. One of the greatest challenges to modern civilisation is to prevent a clash and mounting misunderstanding between peoples of different colour and different races.
  That is the world scene. It will be with us for decades. It is not just a passing phase. It is one which will be an abiding problem for all of us for as long as we live and for as long as our children live. We should do whatever we can to facilitate and accelerate the

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  process of building up understanding and of integrating the coloured citizens we have with us into our community. Obviously there will be a transitional stage, and during that stage there will be, as there clearly have been, social strains. But we must take a longer and a world view and relate our own activities to the world scene.
  Against that background, what positive steps do we have in mind? One is this. I know that hon. Members, on both sides, both those who from the outset have felt an acute distaste for any control and those who from the outset have felt that control is necessary, will agree that it is essential to try to avoid the risk of harm to Commonwealth relationships. I know that everybody will agree to that.
  We all agree that the Commonwealth, with its community of 750 million peoples of all colours and races, is the greatest grouping that the world has ever known for peace. Everybody would, I know, be most anxious not in any way, by any action that we take in our country, to impair the bonds which hold those peoples together. It is for this reason that the Government's approach has from the outset been that we should try to bring the Commonwealth countries into discussion with us to endeavour to take into account their point of view with regard to the working of our control. We can take their point of view into account and also—it is a two-way traffic—ask their help in assisting us to operate the control which, we think, we must operate. It is indispensable to prevent the gradual strain on our social services which otherwise would result.
  My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations has, some little time ago, already taken steps to make contact with the Commonwealth countries to bring about, when we have been able to carry out such review as we consider necessary of the working of our control, the necessary discussions at which that collaboration can take place between the Commonwealth and this country.
  I draw the attention of the Committee to this second step. We have always thought that, if we are to try to bring about this integration in the full sense
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  into our community, an essential measure is legislation to prevent discrimination against coloured persons in public places. It is our intention to introduce that legislation.
  Some people may wonder whether it is necessary now. It is the firm opinion of the Government that it is much better to anticipate any manifestations of colour prejudice that may develop rather than try to intervene ex post facto when the acuteness of feelings has already arisen which may be the consequence of demonstrations of colour prejudice. Therefore, we are firmly convinced that as soon as we can do so and as soon as we can frame the necessary legislation, we should introduce legislation on those topics. If we can find the necessary definitions—they are extremely difficult—we would add to that legislation against incitement. There are formidable difficulties of definition in the way of that legislation, but they are being closely studied; and if, as we hope, we can overcome those difficulties, we will couple that legislation with the legislation against discrimination.
  I then go to the next point. Everybody would agree that the root cause of the problem with which we are faced is poverty and low living standards in the country of origin from which the immigrants come. We now have a Minister of Overseas Development who has her own Department. She and her Department can play a tremendous rocirc;le. She intends—and we all have every hope that she will succeed—to go far in assisting development in those countries and opening up in them the prospect for a fuller life for the inhabitants of those countries, for lack of which they have in large measure sought to come to this country as immigrants so that they may enjoy reasonable living standards which are absent in their own countries of origin. My right hon. Friend is considering anxiously her proposals which she will announce in due course, and in the course of this debate I would not seek to anticipate them.
  Sir E. Boyle: Does the right hon. Gentleman consider it realistic in this context to talk about these things without mentioning the population"explosion" in those countries? Do the right hon. Lady's responsibilities include this subject, and what can we do to help with it?
  Sir F. Soskice: It would be obviously unrealistic to think that by the administration of her own Department and without more, my right hon. Friend can solve the whole problem of immigration. After all, the world is much smaller than it used to be; means of transport are far more extensive and one must, in the modern scene, reckon with the fact that there will be shifts of population on a far larger scale than was ever contemplated in the past. That is bound to happen. Even if development went on at a scale which is at present beyond all hope, obviously there would continue to be movements of population with which we would have to deal. Undoubtedly, my right hon. Friend will be able to help. Whether or not she checks immigration by providing better living standards in those countries, everybody would rejoice in any success which she achieved in raising living standards in those countries.
  The hon. Member for Rugby, who moved the Amendment, referred to the difficulties of overcrowding, the difficulties of schools and the possible danger of certain schools, if they have more than a certain percentage of coloured pupils, becoming stamped as immigrant schools, with something approaching an unpleasant form of apartheid resulting. He spoke of the urgent need to stop all that sort of thing. A great deal of work has been done. Again, I would not seek to anticipate the steps now being actively investigated by my right hon. Friends the Ministers of Housing, Education, Health, and so on. Clearly, they have a big rôle to play in helping our country to absorb the newly-arrived immigrants and they will each, in due course, announce their proposals for playing their part in dealing with that problem.
  That brings me to the end of my speech, but I do not want to conclude it without saying this. The question in this debate is whether the control should be continued for another year. The opinion has been expressed by, I believe, the hon. Member for Rugby that there should be more elaborate and more long-term legislation. I agree. Obviously, it must be reconsidered. We must reshape our control. We must watch the problem as it develops and so shape our legislation as to deal with it in its various
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  phases. For the present, we are merely asking for the control to be continued for a year.
  I close with this remark so that there should be no doubt about the Government's view. The Government are firmly convinced that an effective control is indispensable. That we accept, and have always accepted, although we couple it with the feeling that the Commonwealth must be brought in. We must have an effective control whatever else we have.
  Mr. Grimond: In response to a question from the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Curran), the right hon. and learned Gentleman said earlier that he could give the figures for Irish immigrants. I wonder whether he can give those figures and tell us how they are compiled. I always understood that they were not available.
  Sir F. Soskice: I should like to answer the question by referring the right hon. Gentleman to an Answer given on 18th November, 1963, which gave the breakdown of those figures by the then Minister of Pensions and National Insurance. The reply is in HANSARD. It is elaborate and I would rather refer the right hon. Gentleman to it than weary the Committee with figures. The reply depends upon a nice calculation of those who have left and those who have come. The Committee may well understand that there is a considerable inflow in this country in and out of Southern Ireland.
  I know that the hon. Member for Rugby put down his Amendment for the purpose of provoking discussion upon it. I hope that in view of what I have said, he will agree that the Government should have from this Committee an expression of view that the control should be renewed for one year.
  Mr. Norman St. John-Stevas: I rise with trepidation to make my first speech in the House of Commons, but I am fortified by the knowledge of the kindness with which it is customary for hon. Members to hear the first speech of a new Member. In the last Parliament, I sat in this Chamber in what was literally, but in no other sense, a higher place, but where to give tongue would have been to court instant expulsion. That is, I hope, a hazard which I shall not run tonight.
  I am proud indeed to be a Member of this ancient and honourable assembly and

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  proud to represent the constituency of Chelmsford, which is so typical of modern Britain and which has, I might inform my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mr. Wise), a bishop who, while no supporter of the party opposite, has spoken out strongly on the racial issue. I am also very glad to be able to pay tribute to my predecessor, Sir Hubert Ashton, who served the State faithfully for so long and has now gone on to serve the Church. In his new position he is in charge of the investments and properties of the Church of England, so he is in the unique and happy position of being able to serve both God and Mammon. In Parliament he consistently upheld the traditions of progressive Toryism, and that is a path along which I am very happy to attempt to follow him.
  8.0 p.m.
  This Amendment tonight is a rather technical one and I hope I shall remain within the bounds of order, but there is nothing technical about the subject which underlies the subject of our debate, which is, indeed, part of a debate being conducted in every home in the country. It is a debate about the problem of how we are to live in peace and in mutual charity with those who share a common allegiance to the Crown but many of whom are different in colour from ourselves and have different national traditions and different national ways of life. What is at stake in this debate is really the continuance of the amity and civil concord which is at once the basic prerequisite of a civilised society and at the same time its highest achievement.
  We have to consider in this discussion whether or not immigration from the Commonwealth should continue to be controlled, and, if so, how it can best be done. This is an issue on which people feel strongly. It is an issue where emotions and passions are involved; and it is, therefore, right that it should be discussed; but I think there is an inescapable duty on all in public life, and, if I may venture to say so, particularly on Members of this Committee, to seek in that discussion to moderate and assuage the force of passion by the counter force of reasonable argument.
  One argument which, I trust, will not be put forward to this Committee tonight—I mention it because it is an argument
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  which is prevalent in the country—is that there should be stricter control of immigration because the crime rate and the prevalence of disease are higher amongst immigrants than amongst other sections of our population. Home Secretary after Home Secretary has denied this shameful and baseless allegation. I feel it is the duty of Members not only to refrain from presenting it themselves as an issue but to repudiate those who for electoral gain put it forward on their behalf. I do not think one can stand by on this issue like Pontius Pilate washing, or wringing, one's hands. I think one has a positive duty to dissociate oneself from that kind of support. I am not referring to the situation in Smethwick in particular, because I do not know what went on there at the time: I was busy in my own constituency. I mention it as a matter of general principle.
  I trust that our discussion tonight. and any other discussion which is held here, will not be marred by any thought of party advantage or marked by a display of partisan venom, and, if I may be so bold, I would presume to offer the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary my own appreciation of the balanced, humane and informative way in which he has dealt with this problem tonight.
  In passing—I do not say this for partisan purposes—may I say how much I regret the injection of rancour into an earlier discussion of this matter by the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister. That intervention must be at the back of our minds as we discuss this Measure, and, indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mr. Wise) brought it to the forefront. I feel that it is better left in the background. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister made a mistake. I think he is human and, therefore, it is not surprising. I think the temptation now is to exploit that mistake. I think it should be resisted, not out of tenderness for the right hon. Gentleman, because I do not think he needs it, nor, perhaps, deserves it, but because if we persist in keeping the discussion on the level to which it was unfortunately debased it will make it much more difficult to find the solution to the problem which involves not only the peace and happiness of many millions in this country at the present time but, as the Home Secretary has said, of generations of people to come.

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  Now I should like to say a word about the Act. To me the most that can be said for it is that it is a disagreeable necessity. I do not take very seriously the point made by members of the Government that the basic point at issue is one of consultation with the Commonwealth. I feel that, at the best, this view is wrong-headed, and at the worst a little hypocritical. I believe that there is general agreement that there should be some control, and far more important than the actual provisions of the Act are the manner and tone in which we discuss its provisions tonight and on other occasions.
  My hon. Friend the Member for Rugby criticised the Act because there were loopholes in it, and the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary spoke of evasion of the Act and of a level of evasion which would be tolerable. I should like to make this point, that it is precisely because there are loopholes in the Act, because there is the possibility for a certain amount of evasion, that the Act is tolerable. If I may use an illustration, which may not be familiar to the Committee but will be familiar to my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Curran), it is rather like the Roman index of forbidden books, which is tolerable because to some extent it is unenforceable. If the Act were tightened and were to be made foolproof it could be done only at the price of an intolerable invasion of the very precious and basic liberty of all Commonwealth citizens to visit the mother country freely and with the minimum of interference. A certain amount of evasion, I think, is worth paying for the preservation of this freedom.
  I should like to see one liberalising of the law. It was discussed in relation to the previous question of aliens. I should like to see the establishment of an appeals tribunal for Commonwealth citizens—it should certainly be established if one for aliens is to be established. People excluded from this country on health or other grounds should have an opportunity of appeal against executive decisions to a more impartial tribunal.
  Of course, it will be said that we are in danger of being swamped by immigrants. Perils come and go. We had the yellow peril in the past and we have the black peril at the moment. Doubtless
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  there will be some other coloured peril in the future. I do not think that this peril of being swamped by immigrants was ever very much more than a myth. Basically, immigrants come to this country because there is work for them to do, and that is borne out by the very interesting statement of the Home Secretary who said that the rate of unemployment amongst immigrants was 2·5 per cent., a very low figure indeed. There is a built-in economic regulator of immigration, in the actual state of our economy. This was, I think, proved in 1958 and again in 1959, when the rate of immigration fell dramatically when there was a mild recession.
  I think it is right that we should pay tribute to the work, the excellent work, which immigrants, on the whole, do. The Home Secretary referred to their work in the National Health Service. Anyone who has been in hospital knows how true this is. If there be prejudice, then let it be prejudice on the side of liberty, and let this Act be liberally interpreted.
  Liberalism today—and I say this with a proper sense of respect for the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) and his gallant band who occupy nearly three-quarters of the second bench below the Gangway—is not so much a party but a frame of mind. It is an attitude to social and moral problems which is the fruit of centuries of free and ordered Government. It is found in every part of this Committee, and I would also like to say on this issue in particular that illiberalism is found in every part of this Committee, too.
  One other principle of the Act to which I should like to refer is that, whatever the controls at the ports, once a Commonwealth citizen has been admitted to this country he ranks equally with other citizens. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said that we should not have any second-class citizenship. How much I agree with that. We should deplore any attempt to do so. We should particularly deplore any attempt to deprive immigrants of the full protection of the courts. I know that we are not discussing the deportation proceedings tonight, but may I say in passing that any question of taking the jurisdiction over deportation away from the courts and giving it to the executive authority should be firmly resisted.

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  If the rights of those who immigrate to this country cannot be assured by the ordinary, normal, social processes, then I believe that there is a case for intervention by the legislature, and I was very interested in the right hon. and learned Gentleman's announcement that it is the Government's intention to introduce legislation to make certain forms of racial discrimination illegal. We must all regret the situation which has created the need for such legislation, but if it be necessary to secure one of the things which make life in this country worth living, namely, equality before the law, we as a legislature should not be afraid to take the necessary steps to ensure the enjoyment of basic human rights.
  The right hon. and learned Gentleman gave us a lot of figures, and we are most grateful to him for them. I estimate that under the Act this year the net immigration will be between 70, 000 and 90, 000, but what folly it would be to admit even one immigrant to this country unless we are prepared to make an intense effort both in housing and education so that the problems of these immigrants are solved. I refer particularly to overcrowding which is a great social problem, and which causes such social tensions.
  I am not saying that there should be preferential treatment for those who immigrate to this country, because, if we gave preferential treatment as such, we would merely increase tensions and not lessen them. But, at the same time, it is the duty of local authorities to see that those who come into this country and contribute to our wealth and prosperity are not, by reason of their social position, denied the amenities of civilised life. It is equally the duty of local authorities and other voluntary bodies to do all that they can to help those English residents who suffer most from the inevitable tensions created by new arrivals and who bear the burden of this problem literally on their doorsteps.
  We often speak of a multi-racial Commonwealth, and we speak of it with pride. Today, in Britain, for good or ill, we have, and we are, a multi-racial society. Life would be easier were it not so. It would be simpler if we put up the shutters now and said, "No admission", but I think that we would lose by that more than we would gain.
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  8.15 p.m.
  We should welcome the fact that we are a multi-racial society, because it makes us sharers in the greatest problem, apart from the problem of war and peace, which faces us in the twentieth century, namely, how men and women of different colours and different creeds are to live side by side and to work out their destinies in friendship and good will.
  Today there are many people who are perplexed about Britain's role in the world. I believe that this debate highlights one contribution which we can make. We can build up a society in Britain which, for fairness, justice, and tolerance on the racial issue will be a model for the rest of the world. If this is successful, it will be a triumph not for power but for example. I believe that, if it can be achieved, it will be something worthy to rank with the greatest of our successes in the past.
  Dr. David Kerr: It is always a daunting proceeding to address the Committee for the first time, and I have observed that it is not the habit of Members making their maiden speeches to pay any tribute to maiden speakers before them, but I hope that the Committee will understand my added difficulty in following the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. JohnStevas), and I hope that I am not trespassing on the normal practices of the Committee if I say how much I admired what he said, and the character which lay behind it. I only add, in reference to the hon. Gentleman's remarks about previous comments on the situation, that there are few burdens which we carry with greater difficulty than the burden of being forgiven by the other side.
  Tolerance is the keynote of this debate, and I therefore should not ask the Committee for tolerance but rather for indulgence. I suppose that it is reasonable enough for a maiden speaker to select so non-controversial a subject as that selected by the hon. Member for Chelmsford, myself and others to embark on our careers as orators in this House. I do so because the constituency which has sent me here characterises, very frequently and in many ways, the problems which the workings of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act are throwing up before us.

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  I feel that I am not trespassing on anybody's feelings when I say that the matter of greatest regret to me, and perhaps to many others, is that the Committee should have to discuss this problem at all, and that it should discuss it, not in the context of Commonwealth immigration, which is what the title of the Act should indicate to us, but in the context of coloured immigration. I feel very deeply that to discuss it, even by implication, as we are now doing, in this way, is in some measure to give justification to people who think that the coloured problem is a special one. It is not a special problem. It is a special aspect of a whole series of problems.
  I would not like to anticipate the discussions which will, I think, be fascinating and important when the measures adumbrated by my right hon. and learned Friend come before the House—measures to outlaw racial discrimination and racial incitement—but it is inevitable that in discussing this problem of Commonwealth immigration we should, in fact, be thinking, at the back of our minds, about some of these problems of racial differences.
  I cannot, however, forbear to quote so authoritative and impartial a source as The Times. When the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill was discussed a year ago, The Times commented adversely, but it was before that, at the time of the passage of the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill, that it said, in an angry leader:
  …we have to consider whether the Bill, eviscerated as…a non-discriminatory measure by the exemption of the Irish, is any longer capable of being acceptable at all with any shred of decency."
  That was said not by anybody on either side of this House but by The Times.
  I venture to draw the attention of the Committee to the very special problem to which my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary has referred, namely, the exemption of students under the terms of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act. I have in my constituency the Balham and Tooting College of Commerce, which is probably unique in the facilities that it makes available to an enormous variety of students emanating from Commonwealth countries.
  Out of 866 full-time students at present pursuing courses in commerce and related subjects at the college, no less than
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  850 are from Commonwealth countries. The majority come from Ghana and Nigeria, but there are representatives from Tanzania, Uganda, India, Ceylon, Jamaica, and so on. The interesting thing is that these are the full-time students. The part-time students attending the college are all regarded as Londoners, which is a remarkable tribute to the process of integration of the parttime students.
  In order to facilitate the solution of the inevitable problems that arise in such an area as this, the college, under the auspices of the London County Council, has taken three important steps. In order to select students who will not fall into embarrassing difficulties through lack of finance it goes carefully into the background and facilities at the command of those students. Secondly, it goes to great lengths to run induction courses for the students entering the college and, lastly, it has a full-time welfare officer who is engaged for a large proportion of her time in solving some of the problems met by some of the students.
  I refer particularly to their problems for the reason that nobody has at any time suggested that students of this sort should be subject to control, yet in my constituency they form a significant part of a very large immigrant population. The population is difficult to compute, but is reckoned by some to be as much as 12 percent. or 13 percent. of the total population of Wandsworth, Central, and very many of these are people who are pursuing courses not only at the Balham and Tooting College but at the London School of Economics and other university centres. They face problems which are highlighted in our social difficulties and which too often are referred to as problems of immigration. They are not problems of immigration; they are problems arising from the shortage of houses and social amenities.
  We are all aware that people who come to this country from no matter where face the same difficulties. This is particularly true of those who come to the south-east corner of Britain, where our immigration problem—and I say this meaning no offence to anybody in or out of the House—is contributed to as much by immigrants from Scotland and the north-cast of England as from Jamaica. I have often felt that if all Scotsmen wore

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  their kilts there would soon be a "Keep Britain Trousered" movement. In housing, the special problems of the immigrant population manifest themselves in a variety of obstacles to normal family life.
  I want to refer particularly to the difficult problems faced by students of mature age who bring their wives over here—or perhaps I had better refer to the student of mature age who brings his wife over here. That would be a more tactful way of putting it. The inevitable processes of nature lead to the appearance of a new sort of immigrant—one who arrives on the obstetric delivery table. Unhappily, the difficulties which these people face in terms of housing accommodation, finance and the need to pursue a course of studies—often on the part of both husband and wife—have led to the farming out of these children, not for adoption but for fostering, often at remote distances. In some cases these children are well looked after, and in some cases they are not. In one case in my experience, where the necessity for fostering was recognised and embarked upon, the child subsequently died in a fire.
  This sort of tragedy should be avoidable, and I hope that if we continue, as I earnestly hope we shall, to exempt students from the provisions of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act, we will also recognise their special problems, which are different in kind and quantity from the problems faced by other immigrant groups.
  I want to emphasise a further aspect of the problems that these people have to deal with, which was brought to my attention only this week by a Nigerian student who had pursued successfully a training course in accountancy at the college to which I have referred. He completed that part of the course with which the college dealt, and it was then necessary for him to find suitable employment so that he could proceed for his finals. Without this employment in a recognised post the A.C.C.A., the examining body, would not be able to allow him to sit for his final examination. The A.C.C.A. provided him with a list of recognised posts, to each of which he wrote, and from each of which he had a refusal.
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  This man is fortunately in command of sufficient independent means not to have to fall back upon our social security services, but that is not the point as far as he is concerned. He needs a job in order to make some sense of the two years which he has already spent in this country, exempted from the provisions of Commonwealth immigration. When we are thinking of the problem of racial discrimination we have to think of such small but very characteristic problems which are faced by some of our visitors in the scholastic field.
  I shall not trespass much longer on the Committee's time. I want to end on a very hopeful note. It has been my pleasure for six years, on the other side of the river, to share the benches in County Hall with an able, courteous, intelligent, forthright and conscientious member of the Council, who is also a West Indian. I wonder if it is too much to hope that in the not too remote future we shall accept on these benches somebody of similar origin, who will make similar valuable contributions to the work of this House.
  8.30 p.m.
  Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: I am sure that the House would like me to congratulate the two hon. Members who have just made their maiden speeches. I very much want to congratulate them myself. My hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. JohnStevas) impressed us with his humane and compassionate approach, which was nevertheless realistic, from the point of view both of the immigrants and of those who live in the districts where they have to be received. We were, also particularly struck by his putting before us the ideal that this country could play a particularly distinguished part in what is undoubtedly one of the great tasks before the world—the achievement of a rise in the standard of living of the people in underdeveloped countries and lasting racial harmony.
  As a former Minister of Education I should like to congratulate the hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central (Dr. David Kerr) on his particularly interesting survey of the problems confronting students from the Commonwealth, especially those who are in his constituency. The fact that there they have a full-time welfare officer is important.

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  One hopes that this idea will be widely adopted in other areas where similar problems may exist. It was very interesting that the hon. Member should say what I think is true, and what I hope to show later in my speech, that the problems of immigration are a thousand different ones merged together to produce one formidable problem.
  The Home Secretary made a very conciliatory and informative speech which I think was appreciated by the whole Committee. It is the first time that we have had a speech of that kind on this subject from the Government Front Bench. It would undoubtedly have made a great deal of difference to the whole political climate in which this subject has been discussed in the House of Commons and in the country if a speech of that character had been made during the Second Reading of the Bill which became the Commonwealth Immigrants Act.
  I shall have to return to this subject later and briefly, but for the present I should like to follow the Home Secretary in his survey of the immigration problem. As befits his position, the right hon. and learned Gentleman was mostly statistical. I wish to endeavour to supplement what he told the Committee from a more human viewpoint and to speak mainly from my own experience in the Midlands where I believe that about 30 percent. of the Commonwealth immigrants go. I am also closely connected with the City of Birmingham, and I believe that one in 10 of the immigrants go to that city. I shall try to deal with the problem objectively and fairly.
  It gives me great pleasure to agree strongly with what has been said by the Home Secretary and other hon. Members about hospitals. It is a delight to visit hospitals, certainly those in the Midlands, and see the dark-skinned nurses going about their jobs. In one hospital which I know particularly well the phrase used about these nurses is that they "think the world of them". But, if I may say so, they are trained, they are under discipline, mostly they live in. If one asked the matron what is thought of the situation, and obviously one does so, the matron would be inclined to give the very practical kind of answer which one would expect from a matron—" They are excellent, but you do not want to
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  have too many of them."I wish to ask, are we to condemn such an attitude as a racialistic one? I should say no. I should say that it is a commonsense attitude.
  Mr. Archie Manuel: It depends on the matron, of course.
  Mr. Lloyd: I quite agree, but I am probably just as good a judge of a matron as the hon. Gentleman.
  I find on the whole that teachers, although they are regarded as doing a useful job, have not achieved quite the same degree of acceptance by our own people as have the nurses. I turn now to the general workers and I say that, broadly speaking, they are excellent workers and highly regarded by many employers. Of course, the real difficulty arises over the problems of housing and social life.
  How did many of these immigrants come to the Midlands? What happened in many instances was that they, or the Indian Housing Association on their behalf, bought an old house, as people said, a house old enough to be cheap and large enough to accommodate a lot of people in order that it might be paid for. Very often the people paid a large price for the house. What has been the immediate result? One knows—this has taken place in many streets—that the value of the rest of the property in the street would fall by about 30 percent. Why was this? The reason was that the original residents felt that slummy conditions would develop in the street. Young people were able to go away into a entirely different district. The older people, finding it more difficult to obtain a mortgage, stayed, but did so rather sullenly. The question one asks is whether this is the best way to introduce members of one race to another for the first time.
  I hope the House will indulge me—I am going to touch on this very delicately, but it must be touched on because these are problems which actually affect our people in the Midlands. Conceptions of personal cleanliness are very high among Asians, but they are entirely different from those among Europeans, and there is no doubt that when the two meet for the first time this causes quite a shock, as it did in the

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  Midlands. I shall not stress this beyond just mentioning it, because I feel that it is a subject which falls into a class which I am now approaching where remedial action of a tactful kind can be taken and can yield good results.
  The same thing applies to what was a serious grievance with regard to West Indians in Birmingham, and that was that, according, no doubt, to their customs in their own country, they kept jollifications going until the early hours of the morning. [Laughter.] This might seem to be a joke here, but it is not quite a joke for people who have to be at the factory early in the morning.
  Mr. Manuel: Has the right hon. Gentleman ever been to Ireland?
  Mr. Lloyd: Remedial action is beginning and this is a hopeful feature to which we want to fasten on. Again, and one might say that this is a small thing if one is not living in the street, Indians and Pakistanis look upon the occupation of houses in a way different from that of our own people. They do not bother to cut the hedges in the small front gardens. They let the land overgrow. [Laughter.] This is not a subject at which we should laugh. In the instance which I have in mind a liaison committee was set up to help relations between the races and in this case it was the Indian youth club which took the hint and neatly cut all the hedges in the street fronting houses occupied by Indians and Pakistanis. This is not something to laugh at but something about which we should be pleased because it is the beginning of good relations and the beginning of the healing of what might be serious wounds.
  A wonderful job has been done in Birmingham by the liaison officer appointed by the city council. Undoubtedly he has the confidence of the immigrants and he has done invaluable work in helping them to adapt themselves to British conditions. This is very important. It is an idea which might well be adopted in other parts of the country.
  The school problem has been mentioned. The real point here was undoubtedly the fear on the part of English parents that their children would be held back because Indian and Pakistani children, in particular, could not understand our language sufficiently well. In the
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  Midlands under various provisions and remedial Sections of the Education Act quite a number of teachers have been brought in to teach Indian and Pakistani children the English language so as to remove this grievance.
  I move to a very sensitive area in the matter of social relations. I have noted the statement which the Prime Minister made last night. As I challenged him on the subject at the weekend, it is only right to acknowledge the courage of the Prime Minister in making the statement last night, directed as it must be to an extent towards his own supporters. But I feel increasing doubt whether we are wise to approach this problem by what I might call rolling generalisations and ex cathedra condemnations by bell, book and candle directed against particular classes.
  We are all, of course, against the colour bar. [HON. MEMBERS "Oh."] Are the real circumstances in relation to these clubs quite as they now appear? I stand in the Committee and say that I have some sympathy for the Midlands working men's clubs concerned and I notice that The Guardian today referred in a rather interesting way to what a club is and how special it is. Indeed, the theory has always been that a club is an extension of the home. Here I quote what was said yesterday, as reported in the Birmingham Post today, by Mr. Cotterill, the general secretary of the West Midlands branch of the Club and Institute Union. This is what he said, in, perhaps, his rough and ready way:
  "We cannot have these people coming off a ship and walking straight into a working man's club."
  I link that point with the second statement which the Prime Minister made in his speech last night, when he referred to the importance of improving the standard of living in the Commonwealth countries so that no man would be driven here by the whip of poverty. This I enthusiastically support, and I hope, as the Home Secretary does, that the Minister of Overseas Development will have great success in her work. But it is, inevitably, a long-term job, as we all know very well. The Home Secretary himself referred to the immense numbers, some 700 million people, and these alone mean that it will be a long-term job. We must, therefore, face present facts.

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  I think that this has a bearing on the point of view of working men's clubs in the Midlands. A large number of Commonwealth immigrants come, say, from the Punjab. In the House we have talked endlessly about the underdeveloped countries and about the smallness of people's incomes there, as little as £20 or £25 for a whole year. When they come off the ships to which Mr. Cotterill referred, they come to an area where many people, and possibly even they themselves, will earn that amount in a week.
  The standards of our Midlands working people today are high. We are very glad that they are. We still speak of the working man in this country although the term is really getting a bit out of date. By world standards, however, the Midlands working man is a rich middle-class man, and he attaches enormous importance to the standards which he has built up. Therefore, I feel that we must have some sympathy with him when he wishes to be a little careful, not necessarily on account of the colour of a man's skin but on account of the completely different approach a newcomer may have when he first arrives in this country.
  The arrival of very large numbers of Commonwealth immigrants so suddenly has been a very great shock in the areas where they have been concentrated. The Home Secretary himself used the expression "a formidable problem". Nevertheless, we note that helpful remedial action is beginning. I plead with the Committee that, at this stage, we ought not to put too much strain on these early beginnings of remedial action.
  I was very much impressed by what was said by my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford when he urged that it would be better if we did not let in one unless the quality of life which he had here and the treatment which he received were worthy. It is on that basis that I venture to make my plea. I quite understand when the Home Secretary says that we must consider this question in a world context, and I understand if it is thought that we should make a contribution in allowing immigrants from the Commonwealth into this country, but much more important than whether the numbers should be a little larger or a little smaller is the quality of the life which we can give them when they come. If, as I believe, racial harmony
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  will be much helped if we keep the numbers, at least for the time being, on the low side, then we should be well advised to take that course.
  8.45 p.m.
  I must turn here, I fear on a rather sharper note, to the attitude of the parties to this matter in recent times. The party opposite voted against the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill, and we held that they were utterly wrongheaded in doing so. We believed that to support that Bill was the right course for the friends of racial harmony, and we held then, and we hold now, that in opposing the Bill hon. Gentlemen opposite were, in effect—though not, of course, in intention—stirring up racial disharmony in this country in a major way. It was, of course, their constitutional right to vote against the Bill, but it was our constitutional right to hold them to account for it in the constituencies. But then there was a peculiar new phase. The self-righteousness of hon. Gentlemen opposite was so great that they denounced anyone who so much as mentioned the Bill or the problem in the country. They denounced them as racialists. It was nothing less than a gigantic smear campaign. In fact, hon. Gentlemen opposite had every reason to be ashamed of the shifts and turns of their policy on this matter.
  Mr. Manuel: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Lloyd: No. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will allow me to continue. I wish to make my own speech.
  Even the supporters of hon. Gentlemen opposite were dismayed. I noticed that in the Fabian Society journal published in September it was stated that it was feared that the policy of the party opposite as then declared would be taken by the electors as evasion. The journal went on to say:
  "It would be foolish to deny that there are ambiguities in the general policy that Harold Wilson outlined last November."
  We deeply resent this campaign by the party opposite. Yet it is apparently completely accepted by that party. I quote what was said by the Leader of the House last week:
  "The gentleman who was the Conservative candidate I had never met before, and I met him only once when we were both canvassing.

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  By one look at him and by shaking his hand I knew that there would be no mention of the Commonwealth immigrants problem in that constituency—nor was there. But it is not a scrap of good pretending that this problem was not raised in Smethwick and in other constituencies. It was raised."—ICIAL REPORT, 10th November, 1964; Vol. 701, c. 968.]
  It is a very peculiar constitutional doctrine that an important, controversial Bill, fought over bitterly in this House, must not be mentioned during the ensuing General Election.
  Mr. Manuel: Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?
  Mr. Lloyd: No. I shall not be long now.
  Apparently we can still argue the matter in this House, but, according to hon. Gentlemen opposite, it is not fit to be discussed by the common people in the constituencies, whom one hon. Member opposite even described as "the illiterate electors".
  One of the main bases of the opposition to the Bill by the party opposite was the exclusion of Southern Ireland from it. Amid all the shifts and changes of the policy of the party opposite this has never been withdrawn. What are they going to do now? They now have responsibility, and we shall wait to see how they reconcile their previous pledges with the national interest.
  Mr. Ivor Richard: It is a privilege to be able to make a maiden speech, particularly after the last three speeches from right hon. and hon. Members opposite. I am supposed to be noncontroversial and I hope that anything I say hereafter will be taken in a noncontroversial sense. I want to answer, to begin with, some observations made by the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd). He said that we on this side of the House objected to the question of immigration being raised in the election. Of course we did not. This was clearly an issue which should have been raised and discussed. What we objected to during the election, and what we object to today, was not the raising of the matter but the way in which it was raised.
  Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd rose—
  Mr. Richard: If the right hon. Gentleman will be so kind as to bear with
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  me, I will give him some concrete examples of how the issue was raised—I have past reports in The times—and one of how it may be raised, so it seems, by the Conservative candidate in the coming by-election at Leyton.
  I am sorry that the debate should have taken this turn. Up to the time that the right hon. Gentleman spoke, this had seemed to me, as a maiden speaker, to be a constructive debate in which hon. Members on both sides were genuinely attempting to come to grips with a problem which is, on any view, one which must be dealt with and grasped firmly. With the greatest respect to the right hon. Gentleman, I tell him that his contribution did not help the cause of integration. With the greatest respect to some hon. Members opposite, I say that some of their remarks in the country during and since the election have not helped the cause of integration either.
  Of course, problems arise from immigration—problems of housing, education and all the other tremendous problems of injecting a coloured minority into already overcrowded areas. The constituency I have the privilege to represent is just such a constituency where we have problems of bad housing and of people living cheek by jowl, overcrowding and multiple accommodation. We are also faced with the problems of immigration. The immigrants are not all coloured. There are a number of Irish among them. We are faced with these problems, but the one thing that we have not done is merely to say, "These are the problems but we will not try to deal with them." That, with the greatest respect, is what some hon. Members opposite are saying.
  All the arguments presented by the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield come down to this: "There are these problems. We will not deal with them but we will put a complete stop on people coming into the country." The immigration problem is something which should be discussed in a calm, rational and helpful tone. Perhaps it is not for me to say so—in fact, I am sure that it is not and I apologise here and now—but I honestly do not think that the remarks made by the right hon. Gentleman were helpful.
  The right hon. Gentleman asked what we objected to. I have here certain newspaper cuttings. Some happen to refer

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  to the campaign in Smethwick. I represent a London constituency, and I was not in Smethwick during the election, since I was fully occupied with affairs of my own. But in London as well as in the Midlands the question of immigration was raised, not only in the form of sober discussion as to whether there should be control but in a "colour" way. I have concrete evidence of this.
  I know of people on the doorstep being told about immigration in that way, and Conservative canvassers told them. It is idle for right hon. and hon. Members opposite to deny that the issue of colour was raised in this way during the General Election. because it was raised. If the Committee needs further evidence, let me quote two or three remarks from The Times of 9th March last. I accept that this deals with Smethwick and I use it simply as an illustration of what seems to many of us on this side a dangerous attitude which may be growing up in British politics. The Times' Midland correspondent reported:
  "I asked Mr. Griffiths why the Conservatives had refused to appoint a working delegate to a local committee formed to try and reconcile conflicting groups in the town. Mr. Griffiths said it was because the committee stood for integration."
  I ask the Committee to note those words.
  "No racial group wanted integration: coexistence should be the aim."
  I thought that this doctrine of separate and equal development on the part of both the coloured and white races had been overthrown in most civilised societies. It is not right and proper to see it raising its head in a British General Election in 1964.
  Later on, the hon. Member for Smethwick was asked about the slogan:
  "If you want a nigger neighbour, vote Labour."
  He said:
  "I should think this is a manifestation of the popular feeling. I would not condemn anyone who said that. I would say that is how people see the situation in Smethwick. I fully understand the feelings of the people who say it."
  He is fully entitled to say that he understands their feelings, but it would be tragic if the British General Election of 1964 went down in history as the first General Election in which colour was an issue; not immigration but colour.
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  Where do we go from here'? I saw in the Observer last Sunday that the Conservative candidate at the coming Leyton by-election had had something to say. I should like to read it to the Committee and I hope that the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield will note these remarks:
  "Referring to the last election campaign, Mr. Buxton said: 'While I was canvassing, many people complained about the immigration of coloureds. They do not resent coloured people as such, but they do object to the blacks coming off the banana boats and taking council houses that would be available for locals.'"
  If the Conservative candidate used those words, even if he was using them only to express the point of view of the electorate in that constituency, he was wrong to do so in those terms. Such language can only exacerbate a situation which may already be difficult.
  That is why we say to the party opposite that it should not have used this issue in this way at the General Election. The problem we face is not so much of immigration as of integration. How are we to try to integrate coloured people already in this country into our community? I will say this as non-controversially as I possibly can—the one way in which it will not be done is by using the sort of language certainly used by members of the Conservative Party during the General Election.
  I speak as one who has been in the House of Commons only three weeks. Perhaps I should not have said what I have said tonight, but I do not propose to withdraw what I have said. If I have erred, it is because, like other hon. Members, I feel very strongly about this issue. Whatever the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield may say about the Labour Party Front Bench, he cannot say it about me, because I was not a Member when the Commonwealth Immigrants Act was debated some two years ago. However, I accept the principle that there must be control of immigration from the Commonwealth into this country.
  Having said that, it seems to me that the real problem is how to integrate the people already here into the existing community. It can be done by attempting to do three things. The first is to give special Government aid to areas which

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  find themselves in need of that aid because of the problem in those areas. Secondly, we should put on the Statute Book a general declaration by the whole Parliament of the United Kingdom, and I hope that the Bill when introduced will be an all-party Bill, supported by the party opposite, declaring that this nation does not agree with racial discrimination and that it abhors racial discrimination in all its forms and further declaring that incitement to racial feeling or hatred shall be a criminal offence. The third thing is that all of us, at whatever level, should look inside ourselves, because integration begins with personal relations and not with Acts of Parliament.
  I am sure that I have greatly trespassed on the Committee's indulgence, but if I have it is only because I feel very strongly about this issue. This is an important debate. It is a debate being heard in areas far wider than the United Kingdom and far wider than this Parliament or my constituency. If I thought that in 100 years' time someone would pick up HANSARD and read that the House of Commons tonight expressed views which, on any view of the matter, were openly racialist, I would be ashamed to be a Member of it.
  Sir E. Boyle: On a point of order, Mr. Hynd. I raise this point of order solely with the interests of the House at heart. I realise that there is no rule of order strictly regarding maiden speeches, but is it not the convention of the House, fairly long accepted, that a maiden speech is not normally delivered in terms which provoke a debating reply? I raise that point simply because traditions are made in this House and I am keen to do what is best in the interests of the House of Commons.
  The Temporary Chairman (Mr. H. Hynd): That is not a point of order. I agree that it is a convention, but it is not the sort of thing that the Chair can rule upon.
  Mr. Parkin: Further to that point of order. Is it not the case, Mr. Hynd, that my hon. Friend the Member for Barons Court (Mr. Richard) fought his way into this House yard by yard in the face of the sort of tactics that he has been describing and that he has every right to describe them?
  The Temporary Chairman: That is not a point of order either.
  Mr. Sydney Silverman: The point of order that I wish to raise is that whatever else may be in the tradition of the House of Commons, the very first tradition is the right of every hon. Member, provided he keeps in order, to say anything he wants.
  The Temporary Chairman: Mr. Aubrey Jones.
  9.0 p.m.
  Mr. Aubrey Jones: The hon. Member for Barons Court (Mr. Richard) will be the first to recognise that the maiden speech which he has just given was unconventionally vigorous and controversial. I should like to say that it was none the worse for that. While I envy him his boldness—I could never have done it myself—I congratulate him on his effort. I am sure that the whole Committee will look forward, if I may use the word, with relish to further contributions from him.
  It should be the aim of every member of the Committee to see an abatement of any tension arising from a difference of culture or colour. If we subscribe to this end, we all have a duty to take this matter out of party politics. This was the precedent set by my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. JohnStevas) in his admirable maiden speech, and in that I propose to follow him.
  If we look at events over the past three years, there has been a considerable narrowing of the differences between the two sides of the Committee. Both sides of the Committee are agreed tonight that it is desirable to continue this law. Until this debate began, I would have said that the one possible remaining difference between us was over the long-term nature of any control over immigration. I would have said that right hon. and hon. Members on this side of the Committee were in favour in the longer term of continuing statutory control, while right hon. and hon. Members opposite were in favour of substituting for that statutory control a looser regulation arising from some kind of negotiation with individual Commonwealth countries. After listening to the speech of the Home Secretary, I am not at all sure that even that difference now persists.

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  The right hon. and learned Gentleman ended his speech by talking of effective control. That is tantamount, to my mind, to abolishing almost entirely the one persisting difference between the two sides of the Committee.
  I will give my reasons why I believe that the aim of abating racial tension is better secured with statutory control rather than through voluntary arrangements; but I also believe—and to this extent I go with the hon. Member for Barons Court—that by far the greater problem is not that of those now coming into the country but of the immigrant population already settled here.
  I would remind the Committee of the genesis of the Act. This Measure was the product of a dilemma which we still have with us. The dilemma was that economically we needed the immigrants but that socially we were proving ourselves unable to cope with the immigrants coming in. The more we tried to satisfy our economic requirements by bringing in immigrants the greater the social difficulties we were making for ourselves. The more we tried to cope with the social problems by stemming the flow of immigration the more we were penalising ourselves economically.
  That was the situation three years ago and this is still the dilemma, only we now have it in a much worse form. Economically we still need immigration, and I will produce to the Committee two pieces of evidence to sustain this view. The first is the striking contrast between the rate of immigration into this country and the rate of immigration into other Western European countries. The rate here for the last three years has been roughly 50, 000 a year, but in West Germany in the same period it has been between 350, 000 and 400, 000 a year. In Switzerland it has been of the same magnitude. In France it has been at the rate of 200, 000 a year and even in Belgium last year it was 26, 000. Anybody concerned with the slow rate of economic growth in this country must ponder over the contrast of these figures. That is one reason why I consider that economically we still need immigrants.
  The second piece of evidence I would adduce is that according to the estimates of the Government Actuary the population
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  of this country will have grown by 1975 by 6½ million people. Of that figure, 5 million will be either too young or too old to work and of the remaining 1½million, 750, 000 will be immigrants. In other words, the population of the country is increasing while the working force is practically stationary.
  It is difficult to see how one can service a community of this kind of composition without some element of immigration. This, as I see it, is the economic need, the economic side of the dilemma, while on the social side the problem over the intervening years has become much worse, precisely because of the figures given earlier by the Home Secretary.
  He gave as 800, 000 the approximate size of the immigrant population already here. This population has a higher birth rate than the rest of the population and if the birth rates are projected we see that while at present the immigrant population of 800, 000 amounts to between 1½percent. and 2 percent. of the population, by the year 2000, at the present rate of immigration, the proportion of immigrants to the total population of the country will have grown to 4·5 percent.—and even without any further immigration it will have grown to 3·5 per cent.
  This could mean—and I do not want to weary the Committee with figures—that in areas where there are at present heavy concentrations of immigrants, perhaps 10 percent. or 15 percent. of the population, that concentration might rise to something like 50 per cent. Having said that, we must now ask why should this be a problem? I think the answer is that no community is easily tolerant of difference. We pride ourselves, possibly with justification, that we are more tolerant than other communities, but we cannot claim that we are immune from intolerance.
  We are trying to absorb three new and quite different cultures: the West Indian culture, probably the nearest to our own; the Indian culture, which is more different; and, possibly the most different culture of all, the Muslim culture of the Pakistani. In all these cases the difference in culture is compounded by the difference of colour and therefore is likely to extend far longer down the generations than anything we have seen in the past.

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  The question which we face is: how do we abate the intolerance to which this situation can give rise? The answer, I suggest, is that we must recognise that difference creates a problem. Only if we accept that can we ever begin to overcome the problem. The case for the 1962 Act was that it was the beginning of this kind of recognition and it enabled one to approach the problem consciously. If I may use a word from the vocabulary of hon. Members opposite, it enables one to approach the problem purposefully. This is the case for statutory control as against control arising from voluntary negotiation.
  This is a field in which we must be purposeful, but the purposefulness must go far beyond the mere continuance of this Act. I think that the purposefulness must extend into our internal policies at home. What has worried me of recent weeks is the suggestion that if we reduce the numbers of immigrants then automatically the immigrant population already here will be assimilated and everything will come right. I believe that this is the wrong way to look at the problem. We should look at it precisely the other way round. In other words, we have to deal with the problem of the immigrant population already here. Having solved that problem, we can then admit more immigrants and raise the level of immigration much nearer to the economically desirable level.
  What changes would I make at home in our internal policies to deal with the immigrant population already here? There is a case, as I see it, for precisely the kind of change which we made when we introduced the 1962 Act. Before that Act, we assumed that just because of the common heritage of Commonwealth the differences of culture and colour automatically disappeared. When we introduced the Act we did away with that assumption concerning immigration, but we have left the assumption unchanged concerning our internal policy, and this is where we have to make the change. The 1962 Act must be complemented by changes here at home in two respects: first, as far as investigation preparatory to policy-making is concerned, and, secondly, as far as the policy itself is concerned.
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  This afternoon we had a great number of figures from the Home Secretary, but they were global figures. We know very little, as he admitted, about the health of the immigrant population, about the nature of their employment, and about their likely demand for schooling. We know little or nothing about any of these things, precisely because it has been assumed that to collect separate figures for the coloured immigrants would smack of discrimination. Once we recognise that difference creates a problem, only by having separate figures do we stand a chance of overcoming the problem. I want to see us achieve the end of discrimination, but to realise that end we must have separate figures. That is as to the investigation.
  9.15 p.m.
  Now, the internal policy. The great objective of internal policy as I see it is to prevent the segregation of the immigrant population into ghettoes in the decaying centres of our large cities. In other words, the great objective of policy should be the dispersal of the immigrant population. I recognise immediately that this leads to immense difficulties. It is more than just a matter of giving extra aid from the central administration to local authorities. This leads to enormous problems. Although we have no figures, it would be true to say that the immigrants have had a far smaller proportion of the new housing which has become available than their numbers entitled them to. The points system—the length of time that people are on a waiting list—operates against them. Even more, however, the points system is such that it can be manipulated to discriminate against the immigrants.
  If we are to break up the ghettoes such as we see in the decaying centre of Birmingham, we have to make housing available to immigrants in larger proportion than their numbers entitle them to. This is the awful difficulty, this is our travail, because to do this is to invite resentment from citizens who are native to these islands, and yet not to do it will perpetuate the problem of the ghetto into the future, causing problems of unknown dimensions to our children and our grandchildren.
  It is not for me as an outsider to advise those in authority how to cope with this

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  problem. I merely observe that all problems are better tackled earlier rather than later and that this problem has already been allowed to grow for far too long.
  In the last few weeks, we have seen a great refurbishing of the machinery of government—in ways which I do not yet fully understand. If, however, there is one field where the machinery of government requires overhaul, it is in connection with immigration. This question touches labour, education, housing, health, overseas development and what not. All these aspects need to be looked at together. If there is a case anywhere for a single co-ordinating authority, it is here in relation to this question.
  I hope that the Government will set up such a co-ordinating authority. Its aim should be to put an end to the discrimination arising from the difference of culture or colour. But to realise this end the coordinating authority must inject into all policies, domestic as well as immigration, a far greater purposefulness than we have yet seen.
  Mr. Roy Hattersley: Ten Parliamentary days have passed since the Gracious Speech. I am conscious that by the standards of this Parliament I am therefore a rather elderly "maiden". I am also conscious of the quality of maiden speeches which have preceded mine and of my inability to live up to that standard. I am, however, particularly pleased to follow the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. Aubrey Jones).
  In the great conflict over Commonwealth immigration which engulfed Birmingham during the recent election, I often felt that the right hon. Member and his right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Sir E. Boyle) were more with me than against me. I offer that not in an attempt to embarrass either of those right hon. Gentlemen, but as an opportunity to pay my tribute to the point of view they then expressed. It was not so much that we invariably agreed about detail and about detailed policy, but, at least, we conducted our arguments from a basis, I hope, of rationalism rather than of prejudice. Wishing sincerely, as I do, not to contravene the conventions of this Committee about maiden speeches I should be less than honest if I did not say that the processes
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  of rational discussion were not always observed when Commonwealth immigration was discussed in Birmingham six weeks ago. I think it is particularly appropriate that Birmingham Members should play such a large part in this debate this evening, and I hope that it is not inappropriate that I should be one of them.
  The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Hall Green has referred to the decaying centres of the great industrial towns. The division which I have the honour to represent in this Committee, the Sparkbrook division of Birmingham, is such a decaying centre. In the last Parliament it was represented by Mr. Leslie Seymour who was preceded by Mr. Percy Shurmer. But the significant fact about my division is that for 40 years before 1945 it was represented by Conservative Members, whose support came from the large middle-class houses which are so well known in industrial towns. Those large houses are now almost invariably broken down from single family occupation to multi-occupation, and the problem of immigration, connected with the housing problem, is a problem next to Spark-brook's heart.
  I think that those of us who regard ourselves as being in the progressive group, a description given to us by the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. Wise), a description which I accept willingly, although I understand it was offered as a criticism, have, I think, something to answer for in our attitude to Commonwealth immigration over the last five years. We have believed with great liberal optimism—I am told that in this Chamber one has to be essentially optimistic to be Liberal—that if men of good will went on repeating the right things, eventually they would be believed and eventually they would be accepted. Our great fault over the last five years is that we have talked a great deal about racial tolerance and racial integration and done far too little about the practicalities of bringing it about.
  In my own division the Sparkbrook Association was formed to perform this task. It was formed by the churches, by voluntary bodies and by private individuals and it is assisted a little with money and mostly by advice from public bodies. Its function is to try to eradicate the frictions which inevitably

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  exist in an area like my constituency into which immigrants come in great numbers. Certainly, living and working in Sparkbrook eliminates any chance of an optimistic belief that immigrants can be assimilated into the community without a great deal of hard work and a great deal of effort. The association about which I tell the Committee has gone out of its way to make that effort and to put in that hard work.
  Old houses have been bought, improved, and converted. Advice has been given about English customs and English laws. Some steps have been taken to enforce laws where it appeared that they were going by default. Children have been encouraged to accept Birmingham attitudes rather than West Indian or Asian attitudes, and, as well as the practical application of the job of racial integration there has been the overriding and continual repetition of the philosophical—I think this is the right word—the philosophical effects of equality, of justice, and of racial tolerance. I understand from a very distinguished representative of Birmingham that 70 years ago Joseph Chamberlain received great censure for saying that what Birmingham does today surely the rest of the country can do tomorrow. I want to avoid even that degree of controversiality and say that what the Sparkbrook Association is doing today no doubt the rest of the country will do tomorrow.
  I want to warn my right hon. Friends on the Front Bench that all Birmingham Members of Parliament will be most anxiously awaiting their proposals for material help for those areas which have a specific immigration problem. For my own part, speaking with a slight experience of local government, I hope that the help will not take the form of a general grant to local authorities to pay for all sorts of diverse purposes. I hope that there will be a sum specifically allocated to those authorities prepared to do something about immigrants' housing, prepared to do something about additional health inspectors for the enforcement of overcrowding laws, prepared to do something about the general conditions in areas in which immigrants are found concentrated. I repeat to my right hon. Friends on the
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  Government Front Bench that I, in common with all other Birmingham Members, will be looking forward eagerly and impatiently to the announcement which they are soon to make about this sort of assistance.
  My second point—and I apologise in anticipation of the suggestion that there is a degree of controversiality in what I have to say—is that it is essential to establish a code of conduct which makes illegal incitement to racial violence and racial hatred. All the practical work which voluntary organisations and the Government may do is bound to be vitiated if a number of people who do not share our progressive views play on the prejudices, fears and wrong thinking of certain members of the community.
  Having observed the attitude of hon. Gentlemen opposite when a previous maiden speaker was critical of the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd), I make reference to his speech with some trepidation. I suspect, however, that he at least might forgive me. I was his opponent in 1959, and think that he must feel a little charity towards me because I left Sutton Cold-field an even safer Conservative seat than I found it. I hope that for that favour he will forgive my one critical comment about his speech.
  The right hon. Gentleman knows, as I do, that tomorrow morning the Birmingham papers, quite rightly and justly, will report all that he has said in great detail, and I suspect that, knowing his speech as well as he must, he realises that that report will take the form of a catalogue of the differences between ethnic Birmingham citizens and the immigrants who have come to live amongst them. I think that he spent a quarter of an hour categorising the differences. I have no doubt that his speech was motivated by a genuine desire to achieve greater integration. There is equally no doubt that the million people who tomorrow morning read his comparison of the difference between the two groups will react in quite the opposite way to the way in which the majority of the Committee believe they should.
  Dr. King, I feel that I am entitled, and no doubt you will tell me if I am wrong, to be less than controversial in one other

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  respect. As I understand the convention of maiden speeches, one is entitled to be as uncontroversial as one chooses, as long as one is aggressive only about groups not actually represented in the House. Therefore, I feel that I am entitled under the terms of that convention, and bound under the terms of duty, to draw the attention of the Committee to the inevitable lunatic fringe groups which associate themselves with any public discussion on Commonwealth immigration, and the necessity for Commonwealth immigrants to be properly integrated into this country.
  I understand that during the day a copy has been sent to the House of a leaflet which is current in many London suburbs. It is published by the British National Party. As is invariably the case with such lunatic groups, the pamphlet is ludicrous in parts. It suggests that the civilisations of Egypt, Greece, and Rome died because of Commonwealth immigration. Were it simply foolish, it would not be worth wasting the time of the Committee in drawing attention to this reprehensible leaflet, but in places it is frankly disgusting.
  It is with some trepidation that I read paragraph 3 of what the British National Party promises will be the outcome of any Commonwealth immigration into this country. It says:
  "In America where the white man is being forced to integrate with the negro, the common bond of integration is inevitably the bedroom."
  It is not possible to consider with any degree of objectivity, with any degree of rationality, an issue which, no matter how vitally important it is to the nation, automatically produces that sort of reflex in certain groups and in certain people.
  That is why some of us who are deeply concerned with, and affected by, this problem urge my right hon. Friends seriously to consider the possibility of increasing the penalties—I believe that in some ways it is now possible to indict and to convict—against those who incite violence and hatred in this way. Those of us who have fought our campaigns in Birmingham are particularly aware of this. I want to draw the attention of the Committee to a now defunct but not missed—and, I understand, only dormant rather than dead—organisation, by name the Birrningham Immigration Limitation Association. Apart from the remark-
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  able lack of euphuism in the title of this association, it has dedicated itself over the last five years to propagating racial hatred and violence. It has pursued the anti-Commonwealth immigration cause in a most violent and reprehensible way.
  9.30 p.m.
  I want to make it clear that I have no personal objection, in that the organisation did not raise its head in my campaign. But I think that I am entitled to say that the members of the campaign who were resident in my division left the Sparkbrook area and followed one of their founding fathers, Mr. Finney, and conducted their activities in the Borough of Smethwick. No matter how much real aid is given to the areas with genuine problems; no matter how much intensive effort is put in by individuals and corporate organisations, we will not solve the problem until we can root out these people who, for political, psychological and pathological reasons, wish to exploit the fears, the tensions and the hatreds.
  Therefore, I support the continuation of this Act this evening, in the hope that it will be regarded as an interim Measure, on which two other things are based. First, there must be genuine physical help for those areas that suffer—and I do not apologise for the word "suffer" because suffer it is. If one is living in overcrowded conditions— and this is a matter of housing rather than immigration policy—if one is short of doctors—and this is a matter of health rather than immigration policy—if one is short of all sorts of other amenities because of periods of neglect, the influx of immigrants produces problems which the Government must provide special help to solve.
  The second thing that the Government must do is somehow to create an atmosphere or climate in which those people who seek to exploit the situation for their own ends, no matter what those ends may be, are penalised not only by the absolute public disgust of the majority of the people of this country but also by the force of English law.
  Mr. Renton: I am sure hon. Members on both sides of the Committee will wish to join with me in congratulating the hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) on his excellent maiden

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  speech. It was modest, sincere and good humoured, and it was delivered with enviable fluency.
  He dealt with a controversial subject in a cleverly non-controversial way. It was most interesting to hear from him, as we have heard from others, that—to use his words—they had a rational discussion when this question was discussed in Birmingham. In the course of the few remarks that I have to make I shall be returning to some of the points that he made.
  He may not know, but other hon. and right hon. Gentlemen may remember, that I had some part in presenting and explaining to the House the Act which we are now extending. I am much relieved, after the passage of two and a half years, to find that the need for it is now widely accepted, although it was so strenuously contested then. The Home Secretary made a most laudable maiden speech as Home Secretary. I congratulate him both on his appointment to that great office and upon the way that he so frankly, if that is not too appropriate a word, put the figures before us today. Also he, very candidly, pointed out the evasions which have been and are occurring in the administration of the Act. I am sure he would agree with me that these evasions are not the fault of the immigration service. They are, to a very great extent, the fault of those of us who, when piloting the Measure, yielded too much to the pressure for great humanity. I do not think it should be held against us that the Act contains weaknesses of that kind. The right hon. and learned Gentleman will have to face the fact that if, as he says, he must prevent these evasions in future, he must to some extent go back on the very high standard of humanity at which we aimed at that time, and I concede that we were doing so under pressure from almost the whole of the House of Commons.
  The Prime Minister seems to cling to the erroneous belief that the Act was based on a colour bar. I never understood the allegation then, and now it looks very strange in the light of the figures given today by the Home Secretary, that out of a net increase from the whole Commonwealth of 138, 000 people in the last two-and-a-quarter years, no fewer than 120, 000 have come from the new
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  countries of the Commonwealth. So whatever view people may have had at the time the Measure was introduced, we may all rest assured that it has not worked as a colour bar.
  I concede—I think it may be the only point which the Prime Minister and others could conceivably continue in alleging that there was a colour bar—that by not controlling the Southern Irish, although we took power to do so, we placed the Irish in a better position than any Commonwealth people of any colour. But surely we cannot really be blamed for that either. When the party opposite introduced the British Nationality Act of 1948, they decided, I think once and for all, that the Irish should "have their cake and eat it", and it was very difficult for us to go back on that settlement.
  The Prime Minister has made clear to us—I was not clear whether the Home Secretary was endorsing him today, if so perhaps he will interrupt me and make himself clear—that the Government propose to negotiate with the Commonwealth to get an agreed scheme based on a quota system in order to replace the control based on the 1962 Act. If that be the case, I advise the right hon. Gentleman most sincerely, although with great humility, not to be too optimistic about such an alternative, because I know that there are some formidable snags about it. I hope that the Committee will think it right that I should mention them.
  The first is, of course—I think that in his speech the right hon. and learned Gentleman accepted it—that we should still have to have our own control, whatever agreement we reach with the Commonwealth. If we are to have our own control we shall need this Act, or even a stronger one, to make sure that agreed quotas are properly enforced.
  In my time at the Home Office—which was an unconscionably long time—we tried to get India and Pakistan to operate a voluntary control, from about 1956 onwards. It was not a very stringent control. It broke down mainly because it was based solely on the issue of passports, a thing which the Governments of those two countries found it very difficult to restrain.
  Even if a fresh and thorough attempt were made to get Commonwealth countries to co-operate in administering a

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  quota scheme, there would still be inherent difficulties which it would be very hard to overcome in practice.
  The first is that they have a very strong interest in encouraging emigration from their own countries. Any kind of control on either emigration or immigration is difficult to administer. It requires immense tradition and experience and one starts off therefore with the natural inherent handicap that the countries which we would be asking to co-operate would not have their heart in this side of the job.
  The next point is that India and Pakistan, in particular, would have at their end to beat what I understand are financial racketeers in those countries which have made a good many immigrants their victims. It is difficult to get at the facts on this matter. There have been various newspaper reports. I do not suppose that if I pressed the Home Secretary to give us precise information about this he would be able to do so, but I have no doubt that there is sufficient evidence of it to put us on our guard. We know that forged passports have been a feature of this traffic for some years even before control under the Act. We were getting forged passports even in the days of the voluntary control and one has read in the newspapers, though one has no means of confirming it, that forged employment vouchers have also been part of this racket. If we had a quota scheme I have no doubt that we should have the same kind of trouble.
  There is no doubt also that a quota scheme cannot be effectively related to our own labour requirements, which are changing all the time. I say that because there is an inevitable time lag between the date when the quota is negotiated and the much later date when the immigrants would arrive under it. As long as twelve months could elapse, and meanwhile employment conditions here could change very sharply.
  Then in order that the quota scheme might be effective, the countries of the Commonwealth concerned would have to help us by sifting their own emigrants to ensure that only those people coming for permanent settlement came here tinder the quota scheme and that people
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  did not evade it by coming as students, visitors, members of families and so on.
  There is the further difficulty about a negotiated scheme which must be faced. We had great difficulty over this matter under the Act as we have it. It is that the Governments of both Northern and Southern Ireland would have to be consulted as well as the Commonwealth countries, and the border between Ulster and the south is still there and will remain there. I do not want to go deeply into this delicate matter but I am certain that it would be futile to try to negotiate an agreed scheme with the Commonwealth without consulting both Ulster and Southern Ireland.
  I hope that I am not speaking out of turn in saying that I doubt whether the Commonwealth would be keen to exchange a negotiated scheme for the kind of liberal treatment which the citizens of countries in the Commonwealth are receiving under the Act and will receive even if it is to be tightened up in various ways. I say therefore with all sincerity, and I hope without introducing any party prejudice on the matter, that I hope that Her Majesty's Government will completely drop the idea of a negotiated scheme and, instead, will see what can be done, as indeed has been mentioned by the Home Secretary, to get better integration within this country and if necessary to tighten up the Act to prevent evasion.
  9.45 p.m.
  A word on the question of evasions. In last year's debate, on 27th November, the Prime Minister referred to "several loopholes in the Act", and he said:
  "We believe that health checks should become more effective."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th November, 1963; Vol. 685, c. 366.]
  I should have liked to have seen more thorough health checks introduced as part of the administration under the Act. Many of my hon. Friends wanted that at the time. But it is easier said than done. People coming here with employment vouchers, of course, have a pretty thorough health check. On the other hand, the total number of passengers arriving here, including businessmen, students, tourists, families and others, coupled with the number of British passengers, aliens coming and

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  going, and so forth, is so large, about 6 million going through our ports in each direction each year, that the proportions of the problem are enormous. In comparison with that vast number of people passing through, the number of doctors is so small that, if one tried to intensify the health checks, one would create fantastic delays at the ports, and there would be chaos at London Airport, the principal port concerned. Therefore, I would not wish anyone to go with the Prime Minister in raising hopes about the general improvement of health checks.
  Wives and children of Commonwealth immigrants are let in without health checks. This is so because we tried to be almost incredibly humane in this matter. But I agree with the Prime Minister that in that respect, perhaps, there could be an amendment of the Act.
  There is so much more one could say on this issue. I conclude by making what, I hope, is a helpful suggestion to ease the problem of integration in the years ahead in respect of those who have not yet come to this country. Although I do not speak from personal experience, I understand that integration becomes almost impossible when the people concerned cannot even speak English, or, for that matter, Scots or Welsh. I believe that a knowledge of English should always be required before an employment voucher is granted. I hope that the Minister of Labour will deal with this point when he winds up the debate.
  We should all be grateful for the spirit in which the debate has been conducted. It has been a great contrast to the debates we had on the Act, and I hope that we may keep up this spirit in the years to come.
  Mr. Sorensen: It is appropriate that I should be able to speak tonight, for several reasons. One is that I am delighted to know that, for the past six hours, I have shared the salutary discipline of sitting on these green benches in company with the hon. Member for Walthamstow, East (Mr. Harvey), the Member for the constituency where I live. On this occasion, at least, we
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  have much in common. The second is that, throughout my Parliamentary life, I have been actively interested in all questions once known as colonial questions, and our discussions today, of course, are closely related thereto. Third, the constituency which I still have the honour to represent has been mentioned once or twice, and it has now some relationship in these matters with the constituency of Smethwick. For those and other reasons, I am grateful for the opportunity to make a contribution, at this late hour, to our debate on this most important issue.
  I have been immensely impressed by maiden speeches coming from both sides of the Committee. I particularly appreciated the speech of the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas), and I earnestly hope that he will be able to give a similar speech, for instance, in the Labour Club at Smethwick as well as in other institutions in that area. Equally, I found a great deal in common with maiden speeches on this side of the Committee. All of us, I am sure, are heartened to realise that the new Members have given of their best in our discussions today. That, too, is encouraging because it helps us to realise that in some measure, though we have strong political convictions on both sides, there are on occasions opportunities to transcend them, and I most earnestly trust that we shall transcend our political differences in regard to the treatment of the present many components of our British stock.
  The conflicts between differing communities are a projection of a very old problem, one as old as the human race itself. When clans and tribes developed in the early evolution of man, when man exfoliated into a variety of different cultures, languages and customs, inevitably there was a sense of conflict born of this diversity. One can understand why it exists—because fear is one of the ingredients of human nature—fear about the different, the unknown and the dissimilar. Although I agree that economic factors have been one of the causes of human conflict, I am certain also that these cultural and psychological factors have been just as operative. Just as in earlier days there was conflict between the rival tribes because one tribe was afraid of the different characteristics of another,

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  so I think that obtains also in this country at present. It is perfectly true that some of the immigrant communities in our midst have a culture very different from our own and, because of that, friction has arisen, and is likely still to arise unless something is done not merely by ourselves but by the immigrant communities also. Although we have our share of responsibility, I would certainly urge that the immigrant communities must also exercise their own obligations.
  I remember going to a constituency near London where there is a large immigrant population. I spoke to about 600 Indians in a hall there. I felt rather uncomfortable, and at the end of my brief speech I turned to an Indian gentleman sitting beside me and asked whether I had said anything wrong. He said "No. It is all right, because probably 99 per cent. of the 600 people here did not understand a word you said." It astonished me on another occasion to find that an Indian association which was very active among the Indians in a certain district was actively promoting classes among them in Hindi—not English. I begged them to appreciate that unless that Indian immigrant community did its best to learn and understand English, it would bear some share for its sense of exclusiveness from the rest of the population.
  Therefore, in confronting ourselves with the existence of diverse communities in this country, we should appreciate that it is no easy matter to secure the integration which all hon. Members desire. One of the difficulties in the past has been that too many have been ready to give way to emotional impulses without fully appreciating objectively and dispassionately the very real and complex problems before them. This emotionalism is to be found on both sides of the Committee. As far as I can tell, it may have been evident in a constituency to which I shall not refer again but which is familiar to us. It is so easy to exploit emotionally the differences between the immigrant population and the indigenous population. It is so easy to assume that, because the other man has a dark skin and a different culture, this therefore denotes a certain intrinsic inferiority and must be despised. By this means one can evoke applause and support and gain a cheap kind of notoriety. I admit that it is easy. But
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  it is emotional. Many people assume that the only emotion is that of affection, but the emotion of hate is far more dangerous.
  We must realise that emotion in some areas has undoubtedly exacerbated a stupid, racial approach. Some hon. Members on this side of the Committee, with the very best intentions, at one time insufficiently appreciated that we were faced with certain difficulties that needed objective judgment rather than emotional generality. That was why I was glad to hear my right hon. and learned Friend say that the Act will continue. In doing so, he has recognised the necessity of its substance.
  At the same time I would say to the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd) that when he is so critical of the opposition of the Labour Party to the Act when it was introduced, he fails to appreciate that many right hon. and hon. Members on his own side were also critical and for very good reasons. The Act was so strenuously opposed because, basically, it was assumed, rightly or wrongly, that there was a measure of colour prejudice in it, since far more interest seemed to be shown in the intention to stop coloured immigration than the so-called white immigration.
  Mr. Renton: Would not the hon. Gentleman agree that the operation of the Act has entirely dispelled any erroneous impression there may have been about our intentions at the time? The Home Secretary has given the figures—a net increase of 120, 000 from the new countries out of the total overall net increase of 138, 000 from the Commonwealth.
  Mr. Sorensen: I do not want to be controversial this evening for various reasons. Others may be: there is evidence of their capacity to do so. I am trying to say that my own side in some measure failed to make its own position clear enough at the time. It may be said that what has happened since has dispelled some of the impressions we had. On the other hand, I am not quite so sure on that score, because while there has been a certain restriction of so-called coloured immigration into the country there is still a continuous and considerable flow of European immigration—to which I do not necessarily object and

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  of which no proper calculation, for reasons known to us all, can be made.
  I say that I do not necessarily object to all immigration because we owe a tremendous debt to immigrants, both coloured and white. For instance, there are the nurses to whom I would pay tribute—particularly those in Whipp's Cross Hospital in my constituency. I understand that 95 per cent. of its nurses come from Ireland. Without Irish and coloured nurses, between one quarter and one-third of our hospital beds would have to be closed.
  We owe a great debt to immigrants, and I will not try to set one type against another, but at the time this Act was passed there was an assumption of a certain bias against coloured immigrants. For instance, in Smethwick and areas of that kind one found more exploitation of prejudice against coloured people than against the Irish. Hon. Members must appreciate why it was that so many of us felt so strongly at the time. Moreover, we were not wholly satisfied that everything had been done to secure the consultation and agreement of the Commonwealth countries. All I would say now is that, having made our criticism and given our advice, surely we must now look to the future because so much depends on how we handle this question in the years ahead. I hope most earnestly that it will not become a party issue. There are sufficient hon. Members on both sides of the Committee to appreciate why I say so. If this were to become a party question, there would be grave world repercussions in the years ahead. Both parties have to play their part in this. Coming to the House today—
  It being Ten o'clock. The CHAIRMAN left the Chair to report Progress and ask leave to sit again.
  Committee report Progress.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
  Ordered,
  That the Proceedings on the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill may be entered upon and proceeded with at this day's Sitting at any hour, though opposed. —[Mr. Edward Short.]

  EXPIRING LAWS CONTINUANCE BILL
  Again considered in Committee.
  Question again proposed, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Schedule.
  Mr. Sorensen: I was saying that coming to the House today I passed, as I frequently do, a wall near Leytonstone Station. I saw there inscribed in large letters the cryptic initials K.B.W. We know what they mean—Keep Britain White. Underneath there was the inscription of an organisation known as the British National Party. We also understand that in what might be an exciting political episode in the New Year another organisation intends to put up a candidate who stands for the same principle of "keeping Britain white".
  By this cryptic inscription was a new symbol, no longer the circle with the lightning flash within it, but a circle with a cross within it. I thought how incongruous it was that this organisation should be scribbling K.B.W. on the wall and at the same time using the symbol of a faith founded by an Asian whose skin was swarthy and who, if lie had been in this country, would not have been allowed to go into Smethwick Labour Club.
  Mr. Geoffrey Wilson: Is not the hon. Gentleman aware that there are all sorts of crank societies in this country and that in my own constituency we have a society which objects to the immigration of the English into Cornwall?
  Mr. Sorensen: I appreciate that, and I hope that these will be crank societies and dismissed as such by all worthy people, but unfortunately, that is what was once thought in Germany of a crank organisation there. What at one time was dismissed as a mere freak became in the end the evil despotism of that country and brought ruin to the world. That is what I am frightened of, because unfortunately the human mind can be conditioned and moulded, for good or ill.
  From the most cursory and amateur study of anthropology, we know how the human mind can be moulded. We have all heard of Margaret Mead and

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  her interesting researches into the same ethnic peoples living in two islands not far apart. Although the two were of ethnic similarity, one community became aggressive and the other pacific. They were moulded by a variety of factors in the same way that in one part of our country our people became colour prejudiced while in other areas, as in my constituency, such prejudice hardly exists.
  It is because of the possibility of these cranks and freaks moulding emotionally conditioning the human mind in sinister ways that when I saw those letters I first felt anger that anyone could come to that pleasant kindly constituency which I have had the honour to represent for 32 years and proclaim such views. Leyton has its difficulties and its oddities like every constituency, but, after 37 years association with it and 32 years representing it in the House of Commons, I felt anger that this decent, kindly community should have this poison injected into it. Who is to say that the same poison will not maliciously he injected into the veins of our common humanity elsewhere?
  I speak thus because I feel deeply, and because I do not want Leyton or any other constituency to be thus poisoned. I am only too well aware that it can happen. When I went around during the last election one or two people here and there showed some colour prejudice. I tried to understand their prejudice. I tried to explain my position and to get them to transcend that automtic reaction which I appreciate many people have at the mere sight of a coloured face. Sometimes people are so conditioned that they automatically react in that way.
  After my anger I then realised that anger would get me nowhere. What I felt can best be summed up in some words taken from Shakespeare's Othello, which in this case are particularly appropriate:
  "…the pity of it, Iago!
  O Iago, the pity of it."
  If we can have that pity for those who try to debase the human mind, then surely decent men and women of good will here and elsewhere, even though they may still differ about how to deal with particular problems, will join together to eradicate any danger of this evil gaining strength in our midst and will encourage
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  every effort to be made to build up a British community which will vindicate our democracy.
  It is a hard task, I admit, but it can be done and, for this reason, I plead that we should accept the diversity in our community, and recognise the problems of race relationship but at the same time do all we can to draw these mixed peoples into true fellowship so that our British democracy can be an inspiring example to the whole world.
  Mr. John Harvey:
  "Many references have been made to the necessity for good will, and…we all feel the desire to face up to the problem in that spirit. But we must all realise it is not merely a question of good will but a question of the need for good thought as well."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 16th July, 1929; Vol. 230, c. 366.]
  I have chosen those words to begin my remarks for a reason. They fit the debate exceedingly well, but I wonder whether the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Sorensen) recognises them, because they were the words with which, 35 years ago—not 32, as he said—he began his own maiden speech in the House of Commons.
  It was when I realised that it might be possible for me to speak in the Committee following my distinguished constituent, the hon. Member for Leyton, that I looked up his maiden speech and found those appropriate words, appropriate to the opening of my speech tonight but also representing the opening of his own Parliamentary career.
  If this is, as has been rumoured, the last time we are likely to hear the hon. Member for Leyton speak in the House of Commons the more is the pity because, knowing him as I do and knowing his constituency almost as well as I know my own, it is fitting that I should say that he has been an excellent constituency Member. He has been a very sincere, well respected and even well loved constituency Member and whoever the party opposite may choose to succeed him will have to be a very good man to be as good a constituency Member as is the present hon. Member for Leyton.
  Having said that, and returning to the theme of the need for good thought in the difficult problem facing the Committee—and without wishing to stir anything up—I must say that the thing I tend a little to resent is that so many hon. Members opposite seem to claim a

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  monopoly of virtue for themselves when they approach this subject, whereas the truth is that there is as much muddled thinking and, possibly, even as much malice among supporters of the party opposite on this subject as among any supporters of my party. It is very much more muddled thinking than malice, very much a question of lack of understanding. But this is not a subject on which anyone in this Committee can afford to start throwing stones.
  The hon. Member for Barons Court (Mr. Richard) quoted from one or two newspapers; and I should like therefore to quote from a recent article in the Daily Telegraph, not to make a party political point, but to emphasise the point to which I shall come in a moment. There is a need to rid ourselves of this tendency to want to score points off one another. There is a need to face the problem and a need for clear thought.
  The article in the Daily Telegraph states:
  "Mr. Fred Bullion, deputy-mayor of Deptford and a life-long 'bread-and-butter Labour man', spoke for a large and growing body of opinion in districts like his when he complained that many of the gains working people had made during a lifetime of struggle and progress were being wiped out or threatened by a few years of Commonwealth immigration. I've been called a Fascist for speaking out', he said but how can it be "prejudiced" or "reactionary" to defend what we have always fought for? Is it "progressive" to let the workers in Deptford be dragged back to conditions we've only just managed to struggle out of?'".
  This is the Labour deputy mayor of Deptford.
  The hon. Member for Barons Court talked of the things which canvassers report and which he sought to attribute to my party. I could tell canvassers' tales which have come back to me about the way this matter was tackled by people who do not support my party. But where do we get, when all is said and done, if we start throwing stones across the Chamber and trying to score party political points on an issue which must be set aside from the party political controversy if we are to do what has to be done, namely, to avoid the creation of a racial problem, to avoid exacerbation of the sort reported from Deptford—in fact, to be able to assimilate the immigrants already here?
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  I have no illusions, speaking for my sort of constituency in the Greater London area, that at rock bottom housing is the problem. The housing problem is a very much more difficult and intractable one in Greater London than anywhere else in the country. Of this there is no possible doubt. This is a separate subject which, in a sense, we shall have an opportunity to debate tomorrow. But I am convinced that unless and until local authorities are both able and willing to take action in housing, the problem will grow worse.
  In some cases local authorities simply dare not send a health inspector or sanitary inspector to look at a house of which complaint is made because they know very well that if they do they will have to close it and rehouse the very large numbers of people in it—often far more than appear on the register of electors—ahead of other people on their waiting lists.
  Therefore, we must, first and foremost, face the fact that something special in housing needs to be done to get this problem under control and to make it possible for these people who have come to live among us to be assimilated and to prevent any possibility of racial distrust and discrimination arising here on a large scale. It tends to exist already, and it worries the white population and the coloured population equally. It worries all those who want to see the end of race prejudice as such rearing its head. It worries all those who want to see assimilation.
  10.15 p.m.
  I believe, therefore, that the Government have a duty to look specially into the problems that exist and to consider how far these problems can be dealt with, tackled and eliminated. We were told by the Home Secretary this afternoon that it is proposed to try for the time being to go on limiting new immigration to the 1, 500 or 2, 000 permit holders a month. Fifteen hundred to 2, 000 permit holders a month, by the time their relatives and their immediate dependants have come too, could mean something like 8, 000 people a month, or getting on for 100, 000 people a year—all this before we have properly assimilated, or even begun properly to assimilate, those who are already here.

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  It is high time that this problem was examined in the interests of the coloured people themselves. We have heard much about humanitarianism. Is it humanitarian to invite still more to come here to live in the squalid sort of conditions that a good many of us know and have seen to exist and are powerless as yet to do anything about? In the end, there is no room for party political controversy, because the provision of new housing has not exactly been one of the failures of the last few years. [Horn. MEMBERS: "0h."]Hon. Members opposite who say "Oh" had better remember that the right hon. Gentleman who is now Prime Minister accused us of tricking and deceiving the nation when we said that we would build 300, 000 houses a year.
  Mr. Manuel: That was a long time ago.
  Mr. Harvey: Yes, and we have achieved it year in and year out throughout that period. Now that both parties are agreed that we can move up to 400, 000 houses a year as from next year, we must deliberately face seeking to make part of that extra provision available for the most needy cases in some of the conurbations around our big cities where the relief of the overcrowded houses in
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  which immigrants live is a vital number one priority.
  I urge the Government to look carefully again at the proposed inflow of immigration, beause 1, 500 to 2, 000 permit holders said quickly does not sound too much but 100, 000 more people coming in every year while we have not yet adequately begun to tackle the problem that already exists could add alarmingly to the social consequences of the problem that is already of great concern to very many of us.
  This, surely, cannot be made a matter for controversy. It is of fundamental importance to the humanitarian treatment of all those who would like to come here that they should be able to come and live decent lives settling into decent homes. Before we have any further large expansion of immigration, it is vital that the Government should be satisfied that we are well on the way adequately to housing immigrants already here and that we shall be able thereafter virtually to attach the necessary accommodation to the work permit and to regard the two as indispensable the one to the other.
  That is all I want to say tonight, because to my mind the crux of the whole problem is to get the housing straight and the other things will straighten themselves out in due course.
  Mr. Parkin: In spite of all the dangers, tensions, conflicts of ideas, this has been one of the most remarkable debates I have ever sat through here, and it is a great pleasure to be called in it, even at this late hour. I think that most of us will agree that a great deal of the credit for the quality of the new ideas which have been brought out in this debate is due to the maiden speakers who have taken part in it, and that at least should make us confident that, whether we have had proper debates on this subject here before or not, many other people throughout the country have been thinking, acting, working out various devices, and are ready to present constuctive ideas. There is little time to lose.
  I suppose we have all had our moments of impatience during this debate. Mine came in the course of the Home Secretary's speech when he was going through those statistics and lost 30, 000 students and said that it was a matter for conjecture where they had gone. There had been a leakage. I wanted to interrupt him. I could have told him where three of them had gone, because I have had this day a message that they have not heard from the Church Commissioners.
  The Church Commissioners of England have this day evicted from a flat in my constituency two African students and their families, and this was in reply to a plea from me that they should reverse a decision not to give two more days to the solicitors of the leaseholders who were being attacked by the Church Commissioners. This is an example of the cold way and the ruthlessness with which fastidious priests have always called in the secular arm to do their dirty work for them. This has been put into the legal pipeline, and nothing can stop it. This was an order to take over a leasehold unless the leaseholder evicted those who were in breach of a covenant because more than one family were in the flat.
  Tonight I do not know where those boys are. I asked them to wait. The Division Bell rang and I said, "I will have to go through a Division and make a telephone call, but I will come back and tell you." They did not think I could help them. And I could not. But I did ask, I pleaded with, whatever contact I could make with the Church Commissioners that a message should be sent
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  to the solicitors tonight to give them two more days or a few more days to get the flat they were already negotiating about.
  This is the kind of damage that can be done by an incident of this kind. What is happening to those students? One cannot be sure they will find another flat. They will be part of this leakage. They are going to be lost. What kind of white man's justice do they think it will be? How are they to be absorbed? There is no one to whom they can go for advice. I know where they will turn up. They will turn up in a file in the Home Office sooner or later. Or others like them will. There are places where one could look.
  The situation really is this. There are plenty of ideas, plenty of debaters, but not enough involvement of the general public in practical work which can bring about the fulfilment of the best of those ideas.
  I want to say one thing on the issue of principle now, and then make some detailed suggestions. There is one thing I want to ask tonight, and I want to be controversial and I shall be really controversial. We have got through the debate pretty well. We had the obstacles. First of all we had the confusion of description about the use of electoral devices; we had the danger of the inflamed feelings about recollections of the election—as though this was the first time a certain political party had adopted that kind of electioneering. We know it was not, and we know it will happen again, and we ought not to spend a long time about it.
  What interested me very much about the speech of the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. Aubrey Jones)—and there was a great deal in that speech I wished I had the chance to say myself first—was that the right hon. Member was looking at this problem not from the point of view of electoral advantage but from the point of view of economic advantage. I do not want to say this in a heated way but, on the whole, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Mr. Diamond) said so incisively during the debate last year, the Conservative Party has thought of this question of coloured immigration in electoral terms and not in practical terms.

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  They have missed a great opportunity, because, if they had stuck to the rules of capitalist economics, they would have welcomed all the cheap immigrant labour they could get.
  Uncontrolled and badly housed immigrants put an intolerable burden on the shoulders of their fellow workers in some areas, but from the point of view of the success of the economy, one has only to look at what has happened in Germany and in France to know that if we had an opportunity of getting 100, 000 skilled or even unskilled building workers into this country we ought to take them, because in a year they will have created the equivalent of the housing they are going to occupy. The party opposite did not choose to do that.
  There is one example which I want to take, and which everyone refers to with immense respect. It is customary to refer to what has happened in the hospitals, and on London Transport. I wonder whether, 10 years from now, people will not look back at the agreement that we have for recruitment in Barbados and say, "This was the wickedest thing that we did". That will be said when all the freak Fascist ideas, all the prejudices, and all the Rachmans have been forgotten. We did this in cold blood and with the best intentions.
  I do not know on whom I can call for support. Perhaps I can call on one of the older and wiser members of the Cabinet, the Secretary of State for Wales, when I say to the Cabinet that the wickedest thing we can do to a country is what we have done to Barbados. We have taken the young, the active, and the most enterprising. What will Barbados get in return? In a few years' time, a steady flow of elderly, experienced tube train drivers. This is a dreadful thing to do to a country. This is what we did to Wales during the depression. We took away the best and left behind the sick and the defeated, to the impoverishment of the country. This is not aid. This is not help. This is taking everything and giving nothing in return.
  What do we get for ourselves? We get the guarantee of an endless flow of expendable cheap labour, as a result of which we have not got the right stimulus to proper technological advance in our public services parallel to the
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  kind of technological advance that we get in private industry. We have not got the stimulus to improve our public transport services. I have every sympathy with the man who says that he will not come a long way from Rickmansworth to service a bad winter schedule. We are supposed to put up with a worse schedule in winter than in the summer. In the winter one has to use public transport, whereas in the summer one can walk.
  I am sure that much the same sort of thing happened a hundred years ago when houses were being built in my constituency. The builders said, "Why waste time on taking lead pipe further than the first-floor landing when there is an unlimited supply of little girls from the unemployment areas to carry the slops up and down the stairs?". Only when that sort of supply was giving out did people look at the houses and say, "My God, there must be a better way of living than this".
  10.30 p.m.
  The first thing that I should like the Government to do is to take a long, hard look at the type of agreement to which I have referred, to see whether in the long run it is not doing the maximum harm to both sides. I think that we ought to start afresh. Hon. Gentlemen opposite have been defending their Act. I did not think that tonight we would have any difficulty, because the other night I put a few points to the Financial Secretary on the Money Resolution. He brushed them aside and said that the points I had raised were not covered by the Bill.
  So I put down an Amendment, and there is only one form of words that is appropriate. I found myself in strange company. Hon. Members opposite are opposed to the Act; I am opposed to it, and the Government are opposed to it. We all say that it will not work. The Financial Secretary says that my ideas cannot be implemented, but we all want a better Act. I am certain that the electors wanted one, and the assumption was that the Labour Government would improve it.
  Throughout the debate far too much emphasis has been placed on the idea that this was some sort of kindness that we were doing to these suffering people from

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  the poorer countries, in handing out chits to enable them to come in in stages to take jobs. Warnings have been given from hon. Members opposite as to how difficult it is to consult other Commonwealth countries. First, let us hear what we are to consult about. We have not yet heard that from any Government. I want to hear it before the debate is over.
  We have a fairly good case. The party opposite has had a few years to work this out and it has not thought of anything to consult about. I would have thought that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Overseas Development was involved up to the neck in this, and I am sorry that in the list of her functions she did not include some kind of liaison with those who will operate the control on immigrants into this country. I would have thought it inevitable that if we are going to send material aid we can use the device of offering training to the people from the countries where the aid is going—training in the sort of work they will need to be able to do when they go back.
  It is not tube lines which are preponderant in Barbados, but there is one tool that is essential in every underdeveloped country throughout the world, and that is the earth-moving machine. If a man can drive one of those giant grabs which walk about raising hundreds of tons of earth he can have a job anywhere in the under-developed countries. But it is the trained mechanics from this country who go overseas and earn enormous salaries.
  The training of such people would be a positive contribution to the solution of the problem. That is why I asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury the other night to indicate whether the Money Resolution in connection with this Measure would cover the possibility of an ad hoc expansion of the administration of many Ministries in this Government to meet the needs of immigrants We have not had from the Government any explanation of the problems of giving grants to local authorities in need, but I hope that we are all agreed that we are against the conception of segregated second-class citizens in second-class dwellings, doing second-class jobs. That is not what grants to local authorities are supposed to be for.
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  But there are many other things that local authorities can do, in co-operation with other Ministries, such as the Ministry of Education, and there is an enormous amount that the Ministry of Labour can do. I am grateful for having been called before my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour has spoken. I believe that the device which once existed is still operable. When Ernest Bevin was at the Ministry of Labour he was working on a scheme for sending out labour attachés in parallel with the diplomatic attachés, so that we could have contact between the labour movement and the industrial movement. These were people who were seconded voluntarily to the Ministry.
  In due course, the jobs they did have been filled by civil servants, who have got promotion. I wonder if it is still open for outside people to be recruited to fill these jobs. If so, could we have tomorrow a labour attaché sent to every Commonwealth country and Colony, to consult about the kind of consumer goods industry that is required to be developed on those countries, and the kind of commercial and industrial training that is required for their workers, so that some of their immigrants here could go back enriched in the skills and experience required in their home countries? This is a dream, but it could come true, if we set out to make it come true. Can my right hon. Friend do it tomorrow, or have we to wait until a Supplementary Estimate is introduced or until it is tacked into next year's Estimates?
  My right hon. Friend can do many things. There is a simple thing which we need to do to get over the problem of the plumber or the carpenter with a chip on his shoulder who is sure that the foreman will not take him on or, having taken him on, will sack him because he is a coloured man. If he has served an apprenticeship in a country where the techniques are different, the foreman will not take him on if he can help it because he knows that he will need instruction in slightly different techniques. Why not use the same device as that now used for the rehabilitation of the disabled and give him a six to eight weeks' course so that he can use a union card which would show that he had the qualifications? This was the

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  question which I was asked by a coloured man at an election meeting, and hardly anybody knew what he was talking about. He said, "We have been asked to vote Labour and most of us will. Is there any chance of doing the job for which we are qualified?"
  There is urgency about this matter. It will not wait until next year. If the Minister of Overseas Development had been able to turn right instead of left from the well-trodden path between Hampstead and South Africa House she would have come to Paddington where another apartheid is to be fought. We shall have segregated school classes within a year or two. There are already classes with only two or three white children who will be removed by their parents soon. There are secondary modern schoolchildren now whose mothers are worried because their daughters are bringing home coloured students. Let me tell the Committee why they are worried. I wonder whether it will be only the older miner colleagues of mine on this side of the Committee who will understand this point. I remember how when I was aged six my grandmother took me into the front parlour and made me promise not to go down a coalmine while site was alive. I remember the fight to keep out of certain occupations.
  In the present-day mothers who worry, there is no panic. There is no prejudice. There is no nonsense about maniacs from the jungle. These coloured students are charming, delightful boys who are doing well at school, getting diplomas for shorthand, typing and accounting—and they are not going to obtain jobs. Whatever success they may have at school, they will be sorting out scrap iron.
  They will be doing the menial jobs which ought not to be done by any human being, jobs which we should be struggling to remove from our cities altogether. This is what strikes the mothers. There is no moral problem. There is no problem of disciplining children. If the coloured boy is a bad character. out he goes. It is when he is a charming character that he is a danger. The good healthy collier was a danger to the house. A weedy assistant in a shop in a mining village would be a "chance." The daughter of the house would be marrying someone who would
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  not be going through the routine of accident, disease, the "compo" doctor and the rest. We have learned a lot. Certainly the Labour movement has learned a great deal.
  Why do not we apply what we have learned? I know that I have said too much and I apologise, but if I had been able to say all I had wanted to say tonight, and if I had been able to pour out all my ideas and the Government had said, "Right, we will implement the lot", what would my constituents have said?—" Are you going to do all that for the 'spades'? Why not do it for us? ". This is the nub of it. This is why hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite could not do it, and why they have never been able to do it in the past. They have always regarded unskilled workers as expendable.
  I cannot improve on the crack made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wandsworth, Central (Dr. David Kerr) about Scotsmen wearing kilts. If we had been able to identify the children of unskilled workers, if dustmen were made baronets—they ought to be for the work they do, if there were any sense of justice—and if we could have recognised their descendants, we could have seen the weaknesses of the Welfare State. We should have seen the problem at the root of our education system. We could have seen the wastage, on the one hand, and, on the other, the way those who learned the book of rules of the acquisitive affluent society made a success of their affairs. We could have seen the heartbreaks and the waste, the little children pushed out from the wrong stream in the primary school into the wrong stream in the secondary school, the children who fill the juvenile courts, the approved schools, the borstals, the clubs where they eat "purple hearts", and the rest. This is part of the failure of the social system which right hon. and hon. Members have created.
  Only if we look at the issue in those terms, at the way in which we have used expendable immigrant unemployed labour from all sources in the working of our cities for tens and hundreds of years, only if we draw on the experience of the past which the working class has accumulated, shall we find a right solution to the problem which is now troubling us. But it calls for a great

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  administrative drive, a drive which we are beginning to associate with this Government. Some of us have had some very agreeable surprises from some very unlikely Ministers. [Laughter.] It is true. We have all had some most encouraging experiences of the drive of this Government. We want some on this subject now. It is something which they have overlooked. They have not taken the opportunity yet to tell us what they have in mind. The Minister of Labour is to reply. I hope that he will give us the right answer.
  Mr. Jeremy Thorpe: I hope that the hon. Member for Paddington, North (Mr. Parkin) will acquit me of extreme rudeness if I do not follow every point which he made in his speech. He asked one question which I thought very pertinent. He asked whether we were doing the right thing towards those who emigrated to this country by withdrawing them from their own countries, thereby drawing off the cream from their homelands. At the time when the Act was going through the House I was in Jamaica, and I took part in a television interview with people in the Government there. I do not want to go over all the controversies of the Bill's introduction. I make no bones about saying that I was myself violently opposed to it at the time. I was opposed to its method of introduction, and it is still an Act which I very much dislike. We are now discussing whether we should re-enact it, and, if we do, what we should like to see replace it, if possible, for the future.
  I remember the Premier of Jamaica, Sir Norman Manley, as he then was, saying: "We do not like exporting our young people and our skilled technicians, but we have to do it. We have to export hundreds and hundreds of our people every year because there is no work for them. We cannot support them." He explained also that the money which they sent back from the countries to which they emigrated was a valuable contribution towards the stability of Jamaica's economy. We must face these facts. I hope that those in the country who are critical of people who come here from overseas will remember that they do not want to leave their homes.
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  10.45 p.m.
  What a terrible tragedy it is when one sees at Kingston airport the Jamaicans in their thin clothes, happy, carefree, queuing up for their charter planes to go to London. Then, suddenly, they get the cruel realisation of the cold and fog, and the full blast of the colour bar if they are unfortunate enough to live in those areas where certain people use the colour bar for personal advantage. These people do not want to come here. Let us remember that many of them come here because we as a great imperial Power failed in many parts of the Commonwealth and Empire to leave the people with a decent standard of living.
  One realises that if one sees the shacks in parts of Nigeria and some of the conditions in which people live in Malawi. Although we have done much, if we go round the Commonwealth we cannot claim that we have done as much as we should have done to leave the people with a decent standard of living. That is why the people come to this country. That is why we have an obligation to help them to get employment and earn their daily bread and send money back to their families.
  The reason why many of us were opposed to the Bill was that it was introduced without Commonwealth consultation. At least two Commonwealth Prime Ministers first read of its introduction in the daily newspapers. That was the extent of the consultation, and that was one of the reasons for the bitterness created at the time of the Bill's introduction.
  The Home Secretary did a tremendous service in his speech because he put the whole subject in its proper perspective. He told us the percentage of those coming in on A or B category vouchers —that is, those who had jobs to come to, thereby meeting an economic need, and those who had special skills which were required, again thereby meeting an economic need—and the fact that there were very few immigrants in category C indicated that the immigration authorities, for better or for worse, had not allowed people in to contribute to the general pool of unskilled labour but had concentrated on the skilled and those crafts which could not be serviced in this country. So let us remember that

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  these people have performed a very great economic service to this country.
  Probably the perspective in which the Home Secretary was able to place the whole subject can best be perpetuated by passing over, and perhaps ignoring, the speech of the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. Wise), which I do not think was a particularly valuable contribution to the discussion. I should prefer to rely on speeches such as that of the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas), the hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) and the other maiden speeches that we heard, which have been marked by wide humanity.
  I should like to make one or two suggestions. First, an hon. Member asked what we mean by "consultation", and for what purposes should we consult. I feel that this is not a proper subject for discussions at a Commonwealth Prime Ministers Conference. It would be passed over. I suggest that very careful attention should be given to having a special Commonwealth conference on migration and that those attending it should be the Ministers from the Commonwealth countries who have particular responsibility for these problems. There are a tremendous number of subjects winch could, and should, usefully be discussed. For example, yesterday we read that the Australians are hoping to attract 70, 000 migrants a year from this country, which would be about 15, 000 more than they attracted in 1963.
  There are many aspects upon which we could try to build up a volume of Commonwealth agreement on migration. There are many ways in which we could try and lessen the shocks people sustain when they come to this country if we could get consultation and some form of working partnership which would continue after the conference concluded.
  The second point—and here I agree with the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. Aubrey Jones)—is that there should be a Minister primarily responsible for immigration matters. As he rightly said, many Ministries are affected—Housing, Labour, Education and Health. There should be one Minister, possibly loosely attached to the Commonwealth Relations Office, in charge of immigration matters. I am
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  not necessarily suggesting that another Ministry be created. I am hoping that out of the wide ambit available to the Prime Minister somebody in the Government could be given an additional responsibility.
  The next thing I hope we may be able to hear is something of the results of the Home Office Advisory Committee, which is doing very useful work. Perhaps the Minister of Labour could say something about that. But it seems to me that this is all in one direction. What we also have to do in this country is to concentrate—it sounds a priggish thing to say but it is true—on educating our own people in racial matters, because half the problem is not so much the volume of immigrants but the fear of the unknown that people have, the lack of understanding.
  So often, if someone is introduced into a person's home in a large town, he can in that way get to know people and can become far more easily integrated in our society. We have very much more to do in this country if we are to approach the tremendous research carried out in the United States, where this problem is so very much greater, with 22 million negroes. There, in the process of integration, there is research into what is worrying people.
  I agree with the hon. Member for Paddington, North in wishing that we had some extended form of labour information at our High Commission offices in Commonwealth countries. I do not know how many such attachés there are, but I know that in Jamaica, if a person wants to inquire into employment prospects in this country, he has great difficulty in getting the information. We should consider giving a member of the High Commission staff in each Commonwealth country from which immigrants come responsibility for giving information along these lines.
  I believe that we must, as the hon. Member for Chelmsford said, realise that the greatest test which faces this country and, indeed, the world is whether we can create a multi-racial society. Certainly, in the Caribbean, there are countries where one can say that there is virtually no feeling of colour, that there really is a partnership between the races. That is something we experimented with in Central Africa, where it failed because

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  it was all one way; it was all the maintenance of the established order and no give. In the Caribbean one can say that there have been attempts at partnership which have been tremendously successful. One sees people of all races mingling, and that is something we must tackle here.
  The Prime Minister was so right when he said last night that we must not blame upon immigrants social problems such as housing and bad conditions which existed before they came and which would be with us whether or not they were here. They are not a very large percentage of the population and certainly it is the job of hon. Members—one would hope that one could say, with confidence, of all hon. Members of every political party—to kill all these arguments based on prejudice, arguments relating to high unemployment, high crime ratios and so forth.
  If every hon. Member were to try individually to destroy this sort of argument which, as the hon. Member for Chelmsford has said, Home Secretary after Home Secretary has denied, then hon. Members at least would be playing some part in lowering tension and trying to build up a multi-racial society in this country. I hope, therefore, that the Minister of Labour will tell us tonight something about labour attaches in the High Commission offices, the Home Office Advisory Committee and the prospects of a Commonwealth agreement.
  I still loathe this Act and I hope the time will come when we can build up some form of agreement common to all countries in the Commonwealth. I believe that until we can do that, can abolish this Act and put in its place some form of Commonwealth agreement we cannot claim that we have solved the problem of creating a multi-racial community. The sooner we can scrub this Act off the Statute Book the better it will be for Commonwealth relations in this country.
  Mr. G. A. Pargiter: I hope not to detain the Committee too long tonight, but as my constituency was the only one during the election which was dishonoured by having a Fascist candidate I can speak with some feeling on the problem. When one considers that
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  in these enlightened days a person of that kind can seek election to Parliament, whose only election programme was "Keep Britain White" and who collected some 3, 400 votes, one appreciates that there are some serious aspects of the problem.
  In my constituency, therefore, we are concerned about the problems being created by this policy of "Keep Britain White". My Conservative opponent in the constituency wanted to show that the whole of the problem was due to the Labour council. It was nothing to do with the people here, but was the result of the action of the Labour council. These things tend to obscure the difficulties with which we are faced.
  I am quite satisfied that a good deal of the problem stems from the failure of the Government for about 10 years to recognise what was the essence, first of all, of the basic problem with which we were faced. The first basic problem is that there are no means at all for the proper reception of Commonwealth immigrants. This led to their concentration in different areas where, very naturally, not speaking the language in many cases, they tended to congregate together. They wanted to be where there was a friendly voice to greet them.
  Therefore, because we had no established means of dealing with them, this concentration always snowballed. I hope that we shall be told tonight that there is to be some form of reception and that immigrants should not go wholly into overcrowded houses and overcrowded areas where the next step will be that if a house is in multi-occupation the council will serve a notice on the occupants to vacate and they will then into another overcrowded house, and so on. This is a vicious circle which I think the Government will have to tackle right at the beginning so that we can control and deal with the problem from the point of view of a proper diversification of these immigrants when they arrive in this country, not with the idea of creating second-class citizens but in order to give them a better chance of being first-class citizens.
  That is something to which we must have regard for the future. I welcome the idea and hope that we might hear something from my right hon. Friend tonight about how negotiations are to be

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  started with the Commonwealth countries in order to find some method of consultation leading to agreement concerning the numbers that come in. I would say that the control of the numbers who come into the country, from wherever they come, is something which is here to stay, at least for a long time to come. The important thing is to get away from the implication of colour and to put the legislation on to a logical basis of what the economy of the country can stand in the way of numbers coming into it, wherever they come from—India, Pakistan, Jamaica or Ireland.
  11.0 p.m.
  We have heard about the difficulties of doing anything about the Irish because of the 1948 Nationality Act in connection with the Irish Republic. That is sheer nonsense, because people in Commonwealth countries had the right to come here without any Act of Parliament, but that did not prevent the then Government from bringing in an Act to stop them. It is sheer hypocrisy to plead that nothing can be done about Ireland, but this problem cannot be tackled without dealing with Northern Ireland in some way to prevent the inflow through that channel.
  In spite of what has been said about the Act not being colour discrimination, hon. Members will recollect that the Home Secretary at the time admitted that while the Act was not intended to be seen in that way, it could not be used to prevent people from coming from Southern Ireland. We hear a good deal about people coming and going from and to Southern Ireland. I wonder whether hon. Members are aware of the reason. Large numbers of people come here from Ireland and travel around from job to job and then, as soon as the Inland Revenue catches up with them, they go back for a few months and then return to start all over again. This is something which the Inland Revenue might look at, for it might do more about controlling immigration from Ireland than is now done.
  Mr. Wise: Has the hon. Gentleman not heard of P.A.Y.E.? That is tax deducted at source.
  Mr. Pargiter: The hon. Gentleman should learn the facts of life and about
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  how long it takes P.A.Y.E. to catch up with a man.
  A stranger coming to the House of Commons today and hearing the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. Wise) moving his Amendment and knowing nothing of our politics might have wondered what the Labour Government has been doing for the last 10 years. We now have to deal with factors which are certainly not of our own creation and which have nothing to do with whether we were in favour of or opposed to the Act at its inception.
  This may be a matter for the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, but the control of multiple-occupied housing needs a good deal of strengthening if it is to be properly operative without being harsh on the occupants.
  Another matter which cannot be ignored is the need for a man who has come from the Commonwealth to be able to send for his family. Usually he does not wish to bring his family with him, but if he is permitted to come here, he should be able to send for his family later. We ought to be able to know what our liabilities would be in this respect, especially as nine times out of ten the family would be moving into already overcrowded areas, thus creating still more problems. This is where consultation with the Commonwealth would be useful. If these things could be done by agreement, the local knowledge which the country of origin could supply would be very helpful.
  The problem of category B entrants is important. There are many disgruntled immigrants who came here on the basis of having special skills, or what were regarded as special educational qualifications. They sometimes found that those qualifications did not match the equivalent standards in this country, so that they were unable to get the sort of job which they thought they would get. They have then begun to think that this was some form of racial discrimination, even though it was nothing of the kind. That is why more should be done about people in these categories, either training them to the standards which they thought they had reached, or advising them of the standards they have and what sort of job they can expect in this country as a result.

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  The subject of education has been mentioned in connection with the increasing number of immigrant children. The education authority in my constituency was faced with problems in this connection and I would like to express my thanks to the former Minister of Education for the way he helped my local education authority to tackle the problem. It was tackled not on the basis of sitting back and allowing the children to gather in a certain area but by transporting them, by various means of transport, to other schools. By the simple process of having reception classes when the immigrant children were taken first to school to learn the rudiments of the English language and then into the ordinary classes where they were soon absorbed into the normal life of the school.
  In my constituency, therefore, we do not have this danger of the standard of education being lowered, although I admit that some parents still believe that it is being lowered. What happened in my area shows what can be done when a local education authority and a Government Department co-operate. Nevertheless, perhaps this problem was more easily solved than the problem of overcrowding, which still very much faces us.
  The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. Aubrey Jones) spoke of the need for co-ordinating machinery to help solve some of these problems. Had he added his voice to mine a year ago, when I suggested that there should be an inter-Departmental committee to co-ordinate work on these issues between the various Ministries, the suggestion I made then might have received more support. As it was, although a year ago I suggested means to co-ordinate Ministerial advice to local authorities, the right hon. Member for Hall Green agreed with those who suggested that everybody was perfectly well satisfied. Local authorities, including mine, have problems and are in need of the help that has been promised. I am not referring to assistance in the form of additional block grants and so on, but specialist help to achieve a greater degree of integration.
  It should be realised that problems exist on both sides. It is not merely a question of there being a desire on our part to integrate coloured immigrants, for we are steadily reaching the point—it
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  will happen if we are not careful—when they will begin to turn inwards, so to speak, and not be readily willing to accept integration. The longer this process goes on the worse the problem will get.
  I am not sure what answer will be found to the problem of creating more living space in already overcrowded areas. Whatever is done, in certain areas the Government should make special efforts to provide accommodation in addition to that being provided by local authority housing programmes. Frankly, when I think of the people I know who are living in overcrowded conditions and who have been on the local housing list for upwards of 10 years, if someone such as a coloured immigrant took precedence over them on the list there would be a riot. I say this to prove that by some means the solution to this problem must be taken beyond the boundary of local authority housing arrangements. The Government must do something to make special housing provision for immigrants so that we can start the process of integration.
  I have addressed the Committee for longer than I had anticipated. This is because I am extremely concerned to see these problems resolved. I hope that when the Act comes up for renewal next time—if, indeed, it still exists—it will have been modified in such a way that we can get on with the problem of integrating immigrants, giving them a true future in this country.
  Mr. Nigel Fisher: I appreciate the constructive nature of the speech of the hon. Member for Southall (Mr. Pargiter) and the fact that he kept closely to the subject, which I cannot say that everybody else who has taken part in this debate has done. It has, however, been a good debate, because it has been remarkably non-controversial. On a difficult subject of this sort, that is the right kind of debate to have.
  Some hon. Members may remember that I opposed the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill when it was introduced by my right hon. Friends nearly three years ago. I should like to try briefly to explain why I opposed the Bill then and why I support the renewal of the Act today. My position is really like that of the Government. Although the Home Secretary gave us an informative speech, however, I did not think that he fully explained the Government's change of

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  mind as from last year's position and the reasons for it. Although I was not present at the debate last year, I have read every word of it. [Interruption.] The only person who is always consistent on this subject is the hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe).
  My reasons—and they may well be the reasons of the Government, too—for taking these apparently contradictory positions are, paradoxically, the same now as they were in 1962. I will try to explain why. I care—as, I know, other hon. Members care, too—very deeply about the Commonwealth and I attach great importance to good race relations both in the Commonwealth and in the world as a whole.
  It is often a good thing for a politician to have his head right up in the clouds of idealism but his feet firmly planted on the ground of realism. Although I think that my head was nicely up in the clouds in 1962 when the Bill was introduced, perhaps my feet were not sufficiently planted upon the ground. At least, when the Bill was brought in, I thought, and I so declared at the time, that it was a colour Bill, not by intention, but in appearance. It did not—and, I suppose, in fairness, it probably could not—include the Irish, and for this reason it looked to the Commonwealth as though it was a colour Bill.
  Mr. Will Griffiths: Was it not?
  Mr. Fisher: I am making the point that I said at the time that I thought it was a colour Bill, and I am trying to explain that although I do not think that was ever the intention of my right hon. Friends, nevertheless, because the Irish were left out, as they probably had to be—we know about the difficult practical problems of North and South—it seemed a colour Bill to the Commonwealth, and I thought that for this reason it would be bad for Commonwealth relations and also for race relations. I do not believe that the effect upon Commonwealth relations has been anything like as serious or as damaging as we all feared. Certainly, the reaction was keen at the time, I remember well, but, looking back, it is fair to say that it was ephemeral and that in the result it has not really done serious or lasting damage to Commonwealth relations.
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  As to race relations, I believe now that a larger and an uncontrolled influx of coloured immigrants would be more damaging to race relations in this country and, therefore, in the end, to Commonwealth relations, too, than the smaller and controlled influx that we have under the Act. We must face the fact that a larger and uncontrolled entry now would create such feeling among our own people here that there might be serious repercussions. There might be very strong anti-colour feeling, and possibly race riots and incidents of that kind, which would not only be prejudicial to the immigrants who are already here, but would have the worst possible effect upon race relations, both in Britain and outside it. Therefore, whereas I opposed the Bill because I thought that it would be bad for Commonwealth relations and also for race relations, paradoxically I now support the Act for the same reasons, because I think that, without it, the position would be worse.
  11.15 p.m.
  I had a third reason, I remember, for opposing the original Bill, one touched upon by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Devon, North. I am myself devoted to the West Indies, and I know the islands very well. I know the very real need for West Indians to emigrate in order to find employment elsewhere. In 1962 other doors were already shut. Until then ours had been open, and I knew the need of the West Indies that it should remain open, so I looked at the Bill as a Bill which was damaging potentially to the West Indies and their people. I was not thinking so much then—I probably should have been—of the much larger Asian countries of the Commonwealth and what would happen here if literally hundreds of thousands of Commonwealth citizens from India and Pakistan wanted to come to Britain. I probably ought to have thought about that more at the time, but, in fairness to myself and others who took the same view at that time, the truth is that at the time of the Act most of the immigrants came from the West Indies.
  I took the view at the time—indeed, I take it still—that we could absorb the numbers coming from the West Indies, because they are relatively small islands with relatively small populations, and,

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  therefore, the demand of the number of people wanting to come here at any one time would not be so great that we could not absorb it. I still adhere to that view about the West Indies; but the trouble is that it is not so much a West Indian problem now but, as we all know, it is mainly an Asian problem.
  Faced with that position, I think we have to admit that we have a very difficult problem. For some years before the original Act was passed India and Pakistan had imposed their own controls upon their own emigrants, but as time went on those controls weakened and the numbers of immigrants began to rise, at first gradually and rather slowly, and then very steeply, and applications lately for vouchers from the Asian countries of the Commonwealth have so grown that, as the Home Secretary told us today, there is a backlog of something like 300, 000 applications. This is so great that, if there had not been an Act, we could not possibly have absorbed, either in housing or in employment, the numbers who would have arrived here. That is a fact, and we all know it.
  There is a further problem. I do not know that it has been touched upon today. Most Indians and Pakistanis cannot speak our language, and it may be that control under the Act should now be extended to language control as well, because it is so much more difficult to assimilate people who cannot speak the language of their adopted country.
  I think the whole Committee now agrees that we have got to have some control of some sort. It has either to be control by Britain—in other words, by continuing the Act; or it can theoretically be voluntary, self-imposed control by the exporting countries of the Commonwealth. I am not very optimistic myself that we could get effective voluntary control. We could try, but we must certainly renew the Act pending the attempt. I think the only hope of securing voluntary control will be by having the alternative of compulsion in the background, by the Act remaining on the Statute Book.
  The Government, I understand, favour an attempt to negotiate a voluntary agreement. I am not at all clear what their approach is going to be. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman will be
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  able to help us on this when he replies. Do right hon. Gentlemen have it in mind simply to go on with bilateral talks between Britain and other individual Commonwealth Governments, which, I gathered from the Home Secretary, was the Government's probable line? Or do the Government propose to hold a Commonwealth migration conference? I rather favour this approach. If an attempt is to be made, I should like it to be made by means of a Commonwealth migration conference; not a Commonwealth Prime Ministers' conference, because at such a conference there is never time to discuss this sort of subject; but a special Commonwealth migration conference attended by the appropriate Ministers in charge of immigration and emigration in the various Commonwealth countries.
  The attraction of that idea is that it would go much wider than bilateral arrangements simply with the United Kingdom. It would be a Commonwealth conference to deal with a Commonwealth problem. It would be designed to see whether the exporting countries of the Commonwealth, like India, Pakistan, and the West Indies, could come to some voluntary arrangement not only with Britain, but with the other importing countries of the Commonwealth like Australia and Canada, and perhaps to a lesser extent New Zealand. Frankly, I fear that it would fail, but it could be tried, and meanwhile, of course, the Act would continue in force, and if the conference failed we should all have to acknowledge that the Act had come to stay, and that we might as well take; it out of the expiring laws and make it a permanent part of our statutes.
  Lastly, if hon. Members believe in and want good race relations, which I am persuaded that we all do in this House, let us get away from the atmosphere generated by Smethwick. All that one can say about Smethwick is that it has exposed a problem which all of us, in our heart of hearts, know exists. It is an unfortunate problem. It is the problem really—and I think that we might as well admit it—of racial prejudice.
  It is unfortunate. In my view it is un-Christian; and it is always denied by those who feel it; but it exists. I believe that it is our duty here not to allow it to become worse by taking up strong

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  political attitudes ourselves, because if race once becomes an issue of party politics in this country, we are going to embark on a very dangerous and slippery slope.
  I have no idea whether the Smeth-wick campaign was a dirty campaign or not, whether it was fought on racial lines or not. I do not even want to know. If it was, it was deplorable, and I hope that it will never happen again, but let us forget about it now if we can, because I cannot help feeling that in the interests of the integration of immigrants in this country there has already been too much talk, too much conflict, and too many recriminations on this subject. It is bad for race relations, and for the integration of the Commonwealth citizens who are already here.
  In the same way, I wish very much that the Prime Minister had not mentioned it, deliberately, in his first speech as Prime Minister from that Box and in the way that he did, because I felt that it was below the level and the dignity of his great office. I am sure that he regrets it now, but even if he does not. I hope that we shall all forget it and not recriminate about his speech, and not recriminate about my hon. Friend's campaign, whatever it was. I hope that we shall get away from it all, and that it will not continue.
  The main thing of importance is to prevent the colour of people's skins becoming, directly or indirectly, for any reason, a party political issue in this country. I believe that, having renewed this Act as we shall tonight, we should direct our minds and efforts to the constructive and immensely important task of integrating the Commonwealth citizens who are already here into our society.
  They are doing a very fine job for us, as hon. Members have repeatedly said, in staffing the transport systems, in nursing, and in other occupations where they are a real help to us. We for our part ought to be a little more tolerant. We should befriend them and make them feel as welcome as we can. We should try to provide them—God knows it is difficult with a waiting list for our own people as well—with more homes to live in, and we should ensure a much closer liaison between the Ministry of Labour, which issues the permits, and the local authorities who have to cope with the
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  housing shortage in those areas where the West Indians or Pakistanis or Indians concentrate. We ought, somehow, to get a better liaison between the two so that we do not send too many people to the areas where it is already difficult and where there are already concentrations.
  If we fail to do the sort of things about which we have all been talking today, if we allow racial bitterness to develop in Britain, which God forbid, we shall be creating not only a terrible and insoluble problem for our children and our grandchildren in this country but we shall be failing to make our contribution to the solution of the problem of race relations in the world.
  Mr. Michael Foot: Except for a few minutes at the beginning of the speech of the hon. Member for Surbiton (Mr. Fisher), I have listened to the whole of this debate and I would say that it has been an extremely fascinating discussion. I should like to say that I agree with what was said by the hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) I agree very largely with what he stated was his attitude to the Act. It is not a much better Act than when it was first introduced. It is, in my opinion, a detestable thing which I should like to see removed altogether from the Statute Book.
  One of the proudest things in the whole record of the Commonwealth was that people of that Commonwealth should be able to come to this country without any impediment whatever, and it is indeed a melancholy state of affairs to know that that right has been abolished. We are asked to renew this Act in very different circumstances from those in which the opposing party originally introduced it. The proposition of the Government today is surrounded with many other proposals, and if the party opposite had introduced the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill accompanied with a proposal for the abolition of racial discrimination and incitement of various kinds to race hatred, there would have been a great difference.
  If the party which is today the Opposition had introduced the original Bill and accompanied it—or, better still, had preceded it—with proposals for discussions with the Commonwealth countries, there would have been a very

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  considerable difference. It would have removed a great deal of the bitterness felt, for example, by the Prime Minister of Jamaica, to whom reference has very rightly been made during this debate. It would have removed some of the bitterness felt in Pakistan and other parts of the Commonwealth, and so that is a second factor which makes the circumstances different.
  The Government have given us the detailed figures about what has happened and given them frankly so that the whole atmosphere in which they ask us to renew this Act is different from what it was when we, on this side of the Committee, originally voted against it. Yet, even so, I hope that it is the undoubted determination of this Government to try to get rid of this Act altogether and to do so as soon as they possibly can. I hope that they will then substitute for it some arrangement which can be derived from full discussions with Commonwealth countries, and I repeat that I hope that they will do so as swiftly as they can.
  I come now to what has just been said by the hon. Member for Surbiton and several other hon. Members on that side of the Committee, about party politics being removed altogether from this question. What they say is that if racial incitement becomes a party matter in this country, then it will make only for damage to this country as a whole. I so fully agree with them, but hon. Members opposite who make that claim should really try to discover how the issue has been turned into a party issue at all. The hon. Member has already given me half of my case by saying that he does not even want to discover how it arose; but I say to him and to his hon. Friends that it is the duty of the Conservative Party to discover it—to discover what really happened at Smethwick.
  Mr. Fisher: I was trying to say that if the important thing—and I think we are all agreed that it is the most important—is to integrate these people and have no more bitterness, then we ought all to forget these recriminations and not seek to hinge on some one fault, because that is only making for bitterness again.
  11.30 p.m.
  Mr. Foot: We are dealing with the situation that exists, which we have been
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  asked to do. There is a contrast between the way in which the party leaders have dealt with this matter. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Yes, I will explain exactly how different. A case was revealed in the last few days of an act of racial discrimination being practised in Smethwick by a club which is indirectly associated with the Labour Party. Within a matter of days the Prime Minister—the leader of the Labour Party—condemned that racial discrimination. We are still waiting to discover whether the leader of the Conservative Party condemns what happened in Smethwick in the election campaign. We were waiting to hear whether the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd) condemned what happened in Smethwick. He has not done so.
  Mr. Wise: It is quite correct that the Prime Minister condemned what happened in the case of the Labour club in Smethwick. Quite rightly; that was a known fact. But the hon. Gentleman knows nothing whatever about the way in which the Smethwick campaign was conducted.
  Mr. Foot: The hon. Member says that I know nothing about it. I will give him some of the facts, and we will see which hon. Members opposite agree with what I say took place and which of them do not. We can make some guesses already. It is no use hon. Members opposite trying to pretend that they are all in agreement on this subject, and that their attitudes are all the same. We had a remarkable speech from the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. Aubrey Jones). The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hands-worth (Sir E. Boyle) was complimented by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) in one of the most remarkable maiden speeches that I have heard.
  My hon. Friend talked about the dangers from lunatic groups. I have always regarded the right hon. Member for Hall Green and the right hon. Member for Handsworth as members of what I would call the sane fringe of the Conservative Party. We thought at one time that the hon. Member for Surbiton was a member of the same fringe, but now we are not quite so sure—and we never

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  supposed that the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. Wise), who moved the Amendment at the beginning of the debate, belonged to that fringe. There has never been any mistake about that.
  I am glad to see the Leader of the Opposition here, because he still has to discharge his responsibility in this matter. We want to know, particularly in view of all the statements made from hon. Members opposite condemning racial incitement and saying how much they deplore any action which has caused racial discrimination or hatred, what his attitude is, as leader of the Conservative Party, to what went on in Smethwick. We want as clear a statement from him on this matter as we have had from the leader of the Labour Party about the club in Smethwick.
  Some hon. Members opposite say that they do not know what happened in Smethwick. If they had been listening to what was said by the hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Peter Griffiths) I am not surprised. In his maiden speech he said:
  "I want to make it quite clear to the House that there is no resentment at all in Smethwick on the grounds of race or colour. I can assure hon. Members that the people in my constituency are as warm and as welcoming toward; strangers as are those of any other community in the British Isles."
  In the following column he said—
  The Deputy-Chairman (Sir Samuel Storey): Order. The hon. Member must not quote from a speech made in this Session.
  Mr. Foot: There must be some mistake, Sir Samuel. I am not quoting from the House of Lords but from a speech made in the House of Commons, and this is a common custom in this Committee.
  In the following column the hon. Member said:
  "It is seeking to solve these problems, and I have, on every occasion, called for the most active co-operation between the members of all races in the town."[OFFICIAL REPORT, 6th November, 1964: Vol. 701, c. 557-8.]
  Some hon. Members may have believed what was said. Let us look at the independent evidence.
  Mr. Geoffrey Wilson: Did the hon. Member ask my hon. Friend the Member
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  for Smethwick (Mr. Peter Griffiths) to be present? He was in the Committee not long ago.
  Mr. Foot: I have been here eight hours and, to do him credit, the hon. Member for Smethwick has been here most of the time. If he is not here now it is not my fault. I am perfectly entitled to deal with this matter. In any case I am not interested in what the hon. Member for Smethwick has to say. I am not concerned with the hon. Member. I am concerned with the attitude of the leader of the Conservative Party here and the leader of the Conservative Party in Birmingham. I am not interested in what the hon. Member for Smethwick has to say now.
  Let us look at the report by The Times correspondent of what happened in Smethwick. The hon. Member for Surbiton has said he does not want to hear, but if he will be good enough to listen he will know the reasons why he should hear. This is what The Times correspondent wrote on 12th October, which appeared in that newspaper on 13th October:
  "Three of the rumours picked up at Smethwick within the last few days by Liberal canvassers are 'Patrick Gordon Walker's daughters married black men.' Patrick Gordon Walker sold his house at Smethwick to the blacks.' Because most of the blacks have leprosy, they are building two secret leper hospitals in the town.' Although these rumours do not contain one word of truth, some people believe them implicitly. Stickers bearing the words, If you want a nigger neighbour, vote Liberal or Labour' have been posted in the town. … The words 'Nigger Lover' have been daubed over some of Mr. Gordon Walker's posters. A disturbance began at a Conservative meeting last week a few moments after an apparent Conservative supporter had said 'If you black your face and go into a pub Gordon Walker will buy you a drink.' And Smethwick has at last come to this, that the great issues of the day are all twisted and perverted by the question of colour."
  That is a report from an independent source of what happened in Smethwick. I do not know whether any member of the Conservative Party is proud of it.
  Mr. Geoffrey Wilson: What has it got to do with the Conservative Party?
  Mr. Foot: I am very grateful that the hon. Member has asked that question, because if he reads a little further on in the same report in The Times he will see what

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  this question has to do with the Conservative Party. The Times correspondent continues:
  "In the creation of this electoral atmosphere the Conservative Party at Smethwick has played a leading role. The evidence is there in black and white in the files of the local newspaper. It is plain and undeniable."
  That is the situation. [An HON. MEMBER:"Rubbish."] But this is an independent source of evidence—
  Sir E. Boyle: Does the hon. Member think that these rumours which he has read out justify the Prime Minister in suggesting that on his arrival here the Whip should be withdrawn from my hon. Friend the Member for Smethwick (Mr. Peter Griffiths) and that his character should therefore be blackened before he ever opened his mouth in the House of Commons? As a strong supporter of the rights of the individual, does the hon. Member think that that is fair and just, based on rumour?
  Mr. Foot: What the Prime Minister said on that occasion was absolutely right to say. I think that it was absolutely right to condemn in the strongest possible terms a Member who had got back to the House by an attempt to stir up racial hatred. The matter could have been dealt with earlier if the Leader of the Opposition had lived up to his responsibilities. The Leader of the Opposition, who prides himself on straight talk, is such a political coward that he dare not say what he thinks. He dared not say it before the election, and, apparently, he dare not say it now. The reason is that he knows that he has a few more racialists behind him and he will have trouble with them. It looks as though he has another in Leyton, if he lets him carry on with his campaign.
  Mr. Wise: On a point of order, Sir Samuel. Probably quite rightly, Sir Samuel, you called me to order half-way through a much milder outburst than that of the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot). Might I suggest very respectfully that he is going a little too far?
  The Deputy-Chairman: I understand that the debate has been considerably widened since I gave that Ruling. But it is unfortunate that we should get away from the actual Amendment, and I hope
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  that the hon. Member will direct his references to it.
  Mr. Foot: Might I suggest, Sir Samuel, that if you wish to call a Member to order on such a matter, you might have called upon the right hon. Member for Handsworth when he put a question to me about something said by the Prime Minister the other day. I was replying to his intervention, saying that the matter of the hon. Member for Smethwick could have been fully dealt with if the Leader of the Opposition had responded to the statement made by the Prime Minister and had said whether he condemned the provocation of racial hatred in the Smethwick campaign. If the right hon. Gentleman had said that, the whole matter could have been dealt with differently; but he has completely failed to deal with it.
  It is no good hon. Gentlemen opposite saying in this debate that they think that the word "Smethwick" should not be mentioned again and that it would be very agreeable if no one ever referred to it. Of course, it would be very agreeable for the hon. Member for Smethwick and for the Leader of the Opposition. Then they would be able to go out of this building and continue making the same kind of speeches. The right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield said that there was a very different temperature in this debate from some of the previous ones we had had on this subject. Of course, there is a different temperature and tone in what he and many of his hon. Friends say here from what they say outside.
  Referring again to the particular case of Smethwick, my hon. Friend the Member for Sparkbrook has already referred to the organisation in Birmingham which has been campaigning for many years in stirring up racial hatred, supposedly condemned by all hon. Members opposite. According to the evidence given by my hon. Friend the Member for Sparkbrook, this organisation has been campaigning in stirring up bitter racial hatred at every opportunity, and it has been led by a gentleman whose name is Mr. Finney. Mr. Finney has now become a member of the Conservative Party in Smethwick. He is on the council in Smethwick. He was brought into the Conservative Party in Smethwick at the invitation of the hon. Member for Smethwick. All this is revealed in an

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  article in the Sun today, written by a person called Paul Foot—why he is not in the Government already, I cannot understand—and the evidence is there in complete detail.
  Let me quote what is said by this chief associate of the hon. Member for Smethwick and illustrate the kind of propaganda which he has been conducting. I do not know whether hon. Members opposite from Birmingham will approve of this kind of thing.
  Mr. Renton: On a point of order, Sir Samuel. The hon. Gentleman has been addressing the Committee for quite a time now and scarcely any of his remarks have been devoted to the question whether the Commonwealth Immigrants Act, 1962, should be included in the Schedule to the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill. Is it not time that the hon. Gentleman addressed his mind to that point?
  The Deputy-Chairman: I have already asked the hon. Gentleman to relate what he is saying to the Amendment before the Committee. I hope that he will now do so.
  11.45 p.m.
  Mr. Foot: Sir Samuel, the Amendment says that we should vote against the continuation of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act. Therefore, I should have thought I was perfectly entitled to question the claims frequently made by some hon. Gentlemen during the debate that they are as much opposed to racial hatred or provocation as we are and that they have a clean record in this respect.
  What we have been seeking to do during the debate, and what I am seeking to do now, is to discover what is the attitude of, first, the Leader of the Opposition and, secondly, the leader of the Conservative Party in Birmingham to some of the most flagrant campaigns of racial hatred carried out by some members of their party throughout that part of the country. In order to show the kind of statements they are making I was proposing to quote from an article which appeared yesterday in the Northern Echo, which gives evidence of the kind of propaganda which is being conducted in that area about the Act by a leading member of the Conservative Party.
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  This is what is said by a Conservative councillor, Donald Finney, and if the Leader of the Opposition has not the courage to repudiate the hon. Member for Smethwick, let us see whether he will repudiate the Conservative councillor in Smethwick. Let hon. Members remember that we have been told throughout the debate that hon. Gentlemen opposite do not believe in stirring up racial hatred. This is what Councillor Finney says:
  "Having a huge number of children, West Indians could in less than half a century outnumber us English, and with one-man-one-vote they could do something that Hitler couldn't do—take over this country, as we have seen happen in so many other Commonwealth countries. This is what we can expect from a Labour Government, a party with a policy to destroy the English race and the English way of life. To do this they have Fenner Brockway's infamous antidiscrimination Bill. It will hit at every Englishman and Englishwoman's right to speak his or her own mind. This Bill will also take away everyone's right to accept or reject any coloured man or woman who may call at a boarding house. All coloured people must be taken or else there is a £100 fine or three months' imprisonment. The Labour Party has also been learning from Hitler, but we also learned how to kick out dictators. The voters at the General Election will vote to keep out dictators as they did to Smethwick's Labour Council."
  I do not know whether hon. Gentlemen opposite think that that is stirring up racial hatred or not, or do they think it is promoting racial harmony? [Interruption.]
  If hon. Gentlemen opposite want some further examples, I have one from an article written by the hon. Member for Smethwick himself. We have been told about the need to build a multi-racial society. It has been suggested that it would be a great thing if this country could be the first. We had a remarkable maiden speech from the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas), who said that if this country could build the first multi-racial society we should have every right to be extremely proud. But this is the view of the hon. Member for Smethwick who says that he has never in any circumstances said anything which could possibly promote racial hatred in his constituency:
  "Smethwick rejects the idea of being a multi-racial society.…Surely if more houses are built they should go to British people first.…In any case"—

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  we have been told that hon. Members opposite are very deeply concerned about the housing problem—
  "would more houses end the nuisance an d filth? Would more houses end the knife fights. Would more houses make the streets safe for young women and girls?"
  Does the Leader of the Opposition think that that is desirable propaganda?
  Sir Alec Douglas-Home: I find the hon. Gentleman's references to me so completely offensive, suggesting that I am in any way concerned with racial discrimination of any kind, that I shall treat them with the contempt which they deserve. My right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Sir E. Boyle) will wind up the debate, and he will deal with them.
  Mr. Foot: The Leader of the Opposition has had another opportunity to say whether or not he agrees with what was done in Smethwick. He does not think he has any duty to discourage or encourage it. He thinks that it has nothing to do with him that, for the first time perhaps in the history of this country, a Member has been elected to this House primarily on conducting a most bitter racialist campaign. The Leader of the Opposition does not think it is any of his business.
  Mr. F. A. Burden: Does not the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot) think that his display of extreme personal hatred for several hon. Members on this side of the Committee and for people in Smethwick is just a little worse than anything he is trying to condemn?
  Mr. Foot: I hate those who stir up racial hatred. I think we have a duty to hate them. Are we in this Committee—and the Conservative Party, for it is more the business of that party—to say, "We do not care if such a campaign as that in Smethwick is mounted"? If he is challenged by the Prime Minister to say whether or not he is in favour of such campaigning or against, is the Leader of the Opposition to say, "I will say nothing"? He has been challenged by me to say something after I have quoted some of the things said by the hon. Member for Smethwick during his campaign,
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  but we have heard the right hon. Gentleman say that it is nothing to do with him. He does not feel called upon to make any comment on it whatsoever.
  I know, and the Committee knows, that the result of the right hon. Gentleman's refusal to condemn the kind of methods employed in Smethwick will be to encourage other Conservative candidates in future to engage in the same kind of campaigning. It has already been indicated by hon. Members opposite that a similar campaign may be starting in a by-election which is to take place in a few weeks' time. I do not know whether the Leader of the Opposition will take the same attitude to that.
  It is not that the Conservative Central Office was not warned about what was happening. The party leaders could have got out of this matter more easily for themselves and more honourably. Many months ago there was an organisation in Birmingham for co-ordinating the activities of those opposed to racial discrimination. On numerous occasions in the last two years it communicated with the Conservative Central Office—with the right hon. Member for Enfield, West (Mr. Iain Macleod) when he was party chairman, and with his successor. It sent letters and cuttings from the newspapers reporting the kind of campaign being conducted in Smethwick and asked the Conservative Party to say what it thought of it.
  One or two right hon. and hon. Members opposite have indicated clearly what they thought of it. The right hon. Member for Hall Green and the right hon. Member for Handsworth did so. The right hon. Member for Handsworth had letters from some of these neoFascist organisations which have been supporting the hon. Member for Smethwick in his constituency. He was asked what his attitude was and, to his great credit, he condemned racial discrimination and the stirring up of racial hatred in the most positive and deliberate manner.
  All I ask is that the Leader of the Opposition should have the same courage as the right hon. Member for Handsworth. I hope that one day the Leader of the Opposition will have the nerve to take his courage in both hands and condemn racial hatred and apartheid, not merely in far away Africa but right here at home,

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  where members of his own party are seeking political advantage by stirring up racial hatred in the most bestial manner.
  Sir E. Boyle: I do not think that, despite his efforts, the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Michael Foot) has really raised the temperature in the Committee all that much during the past 20 minutes. But before coming to what the hon. Gentleman said, I will start my speech in the customary manner on these occasions by congratulating the hon. Members who have made their maiden speeches and also by referring to one swansong that we have heard.
  We had a most thoughtful maiden speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas) who had a considerable reputation as a political thinker and writer before he entered the House, and I am sure that the very thoughtful way in which he spoke today will encourage us very much to hear him on other occasions. Then, secondly, we had the maiden speech of the hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central (Dr. David Kerr), who spoke, if I may say so, in the most genial, if thrusting, manner. The third maiden speech which we had was from the hon. Member for Barons Court (Mr. Richard), and I should like to say that I regretted the necessity to raise the point I did towards the end of his speech and to assure him that the House will always listen with interest to a speech which is both a hard-hitting, debating speech and one based on deep feeling, and that my remarks were no reflection on the quality of his speech, which impressed us all considerably.
  I am sorry that I missed the maiden speech of the hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) which, I am told, was of outstanding quality. This is a point on which the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale and I can agree. The hon. Member for Spark-brook mentioned the social work being done on the immigrant question in Spark-brook. I am sure that the Committee would like me to make reference to the fact that we heard what may well be the last speech in this Chamber by the hon. Member for Leyton (Mr. Sorensen). I must say that I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, East (Mr. John Harvey) paid him a fair
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  compliment when he quoted a most apposite passage from the first speech made by the hon. Member for Leyton in the House.
  There was a passage in the speech of the Home Secretary on which I should like to comment. At the very end of his speech the right hon. and learned Gentleman said that effective control of immigration was indispensable. I think that, without any desire to raise undue controversy on this point, I must from this Box express satisfaction that we are at long last united on this point. I must say that I could not help contrasting the conclusion of the Home Secretary's speech with the atmosphere at the conclusion of the debate on the Second Reading of the Bill in 1961. I can well remember on that occasion not only the Opposition's spokesman ending with a reference to "this miserable, shameful, shabby Bill", but also the strong attempt that was made to deny a hearing to my colleague, Mr. John Hare as he then was, when he rose to wind up for the Government. None of us welcomed the Bill for its own sake. I think all of us recognised the Bill as an unpleasant necessity. However, we are now agreed at last that effective control is indispensable.
  The other point I wish to mention in the Home Secretary's speech is that he said that we are faced with a problem with which we have to deal, and I very much commend that approach to the Committee.
  I was struck with an article which I read in The Guardian on, I think, Monday of this week which said that the position now reached encourages "caution rather than generosity and, as some Labour Members believe, frankness rather than idealism." I hope that none of us in the Committee will think that there is any necessary inconsistency between frankness and idealism, because I think that idealism must be based always on a frank recognition of a difficult problem and the realities of the situation that has brought it about. It is very easy when discussing this subject of race relations, or race hatred, or any other subject of this kind, to talk in general terms and block phrases, but, speaking as I do as a Member for a multi-racial constituency, I could not help reflecting on the contrast in the atmosphere

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  when we are discussing this subject in this Committee and when it is being discussed in my constituency.
  12 m.
  As the Committee knows, I did not attempt to raise any undue heat on this subject during the election in my constituency. Neither, as some people have asserted, did I try to sweep it under the carpet. However, I have known few other topics about which there has been more intense feeling among individual people. I have known few topics on which there has been a more clamant desire to feel that one's Member of Parliament was identified with one's own personal point of view. This is a subject about which there is strong feeling among individuals, particularly in the older parts of our big cities where people have lived all their lives and where they have seen the character of the neighbourhood change very rapidly. We always need to bear that personal aspect in mind when we are discussing this question.
  We must be very careful not to confuse racialism with realism. I hope that I will always condemn racialism as much as anyone. I can think of very few meaner actions than publicly identifying some vice, or disease, or bad social conditions with a particular racial group in the community. I hope that all of us in this Committee will agree on that. However, at the same time let us be realistic about this subject. Here I should like to quote a sentence which has impressed me and which is from a book by Mrs. Elspeth Huxley called "Back Street New Worlds". She says:
  "While race discrimination is out of fashion nowadays, quite a lot of citizens harbour doubts, fears and resentments they are, in the present climate of opinion, ashamed to admit."
  Those are the realities of the present situation.
  It is a most encouraging feature of our national life today that so few people are prepared to say that they favour race discrimination. But doubts, fears and resentments are very strongly felt among many people. Many people are conscious of a difference between how they feel and how they feel they ought to feel. Doubts and fears of this sort are widely felt in this country, and I am sure that we ought to approach this subject with sympathy and in a constructive spirit.
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  That leads me to say something about the attitude of my party to this question. Here I should like to answer the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale, because the attitude of the Conservative Party was expressed quite clearly in a letter from my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition to the present Foreign Secretary. My right hon. Friend said:
  "As you know, I made my views on racial discrimination abundantly clear on the television last Thursday. I said, first, that any immigrant and his family who are accepted into this country will be treated exactly like one of our own citizens."
  My right hon. Friend went on to make it clear that a Conservative Government believed in keeping strict control over the number of immigrants so as to make sure that no undesirable social problems arose for the future.
  Those remain our views on the question. My right hon. Friend made them absolutely clear in his letter to the present Foreign Secretary, and I distinctly recall that the hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Peter Griffiths) expressed his concurrence and agreement with my right hon. Friend's letter. I must say that I could not help noticing that the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale went on with his catalogue for nearly 20 minutes before reaching a single quotation from the hon. Member for Smethwick himself. If we in the House of Commons are to judge party policies by the remarks of individual councillors, there is a great deal that can be said in future at some time from this side of the Committee. Let us not start playing that game, Sir Samuel, or your patience and that of your successors in the Chair will, I suspect, soon be put to a strain.
  I will enlarge on what I have said about the policy of my party. My hon. Friends and I will always set our faces against making any difference between one citizen and another on the ground of his racial origin. The Conservative Party—and, I believe, the overwhelming majority of people in this country—want to see the assimilation of immigrants, including what the Home Secretary rather happily called immigrants from the new Commonwealth, into our life and society; the life and society of what is now their home country. I dare say that a number of them will wish to retain some of their distinct customs and beliefs, but the idea of any racial group which must remain, as a

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  group, for ever unassimilated is obviously not tolerable.
  This cannot be a quick or easy task because there are already at least 800, 000 of them in this country, as the Home Secretary told us, and many of them are concentrated in certain regions. I believe that many generations must pass before we have fully tackled this problem successfully.
  It is against this background that one must look at the question of numbers. I would like, on behalf of the whole Committee, to thank the Home Secretary for the full details he gave earlier. It is not the easiest technical operation to deploy a table of figures to the Committee, but the details which he gave will be of the greatest value to the world outside and all hon. Members will be obliged to him for that detailed information.
  I will make two comments on those figures. First, the right hon. and learned Gentleman, having talked about dependants and evasion—I will return to this subject shortly—said that the existing scale of voucher holders should be maintained. I admit that my calculations are only approximate, but the maintenance of the existing scale of voucher holders means—not, I think, 100, 000 immigrants a year—but at least 50, 000 to 60, 000 a year of the total immigrant intake, of whom, as the right hon. Gentleman said, a very high proportion will be from the new Commonwealth.
  Frankly, I think the figure implied by the right hon. and learned Gentleman is absolutely the maximum figure we can manage in this country at present. Indeed, many people would say that it is more than the maximum. I say that because I am convinced that strict control of immigration, is indeed vital to the pursuit of racial harmony in this country.
  The Home Secretary then said, referring to the question of evasion, that the Government must take steps about it if it got beyond a certain point but that, naturally, the Government were hesitant to take measures which made one think in terms of the more stringent kind of control applicable to aliens. One of the things public opinion is most concerned with at present—and this applies not only to extremists but also to moderates on this question—is the issue of evasion, and I hope, however painful it may be, that
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  the right hon. and learned Gentleman will not hesitate to take steps about evasion if he thinks this is right. From what he said, it is clear that the level of evasion is becoming a serious matter.
  Having spoken of numbers, I will devote the remainder of my remarks to the positive aspects of our policy and to how we can ensure that we do the best thing for the immigrants and for the country. I am sure that we all agreed with the Home Secretary when he said that we could not have any division between, as it were, first- and second-class citizens.
  I must, in this context, say something about housing and education. I am sure that the Housing Act, which we passed in the last Session of the last Parliament, will be of value in the context of enabling local authorities to operate more strongly against multi-occupation when this is a danger to health. On the education side, as the Committee knows, during my period as Minister I devoted a good deal of attention to this aspect of the matter.
  Now that the level of expenditure on educational research is rising and we are looking forward, as we were in the last Parliament, to something like £½million a year on research by 1968, I hope that it will be possible to do more research projects on the subject of what is the threshold of danger in the proportion of immigrants in any one school. I have heard it said by many experienced and knowledgeable head teachers that when there is a concentration of about 30 per cent. of immigrants in a school, the educational problems rapidly multiply. Furthermore, the older inhabitants no longer want to send their children to those schools and the problem intensifies itself rapidly. I suggest to the Government that this is a matter on which a research project would be valuable.
  Again, I was struck very much with what has been said in this and the earlier debate about the importance of more social workers in this context. I cannot help wondering whether it might not be possible to get help from the University Grants Committee and the universities. Only recently, one of the universities has undertaken work in a department which will result in more educational researchers, and at a time of university

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  expansion it may be possible to get help here.
  Then there is the question of advice and information on teaching methods—I would draw attention here to the pamphlet that we have already produced on English for Immigrants and, finally, the question of adding to the administrative strength of the section of the Department of Education which is responsible for the schools. I mention these matters because I am sure that the time is soon coming when the problems of the schools will arise acutely. We have heard only today of the conference recently held in West Bromwich, where it looks very much as though, by 1968, 16 per cent. of children in junior schools and 20 per cent. in secondary modern schools will be coloured members of the new Commonwealth. It is against this background that, I believe, rapid planning will be needed.
  Mr. Parkin: The right hon. Gentleman has said "finally", but I hope that he will say something to the Minister of Labour about his own views on the connection between the education service, the youth employment service and the follow-up of training in the jobs taken by those who leave school early.
  Sir E. Boyle: In view of the considerably larger number of Ministers who have been appointed in those fields, this should be an easier task for the present Government to undertake. As the hon. Member says, however, close liaison here between the Department of Education and the Ministry of Labour is extremely important.
  In conclusion, I should like to say only this—
  Mr. Tom Driberg: There is plenty of time.
  Sir E. Boyle: The hon. Member says that encouragingly, but my impression is that after midnight hon. Members are best not indulging themselves too much.
  In our whole approach to this matter, we should avoid the errors both of excessive optimism and of excessive pessimism. I have no patience whatever with those who say that the problem of assimilating immigrants can never be solved to any appreciable extent and that, therefore, the only course of
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  action is try to eliminate the problem. Let us recognise that in many parts of the country we are already today a multi-racial society.
  I will not go over again all that has been said about the services performed by many of the immigrants. Those services are of real economic importance. It is, however, nothing new in politics to have to draw a balance between economic advantage and social advantage. This leads me to those who. as I see it, take too easy and too optimistic a view of this question.
  Let us have no doubt about it. This matter of immigration, even at its present level, is causing a great deal of extreme unhappiness and a considerable amount of tension and difficulty. That is why I ask the Home Secretary, as I am sure he will, on this matter not to think in terms just of ideas and principles, but to realise that for the sake of social harmony and for the sake of solving our problems, bearing in mind the heavy level of concentration of immigration that we already have, it is bound to be necessary to continue strict control of immigration for the future. It is for that reason that my party greatly welcomes the fact that we are today more agreed on this principle than we might have dared to hope two or three years ago.
  12.15 a.m.
  The Minister of Labour (Mr. R. J. Gunter): I would in the first place join with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Sir E. Boyle) in extending congratulations on what I think has been a number of remarkable maiden speeches this afternoon. I think the debate, after the first two principal speakers had spoken, had its context given by the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas) in what I thought was a remarkable contribution to this debate. Then there was my hon. Friend the Member for Wandsworth, Central (Dr. David Kerr), who can speak with such authority on this matter, and then there was also the perhaps unusual speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Barons Court (Mr. Richard), which I am sure we all enjoyed, although, as I say, it was a little unusual. Then there was the first-class speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley).

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  As the right hon. Gentleman mentioned, there was also a speech which was not a maiden but which must be mentioned, the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Leyton (Mr. Sorensen), who may well have spoken for the last time in this Chamber. Remembering his remarkable services, not only to his constituency but also to this Committee and the House, and the contribution he has made in lifting the standards of public life over the last 30 years, I am sure we shall miss him, and that we wish him well in whatever place he is likely to go.
  This debate has, I believe, on the whole been a very helpful debate. I am quite sure that there is not a great deal of purpose in arousing any further acrimony. Answers have to be given for what we say in public life and during elections. There is no reason for any politician in this Committee to shrink from controversy. I would submit to the Committee, however, that the problem we are facing in this country, which, as we have all admitted in today's debate, is a very big one, is but a facet of a much greater problem which besets the whole world. It would be as well if we reminded ourselves that perhaps the greatest contribution which the British people have made has been that we have been able to embrace changes of many kinds, whether resulting from wars, revolution, warring classes, or religious differences; that we have been able to embrace them and have uniquely remained in this world a free society. That free society, after all its ups and downs, has been based upon a broad tolerance.
  That is what the world is in most need of—a broad and sweeping tolerance, whether in religion or between nations, and in what may well prove to be the greatest problem of the last 40 years of this century, the clash of colour. Therefore, I would say to this Committee that if we can, with our opportunity and with our experience and with our tolerance, show to the world that we can not only embrace changes, not only embrace clash of classes, but also come to terms with the problem of colour and all it means, we may yet again give to the nations of the world an example which they may seek to follow in solving this very deep and biting problem.
  We are all sinners. Do not anyone assume a holier than thou attitude. Let
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  us conclude that no public man or woman in this country ought to do other than be most careful in the choice of his or her words about this problem. Everyone of us ought to have a proper regard not only for local interests or electoral interests but for the fact that any exacerbation of feeling in this country can very well have its repercussions elsewhere. I therefore suggest that we should all view this matter with the seriousness that it deserves, for I believe that if we can solve this problem there is great hope. As the right hon. Gentleman said, it will be a long time before we really get to the solution of it.
  There are two kinds of people who I think are very foolish in this controversy—not only foolish, but in some cases criminal. There are those who meet it with words which have been used tonight, "Nigger for a neighbour", with contempt for some other section of the Creation, and with the attitude that there is something better in being white than in being black, when it is all an accident of birth. These are the people who do great damage in this war of intolerance, but almost equally daft are those who believe that no problem exists, people who seem to think that this problem can be swept under the carpet.
  All history proves that when people are faced with this problem there are social tensions. There are, inevitably, the problems which arise from different customs and different habits, and it is no good anybody saying that they do not exist. The problem is there, and all that I can say is that those who do not happen to live in those communities most affected ought to keep very quiet, because some of us know from experience in our constituencies the difficulties and the tensions which arise when people are crowded on top of one another. Let us be very careful before we take any "holier than thou" attitude.
  The problem does not arise only from the difference in social habits. Some of our social habits are just as daft to the other people as theirs are to us. I remember serving with a unit in the Persian Gulf. To my astonishment, I found that with a unit of 180 mixed Indian troops, five latrines had to be dug in the desert. Eventually I discovered that

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  it was not really that the Indians objected to using my latrine. It was just that they thought that the habits of the English people were a little unclean in these matters, so they had a latrine of their own. Let us, therefore, be very careful.
  I think that our language should be very reserved and very careful. The problems which have been raised during this debate are principally those of social habits and of housing and education. The right hon. Gentleman rightly said that one of the greatest of these problems arises from housing. It is no use any hon. Member arguing about it. if one of our coloured brethren gets a council house, however much he may be entitled to it, one can depend on there being a row. It is therefore the duty of this Government, and I hope that we shall fulfil it, to do what we can to ease the housing situation, which is at the root of so many of our problems.
  Let us not shrink from the problems of education. The right hon. Gentleman used a figure which we have come to accept as true. He said that when there are more than 30 per cent. the problems in the schools mount. Let no one in this Committee shrink from the fact that, if our own children's education is going to be affected because there are more than 30 per cent., we do something. We feel that this is unwise in the interests of our children. Inevitably, therefore, great priority must be given to these remedial measures which are necessary at the present time.
  Many questions have been asked today, most of them in quite constructive speeches. With respect to those hon. Members who have spoken today, I thought that the hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) summarised quite a number of the questions which were asked. He was quite right in pointing out that they did not, in the first place, want to come to this country. It is a fact that they would much rather live in their own countries. Here I might say that one of the great adventures before this country of ours in the future—I hope the near future—could be to see how we could increase our sense of responsibility to those countries; to see what capital investment could be made towards more employment in those
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  countries. That, however, is a long-term job and, as I have said, many of the immigrants do not want to come here. I might say that I speak with some feeling, for most of the Welsh people who are here did not want to come. They would rather have stayed at home, but in their case as in that of the Commonwealth people, they came because of economic circumstances.
  I should now say something about the suggested special Commonwealth conference. Those hon. Members who have spoken of it would ask, I think, for a clear and concise answer tonight, but all I can say is that the idea will be very carefully looked at to see if it would be a wise move.
  So far as the activities of the Home Office Advisory Committee are concerned I would remind the House that three reports have been issued, one only seven or eight weeks ago. Hon. Members may have missed that because of the general election. So far as labour attachés are concerned, I have to report that we are looking at the situation. We have not been there very long, and we are trying to pick up the threads. We are doing so as quickly as we can.
  Generally, I do not want to enter into controversy now. Many scoring points could be made. There is the attitude of the Conservative Party during the election and, without raising any storm, I think that it is the duty of the leader of the Opposition to take his stand in this matter and let both parties be clear for the future.
  Sir A. Douglas-Home: I will respond to that now. I treated the intervention of the hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M.Foot) with the contempt that I thought it deserved and I have made my position, and the position of my party quite clear. I wrote to Mr. Gordon Walker, and I said on television during the election that in no circumstances is racial discrimination tolerated by my party, and I went on to read the letter, which the hon. Gentleman chose to ignore. I have made my own position quite clear throughout my five years at the Commonwealth Relations Office, as leader of the Conservative Government, and as Leader of the Opposition; that there should be no racial discrimination in any circumstances, and

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  that it is not tolerated in my party nor, I hope, in any other.
  Mr. Gunter: Perhaps I may turn to the continuation of this Act. I hope that the Committee will forgive me if I repeat some of the figures which have already been given by the Home Secretary, but I do so in order to emphasise the difficulty. I am responsible for the issue of the vouchers prescribed in the Act for the people who wish to come here to work. There is, and always has been, a limit on the total number of vouchers given in any one period. During this year, they have been given at the rate of just over twenty thousand a year, and we have been issuing them at about that rate between 19th October and 13th November. About 1, 600 were issued in that period.
  I think it is known that not all the people who get the vouchers use them. Only about 75 per cent. are actually taken up, and it is also very difficult to arrive at any precise figure about the number of dependants. We must assume, and can certainly reckon, that it is larger than the number of voucher holders. I am not saying whether that is the right rate or not. We will have to take a very careful look at all the factors involved before we decide whether this rate is right or not. Many of those factors have been mentioned in the debate, but for the present we propose to continue the issue of vouchers at the same rate as they have been issued in recent months, until we have had an opportunity of examining the working of the Act.
  12.30 a.m.
  My right hon. and learned Friend has already told the Committee about categories A, B and C, and I want to emphasise at this point that we have issued no vouchers to applicants in category C. The present position—and this has been more or less the position for several months—is that the number of applications in categories A and B has completely crowded out the applications in category C.
  I must point out that the backlog of category C vouchers is now in the region of 300, 000. One hon. Member rightly said that this problem is now largely an Asian rather than an African one, because out of those category C vouchers, involving 300, 000 applicants, no fewer
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  than 290, 000 are from Pakistan and India. This is a very unsatisfactory situation. It is clear to me, at least, that the existing rules, which allow category C applications to be accepted, give some measure of hope to those who make the applications. If they are then to be dealt with on the simple basis of "first come first served" we cannot really cope with the situation. We must carefully consider what we are to do about the operation of the voucher system.
  Mention has been made of the need for closer control and a more careful look at what happens after persons pass through the immigration control. These are very complex matters. We must take into account all the factors, and all the views of the Commonwealth Governments, always bearing in mind, as my right hon. and learned Friend said, that if we are to let these people in as Commonwealth citizens and then impose upon them a tight control that is completely alien to the free society in which we live, we will create a dangerous situation. The rule for granting priority in category A has been that an employer in this country must satisfy the Ministry of Labour that he has a genuine vacancy for a named Commonwealth citizen and that that named citizen is intending to come here to take up that job.
  That sounds all right, but the rules are very difficult to administer. It is sometimes difficult to say whether a vacancy is genuine or not. There are opportunities for abuse, and here and there we find that an unfair advantage is given to a Commonwealth citizen who has a friend or relative who is willing to find or offer him a job. Furthermore, there is no requirement that the person who is given the voucher to come to a specific job must go to that job, or, if he does go, that he must remain in that job for a certain time. It will be appreciated by the Committee that grave difficulties exist in the present situation.
  The number of applicants who can successfully establish a claim to priority in categories A and B is now greater than the total number of vouchers available for issue. This means that there is a delay in issuing vouchers in those categories.
  An employer who has a genuine job waiting and who has a Commonwealth citizen abroad lined up for it must be told

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  at present that he will have to wait some weeks before a voucher can be issued. If the number of applications increase at the present rate this delay will automatically increase. This recent development is clearly unsatisfactory.
  I have talked firstly in this matter about the issue of vouchers because this is the responsibility of the Ministry of Labour under the Act. However, I must remind the Committee that, as the Home Secretary has already said, voucher holders themselves form only a small proportion of the Commonwealth citizens who come here. In addition, there are the dependants not only of the voucher holders coming in but of Commonwealth citizens already resident here. The number of dependants coming in therefore is not necessarily related to the number of voucher holders who come here during any one period, although of course the number will be affected by that factor.
  As the Home Secretary has said, a number of people who clearly come here for purposes other than employment eventually stay and take work. To sum up, neither the voucher scheme nor the general system of control under the Act has been working completely satisfactorily. The rules governing the issue of vouchers are no longer applicable to the true facts of the situation, and the provisions of the Act have been unable to prevent a larger number of people coming here to stay and to take work than we intended.
  Mr. Thorpe: Could the right hon. Gentleman assist the Committee in relation to C vouchers? It was made clear in the 1963 debate by the then Minister that although vouchers were awarded on the "first come, first served" basis, a 25 per cent. quota applied so that there was some apportionment as between the competing claims of different countries. There was, that is to say, a built-in number on which each country could draw so that we did not have the position of having 99 per cent. of C vouchers going to one country and 1 per cent. to the others. Is that roughly the position now?
  Mr. Gunter: We have not issued any C vouchers for a very long time and therefore the question is academic, but the principle is still there. Therefore it is for these reasons that we think that
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  we must have a careful look at the whole system of control, including the voucher scheme. As the Home Secretary has said, we are already in touch with Commonwealth Governments about consultations with them on this subject. I do not underestimate the difficulties of the task. We must evolve a scheme which is workable and fair. We have to take account of the relevant factors and let us never forget, for heaven's sake, the valuable contribution which so many of our immigrants are making to our economy, in transport, and as nurses and doctors.
  I believe that a sound scheme can be evolved, based on how many this country can assimilate properly and adequately, thus avoiding so many of the bitter problems which arise if too many are taken. I believe that in the best interests of the Commonwealth countries and their citizens as well as ourselves it would be as well that we continue this Act at present and review the whole situation to meet this great problem and challenge. I believe that the debate has been helpful. Whatever our previous positions, and whatever they are now, I ask the Committee that we should face the situation in the light of our traditions in this country of great tolerance and understanding of people who perhaps do not conform to our way of life.
  Mr. Wise: In view of the very constructive suggestions put forward by the Government in this debate, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
  Hon. Members: No.
  Mr. Driberg: I was profoundly relieved when, at almost literally the eleventh hour, the Chair saw and called my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot), who, I thought, very effectively demolished the atmosphere of cosy gentility which had overhung the entire debate until then. Of course, there were certain difficulties for the Chair, as for all of us. There were several maiden speeches, many of them brilliant, such as the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) and the speech of the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas); but one of the difficulties about maiden speeches, as everyone knows, is that they are supposed to be relatively non-controversial. Not only

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  were there several maiden speeches but there were several speeches by backbench Privy Councillors, whom the Chair might feel obliged to call, and, of course, if maiden speakers are not yet controversial, Privy Councillors are above controversy.
  The general effect of the debate, therefore, until the moment at which my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale spoke, was rather too cosy. It was the sort of debate in which Members of Parliament often flatter themselves, boasting that the House is "at its best"—which almost always means that the House is at its most sanctimonious, smug, soporific and stifling.
  The hon. Member for Surbiton (Mr. Fisher), who has a good record in these matters and who means well—we all grant him that—said how disastrous it would be if this became a matter of party controversy. But it is a matter of party controversy. Inevitably, it is a matter of party controversy until, or unless, the Leader of the Opposition has the courage to respond to the challenge of the Prime Minister and the challenge of my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale, which again tonight he dodged with characteristic political cowardice.
  The Leader of the Opposition got up in a great state of indignation and interrupted my right hon. Friend who was winding up and referred to the letter to which the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Sir E. Boyle) had already referred. Of course, that letter to our right hon. colleague the Foreign Secretary was impeccable in terms as a general expression of pious regret at any suggestion that there could be such a thing as racial discrimination. It reminded me of what our late friend Aneurin Bevan, the predecessor of my hon. Friend at Ebbw Vale, used to say about the Tory Party—that it is always in favour of reform in general and against every reform in particular.
  The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition makes the correct noises about racial discrimination and so on, but when he is asked specifically to repudiate a Member of Parliament who has got into the House on the basis of one of the dirtiest and filthiest racialist campaigns ever conducted anywhere, even in Nazi Germany, he is too cowardly to do so.
  Mr. Hugh Delargy: He is not here now.
  Mr. Driberg: Neither of them is here now, in fact. I remind hon. Members of a famous fragment of dialogue, which I took the precaution of looking up for the purpose of greater accuracy:
  "'Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?'
  'To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time'.
  'The dog did nothing in the night-time.'
  'That was the curious incident', remarked Sherlock Holmes."
  The dog in this night-time was the hon. Member for Smethwick (Mr. Peter Griffiths). There were dozens of references to Smethwick during the debate. Hon. Members have said, rightly, that Smethwick is a disgrace to British democracy, and so on. They have attacked the electoral tactics pursued at Smethwick on the basis of which the hon. Member got in. Yet the hon. Member sat there throughout most of the debate and did not once rise to try to catch the eye of the occupant of the Chair. I do not know why that was. I should have thought that he would have felt obliged to speak in this debate of all debates.
  12.45 a.m.
  Mr. Wise: The fault may partly be mine. I did not expect the debate to go on as long as this. I advised my hon. Friend the Member for Smethwick (Mr. Peter Griffiths) that it would be very injudicious to allow an expert in black-guarding to follow him—and that was the hon. Member for Barking (Mr. Driberg).
  Mr. Driberg: One cannot win when one is up against racialists apparently. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was bitterly criticised because he attacked the new Member without having given him notice that he was going to do so. I took the trouble to follow the customary courteous practice of the House, and I dropped a note to the hon. Member—I am sorry; I should not have used the word"honourable"—to the Member for Smethwick, warning or advising him that if I spoke in the debate I might be making some references to him. The note was handed to the Member for Smethwick. I gather from what the hon. Member for Rugby (Mr. Wise)

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  has just said that he advised the Member for Smethwick not to speak. It is a very curious form of guardianship or trusteeship.
  Mr. Wise: I advised my hon. Friend the Member for Smethwick not to allow the hon. Member for Barking to follow him.
  Mr. Driberg: Then it seems that the hon. Member for Rugby was to some extent usurping the function of the Chair. It is not for him or for the Member for Smethwick—
  The Temporary Chairman (Mr. H. Hynd): Order. I would ask the hon. Member for Barking (Mr. Driberg) to follow the normal custom of the House of Commons and refer to "the hon. Member".
  Mr. Driberg: Why? Is it laid down, may I ask, in Erskine May, with great respect to you, Mr. Hynd?
  The Temporary Chairman: It is the custom of the House.
  Mr. Driberg: Well, I do so at your direction, Mr. Hynd, and under protest, with all the respect that is due to you as the occupant of the Chair.
  If I may return to what I was saying—
  Sir E. Boyle: In recent days Smethwick has been equated with Sharpeville, by the Leader of the House, and this evening with Nazi Germany. The people of Smethwick, irrespective of their politics, are beginning to get a little tired of this, and I suggest that we ought now to leave Smethwick.
  Mr. Driberg: That is the fault of those of them who voted for the Member for Smethwick—I beg your pardon, Mr. Hynd—the hon. Member for Smethwick. They asked for it by behaving as they did on polling day. I am afraid that we, for the time being, have got to continue rubbing in the fact. After all, the Smethwick Labour Club, so called, has confirmed that Smethwick at the moment is on the roll of dishonour of place names like Sharpeville, Hola and the rest of them—and Perry Barr also, come to that.
  I think it was the right hon. Member for Handsworth who said, rightly, that there is intense feeling about this
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  whole subject of the racial tensions that may arise as a result of immigration.
  One ought, of course, to discuss these matters—or so we are told—in an unemotional, objective way but it is extremely difficult to do so. There are intense feelings on both sides. It is an issue from which one cannot exclude emotion altogether. There are the intense feelings of the racialists who organised the campaign for the hon. Member for Smethwick and who supported him—the intense feelings of hatred for someone whom they think congenitally inferior to themselves. Those feelings arise, I think, very largely from psychological insecurity.
  But there are also, if I may say so to the right hon. Member for Hands-worth, intense feelings on the other side. Maybe we should not feel them. I do not altogether blame the hon. Member for Smethwick. He is young. [An HON. MEMBER: "He is not so young."] I understand that he is 33. He was only a baby of two years when Hitler came to power and still only a school boy at the end of the Second World War.
  As a teacher no doubt he should have some knowledge of modern history but it is impossible, however vivid one's imagination, to know fully what is meant by racialism unless one has really lived through or seen for oneself something of its beastliness.
  There are a few hon. Members—my hon. Friend the Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. Sydney Silverman) and I among them—who had the terrible experience of going in April, 1954, in a Parliamentary delegation, to the newly-uncovered Buchenwald concentration camp. There were also, of course, members of the Conservative Party in the delegation, most of whom, alas, are no longer alive. This was a searing and unforgettably horrible experience and it drove into one's mind and one's heart what racialism to the Nth degree, as under Hitler, can mean, with the murder of 6 million Jews and all the other crimes.
  Those of us who were here in the war can also remember that racialism—this alien Nazi horror—even crept into this honourable House. There was one Member, Captain Ramsay, who was detained under Regulation 18b because he was a potential traitor and collaborator with the enemy in time of war, a man

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  who had abused the machinery of the House in order to bring aid and comfort to the enemy. This was a terrible thing to the rest of us in the House, on whichever side we sat; at the time there was a coalition Government under Sir Winston Churchill.
  I say this—and I am sorry if I have taken up too much time—to try to explain the bitterness that so many of us have when a Member is brought here largely—not entirely, of course—on racialist votes and a racialist campaign. This is an appalling danger and I really do feel, with the Prime Minister and my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale, that the Leader of the Opposition is not doing his duty unless he applies those admirable general sentiments of his to the particular case of Smethwick and explicitly, in terms, repudiates the hon. Member for Smethwick and the campaign that got him here.
  Mr. Laurence Pavitt: I feel rather diffident in intervening at this late hour. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] One never knows whether one should let one's friends go home or try to repay to oneself for the eight hours of sitting through the debate. I shall seek to detain the Committee only a few minutes, but I hope that my hon. Friend's will forgive me if I do not follow the important contributions of my hon. Friends the Members for Barking (Mr. Driberg) and Ebbw Vale (Mr. M. Foot). The debate is extremely important for those of us who represent constituencies where this problem is a live issue all the time and has been for many years.
  I want, briefly, to address myself to two points which have arisen, and, first, to the national issues raised by my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary when he outlined three conditions whereby it would be possible for this Act to continue for a further 12 months in the hope that in the meantime action could be taken which would help us to reach a solution that would, perhaps, be more favourable to those of us who have had to deal with some of the backwash which has since occurred.
  My right hon. and learned Friend outlined three propositions. First, that we should have the Racial Discrimination Bill. As Mr. Fenner Brockway, the Member for Eton and Slough in the last
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  Parliament, put this forward on no fewer than nine occasions, this is the right moment, even at five minutes to one in the morning, to pay tribute to the hard work which he did in that respect. When that Measure goes on to the Statute Book it will be our tribute to him for the hard and continuous work he did to this end throughout many years.
  The second point mentioned by my right hon. and learned Friend was that to which my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour addressed himself, the question of how the Commonwealth was to be consulted. I hope that it will not be merely consultation but a combined operation. The essential job to be carried out should not be just by us as the recipient country of those immigrants from the Commonwealth countries who are able today to help us with our economy by sending us workers, but should be tackled by the whole Commonwealth as a mutual problem. The huge shift of population which has been taking place since 1945 is not only a problem which affects the home country; it affects all countries. The solution should be sought in that manner.
  I hope, therefore, that this matter will not be, as many have suggested, just an item on the agenda of the Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference or merely consultation with the Commonwealth countries but will be a fully-fledged common operation. I hope that a special conference will be convened from which some positive results may accrue.
  The last point raised by my right hon. Friend—for national action—was concerned with the working of the Overseas Development Department, and were it not 1 o'clock in the morning I would have liked to go further into that. I would say to the Committee that the other matter which is most important against the background of these social problems which this situation creates is the general plan outlined in the Gracious Speech. It is that there will be planning in the regions to alleviate the pressure on housing.
  As far as my constituency is concerned, it does not matter how many people are moved out into new towns because we are a magnet of employment. As soon as one person moves out another comes in to take the job vacated. There is the Park

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  Royal Estate and the factories on the North Circular Road which represent a great concentration of industry. While we have this industry there we shall have a housing problem. We have had it ever since the Welsh came in 1926 and the Irish in 1939. In recent years, one in nine of the immigrants from the Commonwealth, according to the last census, came to my constituency. In the same census there was a slight majority of Irish over Commonwealth immigrants, but that was in 1961.
  To come to my last point, there has been talk throughout the debate on the question of integration. It is like the negro spiritual—many who talk about Heaven are never going there—there is a lot of talk about integration by people who do nothing about it.
  1.0 a.m.
  I can recall that in Willesden, following Notting Hill, the Smethwick of 1958, when there were scandals and riots, we faced an important social problem because we were the neighbouring area. The only way in which to meet it was by having the kind of committee which my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) mentioned as having in his area. What we did set the pattern for many areas. One has the local authority, the mayor and other important citizens of the community, taking the initiative and having funds supplied by the borough to provide a welfare officer, in our case a Jamaican. We made a constant day-to-day effort to relieve the tensions, taking action when there was a flash point to prevent the flash from breaking out into an explosion. Hon. Members have spoken about conciliation where immigrants and locals, with differing traditions, come into conflict. In my constituency it is not a matter of friction between neighbours, but of the families upstairs and downstairs, for nearly every house in my constituency is multi-occupied. The only way in which this kind of thing can be successfully handled is by having someone experienced in social case work and we are grateful to the London Council for Social Service and the National Council for Social Service for the help and training they have given our committee members of various races to do case work where friction has broken out.
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  I should like my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour to issue a directive so that it is clear to an immigrant going to an employment exchange that any colour bar is placed by the employer and not the employment exchange. When a colour bar is operated, it should be clearly seen where it is operated and not made to appear to operate through a Government Department.
  I have spoken for my five minutes. If I had managed to catch your eye four and a half hours ago, Mr. Hynd, I would have hoped for another 15. I want to say finally that when hon. Members talk about integration, I hope that they will appreciate that it is not just talk but work and finding the time and effort and a good deal of research. In my area a survey of advertisements for lodgings showed that 10 per cent of 2, 647 examined said "No coloureds" or "European only". As my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary deployed the facts and figures when outlining the national problem, so we have to have the facts when dealing with these matters at local level. If we are to tackle this problem successfully in our communities, we have had precisely the same factual background, not only for people undertaking social research work, but so that the immigrants can take their full part in that kind of activity.
  I am confident that if we can have this kind of approach in the community, when we get to the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill next year it will not be necessary to renew this Act which, whatever hon. Members may say about it, has the overtone of a colour bar in that some people have to get through three gates because their skin is of one colour while others can come in without going through all the voucher procedures and work permits because their skin is another colour.
  Unless we can make it clear to our friends in the Commonwealth that action is being taken internationally and nationally to relieve pressures, and if we have to come back to this Act in this form next year, there will be far more resistance from hon. Members on both sides of the Committee than there has been tonight. I hope that the result of the debate will be constructive and that we will see a new approach and a different solution to a real problem as a result of this eight hours' stretch.
  Mr. Wise: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
  The Temporary Chairman (Mr. H. Hynd): As objection has been taken, the Amendment cannot now be withdrawn.
  Amendment negatived.
  Schedule agreed to.
  Bill reported, with Amendments; as amended, considered; read the Third time and passed.

  NUCLEAR INSTALLATIONS (AMENDMENT) [MONEY]
  Resolution reported,
  That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make new provision in place of or amend certain provisions of the Nuclear Installations (Licensing and Insurance) Act 1959, it is expedient to authorise—

  (a) the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament—

  (i) of any sums required to be made available out of moneys so provided for the purpose of satisfying claims (including claims in respect of interest or costs or, in Scotland, expenses) in respect of hurt or damage to which the first-mentioned Act relates;

  (ii) of any increase attributable to the provisions of the first-mentioned Act in the sums payable out of moneys so provided under any other Act;

  (b) the payment into the Exchequer of any sums received by the Minister of Power or the Secretary of State—

  (i) in pursuance of an international agreement by way of a contribution by the government of a country outside the United Kingdom towards the satisfaction of any such claim as aforesaid; or

  (ii) under any provisions of the first-mentioned Act.

  Resolution agreed to.

  AIRPORTS AUTHORITY [MONEY]
  Resolution reported,
  That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to provide for the establishment of a public authority with functions including the operation of aerodromes, it is expedient to authorise—

  A. The payment out of the Consolidated Fund of

  (1) any sums required by the Minister of Aviation for the purpose of making loans to the authority, but so that the aggregate amount outstanding in respect of principal of those loans and of any money borrowed temporarily by the authority does not, together with the commencing capital debt
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  assumed by the authority under the said Act, exceed seventy million pounds;

  (2) any sums required to fulfil any guarantee by the Treasury of the repayment of, or payment of interest on, any money temporarily borrowed by the authority.

  B. The payment out of moneys provided by Parliament—

  (a) of any expenditure incurred by the Minister of Health or Secretary of State for preventing danger to public health from aircraft arriving at any aerodrome managed by the authority or for preventing the spread of infection by means of any aircraft leaving any such aerodrome;

  (b) of any expenditure incurred by the Minister of Transport or Secretary of State in the exercise of powers under section 28 of the Civil Aviation Act 1949 as applied by the said Act of the present Session.

  C. The borrowing in any manner authorised under the National Loans Act 1939 of any money needed for providing or replacing any sum required by the Minister of Aviation for the purpose of making loans to the authority.

  D. The payment of any sums into the Exchequer.

  Resolution agreed to.

  HOUSE OF COMMONS MEMBERS' FUND
  Mr. Bellenger, Mr. Herbert W. Bowden, Mr. Roderic Bowen, Sir Robert Cary, Colonel Sir Oliver CrosthwaiteEyre, and Mr. Arthur Tiley appointed Managing Trustees of the House of Commons Members' Fund in pursuance of section 2 of the House of Commons Members' Fund Act 1939.—[Mr. Sydney Irving.]

  INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT, LINWOOD
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Grey.]
  1.5 a.m.
  Mr. Norman Buchan: Despite the lateness of the hour, I am glad to have this opportunity to raise the question of new industrial development in the Linwood area. Since other hon. Members may wish to have an opportunity to speak I will be brief and to the point in my remarks.
  I warned in the House two weeks ago of the dangers involved in the Linwood area, depending as the industry there does on the success of one model of car, and since I issued that warning events have moved very quickly indeed. We are now

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  in the middle of a real industrial crisis and both management and shop stewards have been discussing the position almost daily. A further, perhaps decisive, meeting will be taking place this afternoon. I am sure that no hon. Member will wish to say anything tonight which might make the situation more difficult.
  Having said that, I would like it clearly on the record that the workers and shop stewards at both Rootes and Pressed Steel have behaved responsibly, patiently and, above all, with considerable restraint in the last month or so, in a period which has been full of strain and anxiety for them and their families.
  I wish to emphasise that this is not a small local matter. It is one of vital importance not only to the future of the area as a potential growth point, but to the whole future industrial development within Scotland. This can be clearly seen from Scottish newspaper front pages and the way the Press has handled the subject. It is the first time to my knowledge that for three days running such a story has made the full front pages of the popular Scottish daily newspapers.
  The situation at present is that the management of Rootes is offering a return to a five-day week in place of the four-day week the men have been working for the past few months, if the men will accept the redundancy of between 300 and 400 men. The alternative, it is said, might be a three-day week for some sections of the factory, but that that would be economically impossible. The men are saying, in the words of one popular newspaper, "Don't sack our mates" and have made some suggestions about an adjustment within the factory. In the meantime, the associated factory of Pressed Steel, producing the car bodies for Rootes, is operating four-day working for about 1, 800 of its men. I do not, for obvious reasons, want to go into the whole background and reasons for this situation, except to say that the project on which the whole complex was geared has reached nothing near the original target on which the existing labour force was based.
  Hon. Members should remember that this is a very different position from the Midlands, where the car industry has often had to assimilate a four day, five clay changing situation. In the area
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  about which I am speaking, on the other hand, we have a background of unemployment. The Midlands can absorb that sort of changing employment situation. This area cannot.
  I have the local Ministry of Labour figures with me and, while I do not wish to weary the House at this late hour, the Minister will be interested to know that, for example, at the Paisley employment exchange there are 730 registered unemployed men, 212 at Johnstone, 418 at Barrhead and 1, 411 at Greenock and the neighbouring employment exchange at Port Glasgow is similar. The running down of our traditional industries in Scotland—figures of which I will not detail now—has made the situation even more serious.
  We must keep in mind the point that between 1959 and 1963, at a period when employment for male workers in the southern and eastern regions of England rose by 120, 000, in Scotland it fell by 6, 000. We must keep in mind, too, the vacancy position. For example, for every 100 unemployed boys in the Midlands, there are 1, 359 jobs, but for every 100 unemployed boys in Scotland there are only 60 jobs. That is the background.
  Here are men trained in the car business whom we are likely to need if the necessary expansion takes place. My fear—I expressed it yesterday during discussion with Mr. Geoffrey Rootes—is that these workers will become a permanent loss in the sense that they will move south to look for work. Therefore, when we try to bring in our plans to redevelop the Scottish area, we will not have this skilled labour force available.
  The other part of the background is that because of our hopes with the coming of Rootes, the virtually new town of Linwood of between, eventually. 10, 000 and 15, 000 people was planned around the enterprise, with overspill coming in mainly from Glasgow. People who had come from single-room housing got decent three- or four-apartment houses for the first time, with all the commitments that this entails. These, however, are the very group of people who face the position which I have outlined. The situation is, therefore, a serious one.
  My appeal tonight, therefore, is twofold. I should like to take this opportunity

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  to appeal, first to Rootes, even at this late hour, when we arc, perhaps, 12 hours away from the meeting, to do everything that is humanly possible to hold on to their existing labour force, even on a four-day week basis, and even while recognising their genuine economic difficulties in this situation. Because if these men go, it may mean contraction and not merely temporary redundancy.
  Secondly, I ask the Department as a matter of urgency that a meeting should be called between the Board of Trade, the Minister responsible for regional planning and the Secretary of State for Scotland, perhaps under his chairmanship, urgently to review the position of Linwood and to institute Government action.
  In urging the need for planning priority, I shall not necessarily argue the case for Linwood as being the obvious growth point with planning priority. Like Everest, however. it is there, and, therefore, we cannot afford to ignore the situation. In the Pressed Steel factory there is a large basis for what is called diversification within the industry, and in Rootes we have a very large productive unit of the kind of which there are far too few in Scotland. Along with this, we should be considering the situation in the context of the planning of the Clyde Valley as a whole.
  I welcomed last week's statement by my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade concerning advance factories, but the Board of Trade will realise that to us in Scotland this is not yet sufficient. We realise the difficulties facing the new Administration, and the problems that we face are not of our creating. We must, however, keep in mind that in the last few years, in tackling the problem of growth and development in Scotland, we have failed to understand—I hope that the new Government do understand—that it is not sufficient merely to move production units to Scotland. Along with them we must move research and development centres to ensure a process of self-generating growth, otherwise there cannot he proper growth. The rapid utilisation of technology is necessary to ensure the self-generating process without which development will not take place.
  In such a situation, Governments have a much greater rôle to play than often they realise. Much of the expenditure in this field is direct Government contractual
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  expenditure. I should, therefore, like to see the establishment of Government projects based upon and utilising the technological resources of the area—for example, of Strathclyde University and of Glasgow University, along the lines of the M.I.T. developments in the Boston Valley of America. I should like to see such projects fulfilling direct Government contracts, drawing, if need be, upon the scientific research of these places.
  I have spoken to many of the staff and I can say they all are keen on this type of industrial development; no one has rejected the idea. Now that we have, therefore, the opportunity of diversification, but it should come within the industrial structure, not outwith the structure, of the area, and associated with the existing industrial complex there. Diversification, if it is not to come to a dead end, must be based on existing potential, and should be based on the Rootes Pressed Steel complex itself. We must remember that failure often can occur with developing industry. Ferranti has been keen on developing its factory in Scotland using Scottish components. But about £4 million a year is spent by them south of the Border on buying components and we should like such development north of it.
  I know that the hon. Member for Renfrew, East (Miss Harvie Anderson) wants to get into the debate, so I shall conclude by making three quick points. I have been speaking quickly to get as much as possible in in the short time available to me. Under-developed areas are obvious places for Government contracts to be placed to meet the needs of such areas. We should use existing factories to institute the production of a really light tractor, much lighter than we use in this country, to work on the soils of, say, West Africa. There should be a mobile irrigation engine for pumping purposes in the same kind of area, with an engine of the order of say, 1 or 2 horse power, to provide both mobility and pumping, and, thirdly, a light brake van with a winch on top, to spark off contractual work in this area.
  These would help to keep the factories going. The situation is serious, but I think that a solution lies to hand, and I urge quick action upon the Government, because I believe that if the Government

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  were to make a statement of their intentions it would help to prevnt the contraction which appears to be about to happen.
  1.17 a.m.
  Miss Harvie Anderson: As a Member who has the honour to represent the constituency where the two great factories are situated, I am glad to have this opportunity in rather unusual circumstances to take part in this debate. I shall confine myself, because of the shortness of time, to one or two points which I believe to be important.
  We must remember that Rootes and Pressed Steel comprised together are perhaps the most important single stake in the expansionist policy which we all want Scotland to follow. As the hon. Member for Renfrew, West (Mr. Buchan) has said, there is a great potential here for component industries. I want to emphasise what he has said with regard to the rate of production, which is a matter which has been perturbing many for reasons which I do not propose to enter into now and which, I hope, we shall not go into in any detail this evening. But this great enterprise must succeed, because it is in the interests of every single person in Scotland that it does so.
  There are three points I want to make particularly. The first is that I believe that if we were to accept the proposition which has been put forward that there should be a three-day or even a four-day working week, the factory would thereby lose many of the skilled men whom it has been extremely difficult to get, and it is because we wish to keep these men who are skilled in this particular industry and location that there is a considerable body of opinion in favour of maintaining the five-day week. So there is this point to be made, as opposed to the point which the hon. Member put forward, about losing these skills to the South.
  The second point in that connection I wish to make is that there has been already considerable progress in component parts, and that whereas there were only six firms which were contributing components to this industry before the exhibition Rootes held a year ago, now there are about 60 firms. An example I would suggest quickly is that Triplex bring up to Scotland a factory for yet another component in the very near
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  future. This is precisely the development which we most want to see in this part of Scotland. It is also right to put on record that the Hillman Imp car is already, in terms of value, a 76 per cent. Scottish product.
  There are two points which ought to be recorded under the heading of diversification. First, it is unrealistic to discuss the employment position as the hon. Gentleman did, because these are highly skilled jobs and we are now dealing with building up in Scotland the technologists whom we need. It is not as easy as the hon. Gentleman suggested to diversify in this field, and diversification, to be effective in terms of employment, must be in this field.
  Secondly, while I accept the figures which the hon. Gentleman has no doubt checked of the unemployed available, it is no use giving these figures unless they are matched against the skills and capability of persons concerned, and this imposes limitations on how best to use this labour.
  Most important of all is that this is highly specialised plant designed to a production rate which we must see is achieved. It is not really very practical to suggest that it can be altered substantially within itself, and the intention has been to produce to the maximum along the lines which this highly specialised plant is designed to cover.
  I hope that everybody will join in doing their utmost to see that this enterprise prospers. I think that we should leave to the good offices of those whose primary concern this is such negotiation as is going on at the present time.
  1.22 a.m.
  The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. George Darling): My hon. Friend the Member for Renfrew, West (Mr. Buchan) and the hon. Lady the Member for Renfrew, East (Miss Harvie Anderson) have rightly drawn attention to a serious employment situation in the Linwood area, with which they are both concerned. They pointed to the risks of an area being too dependent for jobs on one industry. I think that this is really at the root of the problem which we have immediately to consider.
  It is not a new problem. Successive Governments have had to face it over many years, but in a very different context, because the one industry here is not

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  a declining industry, as was the case with the distressed areas before the war, which were too dependent on certain industries. This is, or should be, an expanding area with new industries going in.
  We are fully aware of the risks and dangers of the sort of concentration which the situation at Linwood has exposed, this dependence on a single industry or group of industries working together. I assure both hon. Members that the Board of Trade, the Scottish Office, and everybody concerned with industrial development are concerned to get diversity of industries in their development projects.
  The Linwood area presents us with special problems, not only because of this high degree of dependence on one firm and the enterprises which serve that firm. This is very much a new industrial area which has attracted workers from Glasgow, Paisley, and elsewhere. There are new housing estates, and the whole success both of the social projects and of the industrial developments depends on a continuing expansion of employment. We cannot have these social and industrial developments unless we can plan for the continuous expansion of employment. Even short-time working will upset the steady expansion that we all wish to see in development districts.
  The hon. Lady pointed out that in going to the Linwood area Rootes have done more than create employment in their own factories. I am glad that she gave the figures that I intended to give anyhow. She referred to the fact that 76 per cent. of the value of Rootes products at Linwood is now Scottish in content, and that a lot has been done to assist and stimulate local industry. More components are now being bought and produced in Scotland. But, good as this expansion of component manufacturing may be, it is only a beginning, because for a truly balanced economy these Scottish component factories ought to be producing for the United Kingdom area, not just for a part of Scotland, and not just for the two or three Scottish car and commercial vehicle plants.
  These are matters which we shall obviously have to bear in mind, but I stress that the jobs which have been created—or most of them—are new jobs. The Rootes factory has provided diversity
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  by introducing new industry. But this in itself is part of the problem. Workers have come in from elsewhere and have to be trained for the new jobs, and if they cannot be fully employed in car production we are under an obligation to see that their skills are not wasted and that they make a full contribution to the general industrial expansion which we all want to see.
  Both hon. Members who have spoken have mentioned this, and we must try to keep these people in Scotland, to help to stop the drift to the English Midlands and to the congested South-East region. A difficulty which we face in car production is that output and employment depend very much on the success of one, or just a few, models. If a model does not have the expected demand, then there has to be some retooling and new designing and perhaps new arrangements for the production schedule. These changes do mean technical changes in the industry itself and this takes some time. It also upsets production and, of course, engineering workers fully understand this. I must here say that they are usually co-operative in helping management through the necessary technical changes of this kind.
  This is what has happened at Rootes now. There are good grounds for believing that output and employment will pick up, but we cannot sit back and just wait for this anticipated improvement. Linwood is a new industrial area in several senses and has become a most important reception area for Glasgow overspill, apart from the new towns designed for that purpose. The county council has approved schemes for community development. We must deal with Linwood as part of the wider regional area of Glasgow and Clydeside and remember that there are projects coming along. For example, the new Glasgow Airport is not far away, and this, we hope, will improve communications. There is the new Erskine Bridge, over the Clyde, and all this will add to Linwood's importance as an industrial centre.
  I mention these projects so that we can be seen to be fully alive to Linwood's future; and when I say "we" I mean all the Government departments that may be concerned. I can tell hon. Members that they are all working together in regional planning, the regional

  407
  planning to which my hon. Friend has referred tonight, and accepting it as a job which has to be done. We shall take full note of the views expressed on the technical aspects of what we have come to know as growth planning; I think that my hon. Friend and I understand each other on those terms.
  We are doing all that we can to introduce new industry to this area, in common with other areas of Scotland where industrial expansion is needed, and we shall not relax our efforts. Indeed, my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade will shortly be announcing some new measures which we hope will help us to attract new industries to Scotland. But these measures and projects, even if they develop in Scotland, will not ease the present redundancy problem and the short-time working at Rootes. This is the difficulty that we are up against at present. The House will not wish me to comment on the negotiations to which my hon. Friend and the hon. Lady referred, which are now going on between the unions and the management for some appropriate working arrangements to deal with the present situation. We will see how they go. We
  408
  hope that satisfactory arrangements will emerge.
  I assure both my hon. Friend and the hon. Lady there will be no relaxing of our efforts to introduce new industry into the area, in common with other areas in Scotland where similar problems obtain. So far as Linwood is concerned, we will bear in mind that a number of workers and their families have gone to live there as a result of the Rootes development and that we have a special responsibility in that regard.
  There is not much more that I can add in detail. We have the situation before us. It has been thoroughly examined. We will do everything we can to meet the wishes of both my hon. Friend and the hon. Lady and make sure that Linwood plays its part, as it should play its part as a developing area in Scotland, in finding employment and also in making a real contribution to development not only in Scottish industry but in industry in Great Britain generally, and in the expansion we require.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at twenty-eight minutes to Two o'clock.

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Preamble
The House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Southwark
Several Lords—Took the Oath.

SHORTAGE OF PHYSIOTHERAPISTS
2.36 p.m.
LORD AUCKLAND: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the first Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have in mind to alleviate the shortage of physiotherapists in the National Health Service.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD STONHAM): My Lords, since 1961 increased numbers of students have started the three-year training course and, for this reason, I hope that from next year onwards more qualified physiotherapists will enter the National Health Service. Pay increases totalling 9½ per cent. were published on October 29. There is no general shortage of students for training, and the 34 schools, with an average annual intake of 900, are usually full. There has, however, been a persistent shortage of teachers, which has limited the opening of new schools. In recent years the average annual intake of student teachers has been only 20. Recent agreement with the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy has made it possible, however, to commence in January a new type of teacher training with the period reduced from two years to 17 months. The rates of pay for physiotherapy teachers have also been substantially increased. My hope that these measures will attract more physiotherapists to become teachers of their profession is reinforced by the fact that applications for the new training course, with an annual intake of 32 student teachers, are coming forward
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satisfactorily. My right honourable friend intends to keep the position under close review.
LORD AUCKLAND: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that very full Answer. May I ask him what guidance is being given to school-leavers and to careers masters and mistresses regarding careers in this profession?
LORD STONHAM: So far as school-leavers are concerned, a free leaflet on physiotherapists, in the series Careers in the Hospital Service, is issued by the Ministry of Health especially for school-leavers. With regard to guidance to careers mistresses and masters, it is an instruction to all youth employment officers in the Ministry of Labour that they should draw to the attention of those in charge of careers a booklet on physiotherapists which is included in the Choice of Careers series and an article on physiotherapists in the loose-leaf Careers Guide, both of which are purchased in large numbers by local education authorities.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: My Lords, could my noble friend tell me in writing whether what he has said about physiotherapists applies equally to all professions supplementary to medicine? Because, as he knows, there is a grave shortage in each one of these professions.
LORD STONHAM: Yes, my Lords, as my noble friend will be aware, I do know that there is a grave shortage in other professions supplementary to medicine, although it varies according to the particular specialty and, indeed, according to the area. But I would suggest to my noble friend that the best way of eliciting that information would be to put down a Question, which I should be glad to answer.
BARONESS SUMMERSKILL: I suggested that my noble friend should give me the information in writing. I did not ask for it now.
LORD STONHAM: I shall be very pleased to do so.
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, is the noble Lord aware how very welcome it is to know that those on his side of the House now take a much more optimistic view of this profession than they did when they sat on this side?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, the noble Lord will also be aware that, even in the short space of lour weeks, new steps have been taken in the matter, and I have given details of some of them. My right honourable friend has discovered that there is, in fact, no uniform standard of staffing used by employing authorities for the employment of physiotherapists, and he is now considering whether it is feasible to devise better estimates of requirements so that we shall know the real need.
BARONESS HORSBRUGH: My Lords, could the noble Lord say what steps have been taken in the last four weeks?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I have just mentioned one of them; and perhaps the noble Lady will have noticed my mention of the new school which is coming along and which will in fact be sited within the constituency of my right honourable friend the Minister of Health.

THE BALDOCK BY-PASS
2.40 p.m.
LORD AUCKLAND: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the second Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what progress is now being made with regard to the construction of the Baldock By-Pass.:
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD LINDGREN): My Lords, work is expected to begin on this by-pass in the early summer of 1965. A postponement became necessary because of the need to hold a public inquiry in April into objections by local authorities to our proposals to provide a short link road between the by-pass and the Great North Road—that is, the A.1—north of Graveley. The predecessor of my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport decided to meet these objections by providing an interchange at Letchworth Gate. This made it necessary to publish a new draft scheme and order, which he did on September 18.
LORD AUCKLAND: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his reply. May I ask him whether he will do all in his power to influence his right honourable
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friend to recognise the need for urgency in this job, to make sure that the last major bottleneck on the A.1 north of Hatfield is finally removed?
LORD LINDGREN: Yes, my Lords, most certainly. But the noble Lord, who knows this area exceptionally well, will, in fairness to my right honourable friend's predecessor, appreciate that the delay from 1963 till now has been entirely due to objections by local authorities. The previous Minister met these objections and agreed to provide the link at Letchworth Gate. The draft order was published on September 18 and one must now wait at least until December 19 in order that an opportunity may be given for possible further objections. If there are no objections we hope to go to tender—preparations are being made now—early in the New Year and to start the work in the summer.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, does not a major bottleneck constrict much less than a small bottleneck?
LORD AUCKLAND: My Lords, may I assure the noble Lord that the residents of Baldock will appreciate his remarks to the full?
LORD LINDGREN: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord very much.

FOOD SHORTAGE IN INDIA
2.43 p.m.
LORD ALPORT: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows: To ask Her Majesty's Government what action will be taken to help the Government of India to provide additional food, particularly rice, in order to make good the serious shortages existing in various parts of the Republic.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDERSECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (LORD WALSTON): My Lords, responsibility for dealing with shortages of food in various parts of India rests with the Government of India. No request for help in dealing with the present shortage of rice in South India has been received from the

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Indian authorities. In August and September the principal food shortages were in the wheat-eating districts of Northern India, and the British Government, at the request of the Indians, diverted to Indian ports three ships carrying 38,000 tons of wheat. If any further request is received we shall, of course, gladly consider how best we can help. Meanwhile, I am glad to remind the House also of the assistance given by OXFAM and other voluntary organisations.
LORD ALPORT: My Lords, may I ask whether it is the policy of the Government to await requests of this sort from the countries that are having difficulties, or whether it is their policy to make an offer before a request is received?
LORD WALSTON: My Lords, we undoubtedly await requests from the Governments concerned. We cannot go into other countries, even if they be members of the Commonwealth, without a request. As the noble Lord knows, we are always in very close touch with the Indian High Commission Office and the Government of India, and undoubtedly any request we received from them would be looked at with great urgency and sympathy.

PROPOSED "UNIVERSITY OF THE AIR"
2.45 p.m.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what their intentions are regarding the establishment of a University of the Air as proposed over a year ago by the present Prime Minister; and whether they intend to expand existing educational television services by the use of separate television channels on a national or regional basis.]
THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR EDUCATION AND SCIENCE (LORD BOWDEN): My Lords, this question is under active consideration, but I am afraid that it is not yet possible to say when any definite statement can be made.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, in thanking the noble Lord for a reply, which I had hoped would be a little fuller, may I, none the less, congratulate him on his first Answer at the Box? May I also ask the noble Lord whether he would not agree that it might be desirable, in order to gain experience, to license stations on a regional or local basis where a university is ready to undertake all or part of the responsibility, and where funds may be made available; as, perhaps, in the case of Queen's University, Belfast?
LORD BOWDEN: My Lords, this is one of the many things we are talking about at this moment. The experiments which are being performed in Nottingham and in East Anglia are well known to us, and we welcome them; and this is one of the many things we are trying to settle at the moment. I apologise for not being in a position to say more. This is an extremely complex enterprise, and I think I can hardly be accused of exaggeration if I say we are facing something comparable in complexity to establishing, for example, an entirely new system of universities. One cannot do this without very prolonged consideration of the relevant facts, something which is taking a longer time than I had hoped.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that fuller reply. May I ask whether it will be possible to make the fuller statement within the next hundred days?
LORD BOWDEN: My Lords, indeed I hope so and I am sure that all Members of your Lordships' House will be with me in thinking so. Again I apologise, but this is a very complex enterprise on which we are working. I assure you that we are going as fast as we can.

REMUNERATION OF MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT
2.48 p.m.
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (THE EARL OF LONGFORD): My Lords, I should like to inform the House that I hope to make a Statement on South Africa at about 3.30 p.m.
Meanwhile, I hope the House will allow me to make a Statement, which is quite a lengthy one, on Members' pay. I think it would be for the convenience

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of the House if I repeated to-day the Statement made by my right honourable friend, the Prime Minister, yesterday in another place on the subject of the remuneration of Ministers and Members of Parliament. Normally it is not the practice for Statements to be repeated here on the day after they have been made in another place, but as the subject matter of this one so clearly concerns all Members of this House I think it only right that the House should have the information at first hand. This is the Statement that was made yesterday in the House of Commons—and I hope that copies have now reached the Leader of the Opposition aid the Leader of the Liberal Party here:
"The House will recall that on the 19th December, 1963, my predecessor announced that a Committee would be set up under Sir (Geoffrey Lawrence
'To review, and to recommend what changes are desirable in, the remuneration of Mr. Speaker, Ministers of the Crown and Members of the House of Commons and also the allowance for Members of the House of Lords, having regard to their responsibilities, to the place of Parliament in the national life and to the changes which have taken place, since the existing emoluments were fixed, in general standards of remuneration, and to the increases in expenses borne by Members of both Houses in the discharge of their duties'
and to report to the Government which would be formed after the General Election. It was understood between the Parties that the Report would provide a basis for immediate action as soon as the Government and Parliament had had time to study the recommendations.
"As announced in the gracious Speech, we have received the Report of the Committee, A copy has been sent to the right honourable Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, and the text is being made available as a Command Paper to-day. I am sure the whole House will join me in thanking Sir Geoffrey Lawrence and his colleagues for the thoroughness with which they have carried out their task.
"The Government accept the recommendations of the Report as they affect the salaries and allowances of Members of both Houses, and will take appropriate steps to implement them. In outline these recommendations are: that the gross payments of Members of this House should be in-
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creased to £3,250 a year, inclusive of what the Committee called the exceptionally heavy expenses' which Members incur in the discharge of their duties and which the Committee put at £1,250 a year. The whole amount of course will be subject to tax, allowance only being made for proved Parliamentary expenses.
"We further accept the Committee's recommendation that the car allowance for Members of both Houses should be 4½d. a mile; and that the allowance for Members of the House of Lords should be 4½ guineas for each day's attendance. The Resolution of this House to give effect to increases in remuneration for Members and to provide for the increased attendance allowances for the other House will propose, as was envisaged last year, that they should be made retrospective to the first day of this Parliament.
"The Government also accept that there should be a contributory pensions scheme for Members of this House, requiring an annual contribution by each Member assessed by the Committee at £150, and are studying the Report's detailed recommendations.
"With regard to the salaries of Ministers and others, while the Government do not dissent from the Committee's approach to the problem of recognising suitably the responsibilities that fall on Ministers, many of whose salaries have remained unaltered since 1831, they do not consider that in present economic circumstances it would be appropriate for ministerial salaries to be raised to the level recommended by the Committee. They propose that the increases should be reduced to half the amount of the increases proposed by the Committee, and that the new salaries should not take effect until April 1, 1965. The decision to take only half of the recommended increases would apply right through the range of Ministers, and would affect equally the right honourable gentleman the Leader of the Opposition.
"The Government further consider that with the extremely onerous duties falling in any modern Parliament on the Opposition Chief Whip, he, too, should receive a salary from public funds.

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"Legislation will be introduced in due course to deal with a pensions scheme for Members, revised ministerial salaries, the payment to the Opposition Chief Whip and changes in the remuneration of Mr. Speaker."
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl, the Leader of the House for having repeated that Statement. Generally speaking, I would agree with him that it is a mistake to repeat a Statement which has been made in another place the day before, but I think that on this occasion it is right that your Lordships should have the opportunity of commenting on the proposals in so far as they affect this House.
I would join with the noble Earl in thanking Sir Geoffrey Lawrence and his colleagues for the work they have done. In so far as the proposals do affect your Lordships, I think that they will be generally welcome, and we are glad that the Government have accepted the recommendations of Sir Geoffrey Lawrence.
LORD REA: My Lords, noble Lords on these Benches agree that these proposals of Her Majesty's' Government should be approved, and we consider that this is a suitable and opportune time to bring them forward. Obviously, it is always an embarrassment for any interested body—in this instance, the British Parliament—to bring forward some measure which, while actually rectifying an injustice, does something of benefit to them. May I interpolate that that is exactly the position of the Liberal Party, who would like to see alterations in the electoral system, which would benefit them—but that is not the reason why we want them. The reason we want them is that they would be more honest and just.
I hope that it is not improper to say to the House (because I do not want to comment on what has been said about another place) that in this Paper there is reference to the Leader of the Opposition in your Lordships' House and to the Chief Opposition Whips in your Lordships' House and in the other place, and I hope that the Government may bear this in mind. I know that there is nothing in the recommendations of the Committee, but it is mentioned as something to be thought about. We know
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that the Leader of the Opposition in this House and the Chief Whip, of whichever of the two Parties they have been, have done very fine work.
I should like to mention the references to what is called in the Press, and I think in the Paper itself, the "attendance allowances" of noble Lords. I would point out that there is no such thing as an attendance allowance, and I think it desirable, if your Lordships would agree, that the public should be disabused of the impression, which is far too widely held, that Members of this House, apart from the Ministers of the Crown and the Lord Chairman of Committees, receive any attendance allowance whatever, or any other remuneration. The facility, of which only some of your Lordships take advantage, is the small allowance of up to, but not exceeding, three guineas a day for actual out-of-pocket expenses incurred in Parliamentary duties. This, of course, is limited to those who actually attend the House—it could not be given unless there was attendance—but it is in no way an attendance allowance, and the very considerable work which a large number of noble Lords give to the British Parliament is in all cases, rightly or wrongly, totally unremunerated.
LORD DILHORNE: My Lords, in view of the decision to increase the salary of the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor with effect from April 1 next, may I ask Her Majesty's Government, in view of the fact that the Supreme Court Judges in England, Scotland and Ireland have received no increase of salaries since 1954, whereas the lower justiciary have had three or four increases, and in view of the pledge given by the late Government to introduce this Session legislation to provide for increases in the remuneration of the Superior Judiciary, whether the Government intend to introduce such legislation and to secure that the salaries, not only of the Head of the Judiciary, but also of other members of the superior Judiciary, may be increased with effect from April 1 next?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I should have thought, with respect, that that Question went pretty wide of the Lawrence Committee's Report; but any matter raised by the noble and learned Lord the ex-Lord Chancellor will obviously be given careful attention by the Government. Unless my

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noble and learned friend the Lord Chancellor wishes to say anything, that is all I would wish to say on this particular subject.
LORD DILHORNE: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl the Leader of the House whether he will undertake to make a statement in the near future on this subject?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: No, my Lords, that is something I cannot do, except in the sense that I am always ready to make a statement which may amount to saying that there is not very much to report; but I am not going to say that a decision will be reached in the near future. With great respect to the noble and learned Lord, I think that this is too far from the Rules of Order to enable the question to come within them.
The reception given to the Statement by the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition and by the noble Lord the Leader of the Liberal Party has been kind and generous. The noble Lord, Lord Rea, raised the position of the possible remuneration of the Leader of the Opposition and of the Chief Whip in this House——
LORD REA: The official Opposition.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, it is rather like the use of the words "Roman Catholic". People understand after a time whom one is talking about, if one talks of "Catholics"; but I hope that I shall always satisfy all noble Lords in my use of phraseology. At any rate, the Leader of the official Opposition and the Chief Whip of the official Opposition undoubtedly have performed, and are performing, very onerous duties in this House, as the noble Lord, Lord Rea, was kind enough to say. The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, was too altruistic to raise the issue himself, but now that it has been raised I would say clearly that it is under careful consideration. It certainly has not been forgotten. The Lawrence Committee did not feel able to make a pronouncement on this matter, but it is being considered now.
I do not think think that there are other questions that I have been called upon to answer this afternoon. I would just add that all that hat; been said, including the remarks of the noble and learned
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Lord, Lord Dilhorne, will be considered with much attention.
LORD JESSEL: My Lords, before we leave the subject, may I ask the noble Earl the Leader of the House a small point in regard to the increase of car allowance to 4½d. per mile? How does that compare with the car allowance given to civil servants?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I am afraid that I should need notice of that question. If the noble Lord can tell us this afternoon, of course, I shall be very grateful to him.
LORD JESSEL: My Lords, I can only tell the noble Earl what I have been told, but I am not quite sure that it is right.
LORD COLYTON: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl the Leader of the House whether the Lawrence Committee, which recommended an increase of 1½ gns. in the so-called "attendance allowance" for Members of this House, and Her Majesty's Government, who have adopted this recommendation, are aware that those who attend regularly and speak here have to employ secretarial assistance in their work and have often to carry out a great deal of research and that not only are they well out of pocket on the existing 3 gns., but will still be on the 4½ gns. to which the amount has now been increased?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I would rather not become involved in discussing the merits of the Lawrence Committee's Report, because I think that we all agree that we must regard their Report as much the most thorough there has ever been on this subject. I know that all sides of the House made representations to the Committee, and I can only assume that all this was carefully gone into by the Lawrence Committee.
THE EARL OF DUDLEY: My Lords, whatever the noble Lord the Leader of the Liberal Party may say, the attendance allowance is an attendance allowance, and now that it has been increased by 11 gns. noble Lords on this side of the House may perhaps take advantage of it 100 per cent., especially as they have to tighten their belts in many other ways. The crowding on some of these Benches will be terrible. Can the noble Earl arrange for some of to sit on the Benches among the Bishops?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I am not quite sure that I appreciate the full implication of the last remark. But there seems to be room there, and no doubt the noble Earl, even when he has tightened his belt, will be welcome on that side. The noble Earl looks to be in remarkably good health up to the present, although I can see that there are many hard days coming.
I should like to deal with one point, though not at all conclusively, raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rea. He does not like the expression "attendance allowance". If the noble Lord has some idea formulated on that particular point, perhaps he will let us know. I do not mean now necessarily, although we are glad to listen to his suggestions at any time.
LORD REA: My Lords, my main difficulty is that the allowance is not paid for attendance, but to refund what has been paid out of pocket. Noble Lords cannot get it unless they attend. It is not automatic. If the noble Earl gets his three guineas every time he comes, I am sure he will in his conscience justify it by his out-of-pocket expenses.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I am sure the noble Earl and all noble Lords will justify the receipt of this attendance allowance. I am not sure that it is wrong to call it an attendance allowance. You might come here and entertain all the most important people in the world, but if you do not sit in the Chamber you will not get the allowance. You may be engaged in every kind of research, but again you will not get the allowance. So the phrase does not seem to me altogether inappropriate. But, as I have said, if the noble Lord will suggest something else, I will look at it.
LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGH: Why not "expenses allowance".
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, as I say, I am ready to look at any suggestion by the noble Lord, or from other noble Lords.

HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICES
THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (LORD MERTHYR): My Lords, I beg to move the first Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That a Select Committee on the House of Lords Offices be appointed; and that the Lords following, with the Lord Chancellor and the Chairman of Committees, be named of the Committee:

D. Wellington,

M. Cholmondeley,

M. Lansdowne,

M. Salisbury,

M. Willingdon,

E. Alexander of Hillsborough,

E. Attlee,

E. Crawford,

E. De La Warr,

E. Dundee,

E. Limerick,

E. Longford,

E. Munster,

E. St. Aldwyn,

E. Scarbrough,

E. Swinton,

V. Bridgeman,

V. Goschen,

V. Simonds,

V. Soulbury,

L. Ailwyn,

L. Airedale,

L. Amulree,

L. Balfour of Burleigh,

L. Bridges,

L. Shepherd,

L. Sherwood,

L. Silkin,

L. Strang,

L. Burden,

L. Carrington,

L. Champion,

L. Chorley,

L. Conesford,

L. Dilhorne,

L. Hawke,

L. Henderson,

L. Henley,

L. Inchyra,

L. Jessel,

L. Kennet,

L. Lucas of Chilworth,

L. Macpherson of Drumochter,

L. Mancroft,

L. Morrison of Lambeth,

L. Morton of Henryton,

L. Newton,

L. Ogmore,

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L. Rea,

L. Reid,

L. Robertson of Oakridge,

L. Sainsbury,

L. Saltoun,

L. Shackleton,

B. Summerskill,

B. Swanborough,

L. Wise,

B. Wootton of Abinger.

—(Lord Merthyr.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.
Leave given to the Committee to report from time to time.

PROCEDURE OF THE HOUSE
LORD MERTHYR: My Lords, I beg to move the second Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That a Committee be appointed to consider any proposals for alterations in the procedure of this House which may arise from time to time, and whether the Standing Orders do or do not require to be altered to effect such alterations; and that the Lords following, with the Lord Chancellor and the Chairman of Committees, be named of the Committee:

M. Salisbury,

E. Alexander of Hillsborough,

E. Longford,

E. St. Aldwyn,

E. Swinton,

V. Bridgeman,

V. Goschen,

L. Ailwyn,

L. Amulree,

L. Carrington,

L. Champion,

L. Dilhorne,

L. Henderson,

L. Henley,

L. Morrison of Lambeth,

L. Morton of Herryton,

L. Rea,

L. Saltoun.

L. Shepherd,

L. Silkin,

L. Strang.

—(Lord Merthyr.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE BILL [H.L.]
3.3 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD GARDINER): My Lords, the Administration of Justice Bill is a title which often conceals esoteric mysteries of great interest to practising lawyers but of not much interest to anyone else, and I will not deny that this Bill has one or two matters in it which appear to be rather mysterious. Those of your Lordships who have glanced at Part II may already have seen somewhat forbidding provisions about executions in the county court and qualifications of Chancery Masters; and if anyone has got as far as the Schedules he may have looked upon some intriguing allusions to tramways not wholly situate in Scotland—a phrase which conjures up the vision of some electric monster clanking over Carter Bar, a vision apparently remote from the administration of justice. I may even, at a later stage, be called upon to explain the operation of the Exchange system or the scope of a writ of justicies—though I hope I shall not.
But the fact is that this Bill is mainly concerned with some very real problems of great importance to many hundreds of persons who are not lawyers; and most of what I have to say to-day will be directed to those problems and the way in which the Bill attempts to solve them. They arise out of the administration by the courts of money held on behalf of litigants—what are normally called "funds in court". But before I refer to these matters in detail, I ought to say a word about the structure of the Bill.
Part I of the Bill is concerned solely with funds in court; that is to say, with the machinery for paying money into court, its investment by the court and the many ancillary matters, such as the making of procedural rules and the preparation of the relevant accounts. Part II contains miscellaneous provisions of varying importance designed to improve the administration of justice. Of these only one is relevant to funds in court, but it deals with a very important social question; namely, the extent of the

507
courts' control of widows' damages; I shall revert Ito this subject at a later stage. Part III deals with an isolated point affecting the qualifications of service members of War Pensions Appeal Tribunals. Part IV makes provision for various matters affecting Northern Ireland, and Part V contains the normal supplemental clauses.
Dealing with Part I, for several hundred years it has been the practice of the courts to administer money belonging to suitors which has, for one reason or another, been paid into court. Your Lordships may remember that in the old days funds in the Court of Chancery were entirely at the disposal of the officers of the court and were, in fact, freely used by them for investment on their own account. Unfortunately, much of the suitors' money was, in the early 18th century, invested in the South Sea Company and was lost when the Bubble burst. One consequence of this was the exercise by the Lord Chancellor and by Parliament of a much stricter control over Chancery funds. As early as 1724, the Lord Chancellor directed each master to keep the funds for which he was responsible in a chest with one lock and two padlocks. The chest was left at the Bank of England, the master held the key of the lock and the keys of the two padlocks were held, one by one of the six Clerks in Chancery and the other by the Governor of the Bank of England. This may have been a safe system, but it was obviously not very convenient.
The system of dealing with funds in court was very much improved during the 19th century; there is no need for me to describe the history of these improvements, because what is important to-day is the current system, its defects and the proposals made in the Bill for remedying them. If I may put it very briefly, there are two systems of investing money in court, operated respectively by the Supreme Court and the county courts. In the Supreme Court, money is invested in specific securities, the permissible range being prescribed by Rules of Court (at present it corresponds generally to the "narrow range" of trustee investments prescribed by the Trustee Investments Act, 1961); in the county courts the money is pooled and transferred to the National Debt Commissioners for investment in Govern-
508
ment securities, the suitors' capital being guaranteed, pound for pound, and a fixed rate of interest being paid to them.
Neither of these systems has proved satisfactory. If I may take the county courts first, although the system of investment in the county courts is proof against a decline in cash values, it has not been proof against inflation. In particular, a fund invested on behalf of a young child which may remain in court for ten or fifteen years is not properly invested if its cash value remains constant until the child is 21 in spite of a continual fall in the value of money such as we have experienced. Nor have the county courts been able to pay a satisfactory rate of interest, as many of the securities in which the funds are invested were bought by the Commissioners in the "cheap" money period and the yield is therefore low.
The Supreme Court system has been proved I think on the whole to be rather worse. This is the system of investing in specific Government securities. This has led to considerable losses and in some cases to real hardship. Most of the money invested consists of either damages recovered by infants, or by widows in Fatal Accidents Acts claims, and the continued decline in gilt-edged values since the war, together with the fall in the value of money, has resulted in funds invested in this way losing a very considerable part of their value. Those funds invested in undated Government stock (and particularly in 3½ per cent. War stock, because of the taxation advantages) have fared even worse because these stocks have declined so seriously. The losses in cash value have been bad enough; in actual value they have been, for some suitors, catastrophic.
Take, for example, a boy of ten who in 1947 was awarded £1,000. If the £1,000 had been invested in ordinary shares, then by the time he was 21 there would, of course, have been a considerable capital appreciation in his £1,000. But if it was invested in gilt-edged stocks, then when he became 21 in 1958, the £1,000 which the State had been looking after for him would only be £720. The State would have lost £280 out of his £1,000 and, of course, the £720 which alone he got back would be worth very much less than a similar number of pounds would have been worth in 1947.

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It was in consideration of these matters that my predecessor, the noble and learned Earl, Lori Kilmuir, appointed a Committee under the chairmanship of Mr. Justice Pearson, as he then was, to examine the investment of funds in court. That Committee reported in July, 1959, and it is on their Report that Part I of the Bill is based. I should like to take this opportunity of expressing my gratitude—and I am sure I can in this matter speak for the noble Earl, and for the noble Lord, Lord Dilhorne—to Mr. Justice Pearson and his colleagues for a most valuable Report.
My Lords, I do not need to examine at length the Pearson Committee's report. It is sufficient for me to say that the Committee considered both the Supreme Court and the county court systems of investment open to grave criticism on the lines I have already indicated; and they therefore recommended the setting up of a Central Corporation to which money could be transferred from both the Supreme Court and the county courts for investment, very much on the lines of the ordinary unit trust, in equities, gilt-edged or any other securities. The Pearson Committee appreciated that some suitors (for example, young infants) might be more concerned with capital growth than income, whereas others, whose money would normally be withdrawn in a fairly short time, would be more concerned to receive a large income while preserving the capital intact. They therefore recommended that the Central Corporation should set up two unit trusts", one a short-term and one a long-term, the underlying investments being selected with these different needs in view. The courts could then order investment in one or other, as might be appropriate to the circumstances of the particular suitor.
In substance, the Bill implements the Committee's recommendations, though the machinery looks rather different. This difference sterns from the decision to retain the county court system in the place of the "short-term" trust, and to make it available to the Supreme Court as well as to the county courts. The Pearson Committee would itself have favoured this solution if the interest payable by the National Debt Commissioners could be raised to a rate comparable to that obtain-
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able in the market. We can in fact do this, by making available (as this Bill does) for the purpose of paying this interest all earnings on investments held by the Commissioners on behalf of the courts. I will not trouble the House with the technical details, but at present the Commissioners cannot use all such investments for this purpose; in future they will be able to do so.
That leaves us only with the longterm trust for the Central Corporation to manage. The Pearson Committee did not, deliberately, suggest how the Corporation might be constituted, but did recommend that it should be independent of Government control and should have experienced staff of the right calibre. Fortunately, there already exists an institution which fulfils these conditions, namely, the Public Trustee. Moreover, he is confident that he can assume this additional duty without any appreciable increase in his staff and without requiring any new accommodation. The result of making him responsible for the "longterm" funds will be to save both the suitors' and the taxpayers' money, and that is why the Bill places the control and management of these funds in the hands of the Public Trustee.
I hope the House will forgive this necessarily lengthy introduction to Part 1 of the Bill; it has at least had the merit of enabling me to deal very briefly with the clauses themselves. Clause 1 authorises the Lord Chancellor to make schemes for the establishment of these "common investment funds" under the control of the Public Trustee. The important facts to observe are, first, that the Public Trustee will be free to invest in any form of property; secondly, his only client will be the Accountant-General and he will in no way be concerned with an individual suitor's circumstances: it will be for the courts to consider these when deciding how to deal with the suitor's money. Thirdly, as in the case of a commercial unit trust, the value, and thus the buying and selling prices, of a share in one of the Public Trustee's funds will depend on the value of the underlying investments, so that, in a period of inflation, shares will maintain their real, and not only their nominal, value. I should perhaps add that although the Public Trustee's funds will be designed for the investment of money likely to remain

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undisturbed for five years or more, the courts will be neither obliged to invest such money in these funds nor prohibited from investing in them money which will be withdrawn within a shorter period: to impose any such restrictions would be impracticable, since nobody can say at the outset how long a given sum of money will remain invested.
I need not detain your Lordships over Clause 2 (it makes consequential amendments to the Act of 1906 which set up the Office of the Public Trustee), but I should explain very briefly the remainder of Part I. The substantive changes in the systems of investment introduced by this Bill would in any event involve consequential amendments to Part VI of the Judicature Act, 1925 (which governs funds in the Supreme Court) and those provisions of the County Courts Act, 1959, which govern funds in the county courts. Much of Part VI of the Judicature Act is now obsolete (it was itself a Consolidation Act) and its language is often inconsistent with the more modern language of the County Courts Act, though intended to have the same meaning. Moreover, the Bill provides for a number of matters which will be common to both the Supreme Court and the county courts but for which separate provision is made in the two existing Acts. Part I of the Bill accordingly supersedes nearly all of Part VI of the Judicature Act and re-enacts in modern language those provisions which are still required, modified so as to allow for the new system of investment. It also makes the necessary modification to the County Courts Act and provides for those matters, such as accounts and the ultimate liability of the Consolidated Fund, which are common to both.
I do not think your Lordships will wish me to go through these clauses one by one. I ought, however, to mention in passing Clause 6, which, for the first time, sets out in a comprehensive and positive form the methods in which funds in the Supreme Court may be invested. The House will see from Clause 6(1) that, for the High Court, these methods are, first, placing to a deposit account; secondly, placing to a short-term investment account (which is the expression used to describe the current county court system, now applied to the Supreme
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Court); thirdly, placing to a long-term investment account, which means investing with the Public Trustee; and, fourthly, investing in specified securities, which is the present system. Under Clause 6(2) mental patients' funds may, in addition, be invested in any securities which the Mental Health Authority may specify.
May I now turn to Part II? This part of the Bill deals, as I have said, with a number of unrelated topics, varying from the control of widows' damages to the commutation of annual payments made to the incumbents of benefices whose predecessors' incomes were prejudiced by the compulsory acquisition of the land on which the present Law Courts were built. I may say that this in itself is a fascinating story, but I do not think time permits of telling it here. There are only two matters dealt with by Part II to which I need draw the attention of the House. The first is Clause 19 and the second Clauses 20 and 21.
Clause 19 makes provision for the control in certain cases of damages awarded to a widow in a Fatal Accidents Acts claim. As your Lordships are probably aware, under the current law such damages are not paid direct to the widow but are paid into court and are dealt with as the court may direct. The court may order some or all of the money to be paid to the widow, or it may retain the money in court and order it to be invested on her behalf. Whether or not this control should be retained, modified or abandoned was one of the questions which the Pearson Committee was asked to consider. There are powerful arguments on either side. It may be said that to single out widows as a class unfit to be entrusted with large sums of money is inconsistent with the modern conception of equality of the sexes, and that if such a rule is justifiable at all it ought to apply to all widows' property. It may also be said that the Scots manage perfectly well without such a rule and that the Northern Irish have also managed without it since 1952 (though I believe there is a body of opinion in Northern Ireland in favour of its reintroduction).
Against this, those with much practical experience of the "county court widow"—and their number includes the Law Society, the T.U.C., Masters of the Supreme Court and Registrars of the County Court—think that it would be

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wrong to allow a widow with no experience of handling large sums to have unfettered control of an award of damages which is meant to take the place, over the years, of the family wage packet. I think there is general agreement that, at any rate where there are infant children, some provision should exist whereby their interest in the fund may be safeguarded.
The Pearson Committee's Report canvasses the arguments on either side; the Committee itself comes down in favour of retaining the existing degree of control, while recognising that there might be a compromise solution whereby control was to be exercised only in the case of a widow with infant children. In such a case, the damages constitute, in essence, a "family fund", and, if the mother's own damages were paid out to her and were dissipated, the children's shares would be called on to pay for their maintenance to a greater degree than would otherwise have been the case. Indeed, of course, it has always been the practice of the court to give the widow by far the largest sum, on the footing that she would, after all, be using it for the benefit of the children. If one takes a widow with three children and there is a total award of £6,000, it would be common, I suppose, to find the widow being given £5,000 and the children a few hundred each on that basis.
The compromise to which I have just referred is adopted by the Bill. I should however, like to make it clear that my mind is by no means finally made up about it and I should very much like to hear the views of noble Lords, and of Members of another place, before coming to any final conclusion. Obviously, we cannot debate this issue in detail to-day, but I hope we may have a full discussion at a later stage.
The only other provisions of Part II on which I need detain this House are Clauses 20 and 21. Under the current law, a county court has jurisdiction to make what is called an administration order in respect of a county court judgment debtor: it is a rather less drastic form of bankruptcy and was in the past much used where the debt was insufficient to support a petition in bankruptcy. There is, however, a limitation on the county court's jurisdiction which cannot be exercised if the debtor's
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indebtedness exceeds £50. This figure has stood since 1869, but it is no longer realistic and in practice it so restricts the scope of this jurisdiction as to make virtually useless. All those with experience of these matters think that the county court could again perform a useful function in this field if the limit were raised, and Clause 20 accordingly raises it to £250.
Raising the limit in this way means that there will in future be an overlap between administration orders and bankruptcy. Clauses 20 and 21 include provisions designed to avoid conflicts and to safeguard the interests of substantial creditors who may prefer the more formidable procedure of bankruptcy. I am not sure even now whether it is wise to specify a figure without making some provision for future alteration by statutory instrument, whether in Affirmative or Negative form, because otherwise we are always in this difficulty, that almost any figure in an Act of Parliament gets out of date, and as it is nobody's business to look to see whether English law is being kept up to date it then goes on and on; and here is a good example of a sum of money which was fixed in 1869 and obviously ought to have been altered a very long time ago.
There is very little that I need say about the remaining provisions of the Bill. I have already referred briefly to them aid the only clause to which I should like to draw particular attention is Clause 28. This clause will make it possible for the Public Trustee's common investment funds to be made available for the investment of funds in the Supreme Court of Northern Ireland. There will not be a separate Northern Irish Fund but, if the necessary Order in Council is made the Accountant-General of the Supreme Court of Northern Ireland will he able, on the Court's direction, to buy shares in the Public Trustee's funds.
I hope I have not detained the House overlong on what are somewhat technical matters. I would add only one thing. If there is any credit for this Bill it should go to the late Government. Some of your Lordships will remember that in June the noble Viscount. Lord Colville of Culross, opened a debate in your Lordships' House on law reform. I ventured at that time to suggest that the main reason why our law is in the mess it is in is that we have

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no machinery for submitting it to systematic or continual review. The Lord Chancellor cannot do it himself, nor can his small staff. And while his Law Reform Committee may, I hope, having been a member of it for many years, have done some good work; and while judges, barristers and solicitors meeting for an hour and a half after a long day's work may at the end of a year or two produce a useful report on some relatively small point of law, you cannot overhaul the law of England in that way. I ventured to suggest that that was the main trouble, and it was not, as was so frequently said by way of excuse, lack of Parliamentary time.
I remember drawing attention to the fact that a Committee presided over by my noble and learned friend Lord Evershed had pointed out eleven years ago that we have about forty different Acts of Parliament dealing with the law of evidence over about 250 years. They ought to be codified. I remember asking the noble and learned Lord, Lord Dilhorne, how he was getting on; and, while not replying to that question at all, the noble and learned Lord maintained the view that there was no difficulty in preparing plenty of Bills; the whole difficulty was in finding Parliamentary time to get them through. I now find no step had been taken at that time to implement the Report of the Evershed Committee, now eleven years old. And whereas, from what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Dilhorne, said, I expected to find the cupboards of the Lord Chancellor's Department stacked with the Bills all ready for presentation though unable to be presented owing to lack of Parliamentary time, on opening the Law Reform cupboard I found in fact—and here I think in another place metaphors have become somewhat mixed, because I have read of cupboards being opened and candelabra being found under carpets—an empty cupboard except for the one pigeon-hole which had this one Bill in it.
It is only right it should be made plain that it is to the late Government that any credit is due for the preparation of this Bill, and it is because of that that I have thought it right to leave in the Bill the recommendation that the present power of the court to control the damages awarded to a widow who has no children
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should be revoked. But it is, if I may say so, eminently a matter for your Lordships' consideration and for those in another place.
If I may just shortly tell your Lordships the best arguments for letting the widow have the whole of her money at once, they are those put forward by the Bar Council to the Pearson Committee, which are these. One is that the imposition of a restraint by the State upon the right of an individual of full age and of sound mind to deal as she will with her own absolute property is fundamentally wrong; the second is, alternatively, that if the system of control i3 regarded as being in the nature of a social service, it is wrong to impose such a service upon some small section of the population against its wishes—the exercise of compulsory paternalism by the State in this type of case to the exclusion of all others cannot be justified; and thirdly, that there were at one time a number of restraints upon the rights of women of certain categories to deal with their own property, and, except for the control of damages awarded to widows under the Fatal Accidents Acts, all have now been removed.
They say that it is highly anomalous that a woman who has been awarded £5,000 damages in a personal injury accident can at once receive the whole of it, although she may have no experience at all in managing such sums, whereas in a fatal accident case the court has a power—it does not always exercise it, of course—to order the money to be paid into court; and then they say that damages awarded to compensate for actual pecuniary loss belong solely to the persons to whom they are awarded, whatever their status, and they should be free to spend them, if not under legal disability. A widow is under no such legal disability.
I appreciate fully the force of those arguments. At the same time I must say that personally I am troubled by the fact that, of course, there are others who know the litigants a good deal better than the barristers, and I am impressed by the fact that the Law Society, speaking for all solicitors, the Trades Union Congress, the experienced county court registrars who deal with widows, and Masters of the Supreme Court are all of the opinion that it would

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be desirable to retain the present powers in the interests of widows themselves.
Of course, if a judge has a woman before him who has been in business and appears capable of managing her own affairs there is nothing to stop him from giving the damages to her at once, but it is said in these cases that there are too many men around who want to sell bankrupt businesses to widows who receive sums of this kind and relations who are only too anxious to borrow money from a woman who has suddenly received a very large sum. It is a very real protection to 1 he widow to be able to say: "Well, I am afraid I cannot, because the money is not under my control." Of course, if she needs the money for any special purpose, such as school fees, clothing, holidays and so on, she can, and does, apply to the local court for it. For these reasons I venture to hope that we shall have the experienced knowledge of your Lordships' House upon what I think is a difficult question and one which is really entirely a matter of opinion. I beg 10 move that this Bill be now read a second time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(The Lord Chancellor.)
3.35 p.m.
LORD DILHORNE: My Lords, I had hoped this afternoon to be able to strike an entirely uncontroversial note, but in the light of some of the observations that the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, has made, I am afraid that will not be entirely possible. But I am very glad that the first Bill which has come before your Lordships' House for consideration in this new Parliament should be one to which I can give unqualified, or almost unqualified, support. I doubt whether there will be many other occasions on which I shall be able to do this, although, as I indicated in an earlier stage, I hope there will be at least one.
As the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, has said, the Government have inherited this Bill from the last Government, and I sincerely congratulate the noble and learned Lord on bringing it before the House now. We should certainly have done so if we had won the Election. I was grateful to him for acknowledging so firmly that it was a Bill he had inherited, but, of course,
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he had to add to that some observations of a controversial character. The noble and learned Lord reverted to his observations in the debate we had some time ago about law reform, and he asserted yet once again that the law of England is in a mess. It does not matter how long or how often the noble and learned Lord repeats that general observation, it will not command general acceptance. I entirely agree—I have never dissented from the proposition—that there are fields of the law which are capable of improve- ment, but I certainly said nothing in the course of the debate to which the noble and learned Lord thought fit to refer this afternoon to suggest that there was a stack of law reform Bills awaiting introduction. My argument was to the effect that the machine for law reform was satisfactory and could indeed be expanded, but, of course, the governing factor, as I am sure the noble and learned Lord will find in due course, is the limitation upon Parliamentary time.
The noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, referred to the Evershed Committee. Of course, the report of the Evershed Committee, of which the noble and learned Lord was a member, has been considered again and again, but it does not follow that just because a recommendation of a Committee has not been implemented by legislation, that recommendation was accepted. Having said that—and I am rather sorry that the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, introduced this afternoon this note about law reform—I should like to express my thanks to him for the clear and able manner in which he expounded the contents of the Bill.
The problem of the proper investment of funds in court is no new one. My predecessor and I were both concerned about it. My predecessor, as the noble and learned Lord has said, appointed the Funds in Court Committee, presided over by Lord Justice Pearson, and I, too, should like to express my appreciation of the excellent work they have done, for which I am sure everyone who is aware of the complexities of this problem is most grateful. The Bill does not precisely follow the recommendations made by the Funds in Court Committee, but their Report is the basis of Part I, and where the Bill departs from their recommendations it is, I think, to make

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improvements in the light of further consideration.
The noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, has drawn attention to what has happened in the past with regard to investments that have been made: how some of them have not been safe against inflation, and in some cases, as he indicated, there has been a substantial loss in capital value—that is to say, the litigant who has succeeded in obtaining an award of damages has found at the end of the day that the sum obtained because of the depreciation of the investment is far less than the sum awarded to her. I think it ought to be made absolutely clear that there can be no doubt but that those who in the past had the responsibility for deciding upon the investment of funds in court did their utmost to invest wisely; but the investments that they could make from funds in court, as the noble and learned Lord has pointed out, in a number of cases proved to be the reverse of beneficial.
It has always been a matter of great difficulty to satisfy those litigants who have suffered such a loss as to the reasons for it, and I hope that as a result of the somewhat complicated machinery which is now being set up that situation will not occur again in the future. While the monies which constitute the funds in court will, of course, have to continue to be invested in the most prudent manner, it will, I hope, under this system be possible to secure for those entitled to the money the advantages which accrue from shrewd investment on expert advice.
The noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, referred, in a passage I am not sure I quite caught accurately but at which I shall look before Committee stage, to the low rate of interest where the funds were invested, I think he said, by the National Debt Commissioners; and he held out some hope that that would be capable of improvement because the interest, I think he said, from all the funds in court would be available for that purpose. If I have it right, that sounds most satisfactory. We will certainly look at that again, at what the noble and learned Lord has said, before we reach the Committee stage.
The long-term schemes for which provision is made by Clause I are a new
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development, and I am sure it is right that they should be operated by the Public Trustee. As the noble and learned Lord said, the Bill places no restriction on the Public Trustee's powers of investment. That is an important point to which the noble and learned Lord, if I may say so with due respect, quite rightly drew attention. As some of your Lordships may remember, not long ago I, as Lord Chancellor, had to conduct an exhaustive and, if I may say it, exhausting inquiry into the operations of the Public Trustee; and in the light of that investigation I must say that I am entirely satisfied that the Public Trustee is the best person, and indeed the proper person, to be responsible for the investment of these funds.
I should have thought that the taking on of this additional burden would have meant a not inconsiderable increase of work for the Public Trustee, and I was therefore somewhat surprised by the statement made by the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack that it was thought that no appreciable increase of staff would be required. Of course a great deal may depend upon what is meant by "appreciable". And it is true to say that the kind of staff the Public Trustee requires in this type of work would need to have considerable expert qualifications, and they are not so easily found.
I would just add that if the Public Trustee has not sufficient staff, there are likely to be delays which might be avoided; and delays in this field may involve loss of capital appreciation. One does not want anyone to have more staff than is necessary, and all I will say before I pass from this topic is that I hope that, if the Public Trustee finds that he does require more staff, in order to carry out this extra work which he is now undertaking, efficiently and speedily, the Treasury will turn a sympathetic ear to any request he may make for help.
I do not propose to say any more about Part I of the Bill to-day; nor, indeed, do I intend to say so very much about Part II. We may have some points to raise on Part I when we come to the Committee Stage, because of course we shall examine this Bill, although it has been inherited, with a fresh look and we will try to make it as good as it can be made. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor referred, in particular,

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to Clause 19. That is the clause which provides that the court shall keep control over the investment of sums awarded under the Fatal Accidents Act to a widow where proceedings were also brought for the benefit of an infant. In all the preliminary work which went on in considering the contents of this Bill there was throughout, as the noble and learned Lord has said, sincere controversy, of a non-political character, on the question of principle—namely, whether or not the courts should, in these modern days, continue to have control over the award of damages under the Fatal Accidents Act to widows. I must say that I find it hard to justify that degree of paternalism on the part of the court in relation to widows when one bears in mind that there is no such control over any sum of damages awarded to any spinster of any age. Why it should be thought that widows are less competent than spinsters to look after their own affairs, I cannot say. Why it is thought that a spinster can look after her affairs until she is married, but that if she married and subsequently became a widow, and there was an award under the Fatal Accidents Act, the court should then take control, I find it difficult to understand.
Of course, it is always said, as an argument in support of the courts' retaining the power they now have, that there are many men crowding around trying to sell the poor widow bankrupt businesses. That was a phrase which the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor used. I have never heard it said that there are too many men crowding round the spinsters who have obtained awards of damages, trying to sell them bankrupt businesses, or indeed to marry them. But in the case of the widow with an infant child, then I do feel that there is a case for continuing the court's powers.
I think the House will agree that where there is an award of damages to an infant, it is right that the court should, in the infant's interest, exercise some control over what happens to that money. I myself take the view—although I entirely agree with the, noble and learned Lord that this is a difficult issue—that the solution propounded in this Bill is right, because, as the noble and learned Lord has said, in making an award to the widow where there are infants the practice has been to award the major sum to the widow, bearing in mind that
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she will look after the family, and smaller sums to the children. Therefore, where you have that kind of award, I think that the case for continuing the control is overwhelming. But where there is no infant and it is just a case that the court should exercise its power over a widow of any age, then I feel that it is wrong: one cannot in this respect draw a distinction between a widow and a spinster. We shall have an opportunity of debating this question at greater length, no doubt, during the Committee Stage.
On looking at the clause again, I should like to say that I am not entirely happy about the way in which it is drafted. I am a little puzzled in this respect. As your Lordships will see, the Explanatory Memorandum at page 3 says that this control will be exercised where money is recovered under the Fatal Accidents Act by a widow and also by an infant. The Explanatory Memorandum says that the court may control the money recovered by a widow as well as by the infant until the latter attains 21. When we look at Clause 19 we see that the clause applies not only where there is a widow but also where there is, or was, an infant. I am a little mystified, and perhaps the noble and learned Lord will take note of this point—I do not expect him to reply to-day—as to the inclusion of the words "or was an infant". I wonder whether it does not to some extent conflict with the Explanatory Memorandum. I think it is perhaps desirable (perhaps we can explore this) that it should be made clear that this clause need not necessarily apply where the widow is not the mother of the child: where, for instance, there has been a child, who is still an infant, of an earlier marriage and the widow is the widow of a second marriage. It is an important provision. As I have said, I do not intend to take up your Lordships' time in dealing with it any further to-day.
With regard to Clause 20, I would say that this clause, and the subsequent clauses, were all clauses which would have been in a Conservative Government's Bill if it had rested with us to introduce it. I am sure that it is a wise thing to revive this ancient procedure. One of the difficulties will be that there will be no practitioners who have any real experience of operating it. I hope that the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor will do what lies in his power

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to draw this procedure to the notice of practitioners, because I believe that it will work satisfactorily and may be far better, from everybody's point of view, than the alternative of bankruptcy proceedings.
My Lords, I do not think that I have struck an entirely non-controversial note this afternoon. I certainly had not intended to be as controversial as I have been. I should like to conclude by joining in supporting this measure, and by saying that, so far as we can, we will assist its passage to the Statute Book; although that does not mean that we may not have questions to raise, to which we shall hope to receive satisfactory answers, in the course of the Committee stage.

SOUTH AFRICA: ARMS EMBARGO
3.52 p.m.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, with your Lordships' permission I should like to intervene to repeat a Statement which is being made by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister in another place on arms for South Africa. The Statement is as follows:
"The Government have decided to impose an embargo on the export of arms to South Africa.
"Since the Government took office no licences for the export of arms to South Africa have been issued. It has now been decided that all outstanding licences should be revoked, except where these are known to relate to current contracts with the South African Government. The contract to supply 16 Buccaneer aircraft is still under review.
"Outstanding commitments by the Ministry of Defence will be fulfilled, but as from to-day no new contracts will be accepted for the supply of military equipment. The Ministry of Defence will proceed with manufacturing agreements that have already been concluded but not yet executed.
"Licences for the export of sporting weapons and ammunition will be revoked and shipment will be stopped forthwith. In other cases when licences are revoked, fresh licences will be issued to the extent necessary to permit the execution of current contracts.
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"These decisions bring the Government's policy into line with United Nations resolutions on this question, the latest of which was the Security Council resolution of June 18."
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, it is hardly necessary for me to say that this is a very serious Statement indeed. The consequences will undoubtedly be very far-reaching, and I very much doubt whether any of us here this afternoon can foresee what these consequences will be and how far all this will go. It is very difficult, just on the spur of the moment, to see exactly what the Statement means. In one part the Statement talks of revoking licences, but it goes on to say that existing licences will be fulfilled. Could the noble Earl the Leader of the House let us know exactly what amount is involved, and what weapons are involved, in this revocation? It may be that we shall have to have a debate on this subject in the very near future. It probably would be better to arrange this through the usual channels.
I should like to ask the noble Earl this question. Have the Government really weighed up the consequences of what they have done? It may he, for instance, that the Simonstown Agreement will be revoked. This means that the Royal Navy will be deprived of refuelling and other facilities at Simonstown, and that the world-wide communications of the Royal Navy may be disrupted. Do the Government view that possibility with equanimity?—the noble Lord shakes his head. There is an important wireless station at Simonstown.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: I did not shake my head.
LORD CARRINGTON: No; the noble Lord on the noble Earl's right shook his head. But I was asking: do the Government view with equanimity the possibility that the Royal Navy will lose facilities at Simonstown? It seems quite likely that the noble Earl may reply that this will happen only if the sixteen Buccaneers are cancelled. May I ask him when we are likely to have a statement about these Buccaneers? The longer this issue is in doubt, the more difficult our relations with South Africa may become. It may be that over-flying rights which we now have, in conjunction with the South African Government,

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by courtesy of the South African Government, may be denied to us. This means that in certain instances we shall find it more difficult to reinforce our troops in South-East Asia and the Far East. Are the Government prepared to put all this at risk in order to deny South Africa arms—arms which are to be used for their defence, and not for purposes of enforcing apartheid?
Recently the Government have not hesitated to stress the gravity of the balance-of-payment; situation. Is it not rather unhelpful flat they should, by this action, prejudice our very large ex port trade to South Africa? If the Buccaneers are cancelled, an order worth something like £80 million will be lost to the export trade of this country. I hope that the noble Earl will be able to answer some of these questions this afternoon, but it may be that we shall have to have a debate in the near future; because, I say again, this is one of the gravest Statements we have heard in this Parliament.
LORD REA: My Lords——
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: Perhaps I might answer the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, at once, and then defer to the noble Lord, Lord Rea. I quite agree that this is a serious Statement, and I am sure that the Government would not wish to minimise it in any way. I think the noble Lord will do the Government the justice of believing that they would not have made this Statement without very careful thought. I must ask him to accept that, as I hope he will.
There was one point he raised which I cannot answer precisely, but I feel that I should attempt to say something about it. He asked me, if I understood him rightly, what would be the value of arms shipments to South Africa. I gather that it is not the practice of the Government, as the noble Lord, from his ministerial experience, is aware, to disclose details of arms supplies to overseas Governments. But the value of our arms shipments to South Africa is very small in relation to our total export trade. I am afraid that I cannot answer that point precisely.
But, to deal with the more general issues which were raised by the noble Lord (and if he chooses to initiate a debate on this, it is entirely for him and his colleagues), I should like to make it
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plain that this, for us, is a moral issue. There is, in the first place, the question of whether the decision is right, and then there is the question of whether it will do this country much immediate damage. There are two questions there which go together. It is perhaps worth observing that, according to my information, our very distinguished representative, Sir Patrick Dean, voted in the United Nations, on the instruction of the former Tory Government, for the resolution prohibiting the export of arms to South Africa.
LORD CARRINGTON: But he made a specific reservation, as I think the noble Earl knows—and I know he does not wish to be unfair: that we should continue to supply South Africa with arms for purposes of her defence, not for purposes of supporting apartheid.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: As the noble Lord is well aware, it is extremely difficult to draw the line. There is the moral question. It is not a question on which one can speak with absolute freedom, because all of us in this House, in different ways and in different degrees, perhaps, strongly disapprove of very much that is going on in South Africa. It becomes a question of how far one carries that disapproval. If we wish to be loyal to the United Nations, we have to carry it a considerable way. But there is also the question of the immediate damage. One cannot calculate the long-term balance of gain and loss, but there is the question of immediate damage.
The noble Lord, Lord Carrington, raised certain points. He asked about the Simonstown Agreement. I am advised that that Agreement is certainly a considerable convenience, both to us and to South Africa. It is not essential to our national defence. I am entitled to say that on behalf of the Government. The noble Lord has had many years at the Admiralty—I have had only a few months, but I have been First Lord of the Admiralty. Therefore I do not make that sort of remark on advice without any kind of consideration of the issues at all. Our advice is that it is not essential, but it is a very considerable convenience.
Let us assume that it would be a loss, though I hope that would not arise. There is no reason to suppose that it

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would arise, but, if it did arise, and if this were really a moral issue, we should have to face it. I am afraid that I must put it in that way. In our view, the losses can be undertaken, if they must be. This is a clear moral issue and, in our view, we should be betraying the United Nations and its ideals—I must state the view of the Government—if we failed to carry out this resolution.
LORD CARRINGTON: The noble Earl did not answer one of my questions. Perhaps he cannot answer it this afternoon, but I should like him to try, because I think it is of the greatest importance. When will the Government be in a position to make a statement about the 16 Buccaneers which are ordered by the South African Government? I think I am right in saying that they have an option on a further 20 Buccaneers. The whole of the Simonstown Agreement, and possibly our over-flying rights, may, for all I know, revolve on this question of the Buccaneers and not on the Statement which has been made. I think this is rather unlikely, but I am sure it is very important that this matter should be cleared up. When will the noble Earl be in a position to make a statement?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I agree with the noble Lord that this is an important issue and a difficult issue, at any rate in the light of our approach to these problems. I can only assure the noble Lord that we will inform the House as soon as possible, and I should hope to inform the noble Lord even earlier. I should hope that the very first moment we knew anything definite, we would inform the noble Lord.
LORD REA: My Lords, in view of the general opinion in this country that the South African Government is what The Times has called an "evil Government", I am a little surprised that even members of the Conservative Party do not see that this moral gesture has a great deal behind it. The point is not how much we are going to lose—and that matter is still nebulous in the Statement which the noble Earl has just made: the contract for Buccaneer aircraft is still under review. But is it not a fact that aircraft delivered for defence purposes could be turned to exactly the sort of
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purposes which we do not want to encourage?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for what seems a general attitude of support, and for, at any rate, an understanding of our own attempt at a moral approach. I think the Buccaneers raise a difficult question, because a contract is involved there. One may, therefore, have to pit good against good or, if the noble Lord puts it the other way, evil against evil. This is a very difficult issue and I quite agree with the noble Lord.
THE EARL OF SWINTON: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl two questions? First of all, have the Government had any consultation or discussion with the Government of the Republic of South Africa before coming to these very serious conclusions? The second question, which perhaps I may put as my noble and gallant friend Lord Alexander of Tunis and I negotiated the Simonstown Agreement, is this. Is it not a fact that the Simonstown Agreement not only covers the use of Simonstown by the British Navy, but also puts at the disposal of ourselves and our Allies what is far more important—that is, all the ports of South Africa in the event of war? Have the Government considered what would be the effect of losing that agreement and all that it entails in the event of an aggressive war taking place?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, the answer to the first question of the noble Earl is that I have no advice about the consultations, or otherwise, with the South African Government. My impression is that they were not consulted, but I do not know. I understand that they have been informed, but my impression is that they were not consulted, because, in a sense, in the case of a decision of this kind, you either do it or do not do it. I am afraid you cannot expect——
THE EARL OF SWINTON: Is that the way in which we are going to treat all our Allies?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I am afraid, to be quite frank, that a number of decisions have been taken in the last few weeks which the noble Earl may or may not like, but which, on the whole, have been approved by the country. In fact, consultation with many countries

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affected by the 15 per cent. surcharge was impossible. So that if the noble Earl wishes to ask, "Were they consulted?", my impression is that they were not consulted, but certainly, to the best of my belief, they were informed.
EARL ALEXANDER OF HILLSBOROUGH: My Lords, my noble friend may take it from me that many of us with long experience in Ministerial control of defence policy would certainly not regard Simonstown as not being of any great strategic importance. I could not say, after my experience in the last war and in charge of the Admiralty right through it, that I could support that belief. In the event of warfare breaking out, it is extremely difficult to forecast in which particular area the demands upon your defence departments will appear to be greatest at any given time. The then existing agreements were most valuable to us in the last war. Of course, what goes with Simonstown is that, in the event of conflict, we should have equally free use of Durban as we had in the last great conflict. If we were not in a sufficiently friendly relationship at the time, we should find the length of voyages, especially for troop transportation and matters of that sort, much more difficult, if we had always to go right round to other places.
I do not know enough about the decisions which the Government have taken to understand them fully yet. But I do beg—and all of us on this side of the House entirely support our Prime Minister, when he said last night at Mansion House that he was concerned always for the defence of this country and its people—that these things should not be taken in any sense lightheartedly. Simonstown is of great value to us for naval use. I say that after, perhaps, having charge of defence department is for a longer continuous, consecutive time than any of my colleagues in the House on either side, and at a particular period. I suggest that we should not be quite so lighthearted about Simonstown, or about any other part of that great strategic area which was absolutely essential to us when, for various reasons, not excluding air power, the Middle East was denied to us.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, may I answer the noble Earl? Of course, anything that is said by the noble Earl,
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Lord Alexander of Hillsborough, has special claims not only on the attention of all of us who have followed him so long and so devotedly here, but on the attention and respect of the whole House. His experience, indeed, is unique. I should be sorry—but one never knows what impression one creates—if anything I said suggested that I took this matter lightheartedly. I really cannot imagine how any words of mine—one can never be sure of one's manner—can have given any such impression.
I said at once that this is an important matter, to which the Government have been giving very careful thought. The words I used, on advice, were that these facilities, which we certainly have not lost yet, by any means, are not essential. That is not the same thing as saying that they are not important. In other words, they would not jeopardise the essential defences of the country about which the Prime Minister spoke last night. That must be absolutely clear. But, going beyond that, I want to repeat to noble Lords that if we think this is right, as the noble Lord, Lord Rea, says, we may have to face a certain element of sacrifice. I am not saying there is no loss involved. If a thing is right there may have to be some sacrifice. I do not want to give noble Lords the impression that we can always be sure of having it both ways; that we can do the right thing without any loss to ourselves. I should be very sorry indeed if anybody in the House, particularly the noble Earl, were to get the impression that we took this matter lightheartedly.
VISCOUNT ECCLES: My Lords, may I ask the Leader of the House whether it is not a fact, in experience, that economic embargoes are worse than useless unless they are complete and watertight? In this case it is as certain as anything can be that the South Africans will be able to obtain from some other source 90 per cent. of the arms which we refuse them. If that happens, then I feel sure that we shall be weakening the citizens of South Africa of British descent in their attempt to bring pressure on their Government to change the policy which we all deplore; and I very much regret to see an embargo imposed, for the sake of salving consciences here, which is going to make it more difficult and not more easy to change the policy of that Government.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I am rather sorry to hear the noble Viscount pouring a certain scorn on the idea of salving one's conscience. I should have thought it was one's duty to act according to one's conscience. The noble Viscount shakes his head, but I am afraid I cannot give way to his view of morals there. If this is in accordance with our conscience, we must do it. But it is not a trade embargo. The noble Viscount may or may not be aware of the proposals—there has not been much time to study them—but it is not a trade embargo in the sense he seems to have in mind.
4.13 p.m.
LORD MILVERTON: My Lords, the issues involved in this are of such deep value, and the moral issues have been quoted so much to-day, that I think that one voice, at least, might be permitted from the Back Benches, and that we should not leave moral issues to be a matter solely for Front Bench decision. They are matters on which we claim an equal right to have views. When I say that I have listened with horrified distaste to this Statement this afternoon, that is putting it very mildly. If ever there was an instance of intolerant prejudice finding expression in intemperate action, this is it. Has nobody considered what are the true interests of the people of South Africa? Are they likely to be furthered by this kind of interference from outside? And, my Lords, since when have decisions of the United Nations had the force of Holy Writ? Since when—and we know how some of those decisions are arrived at—have we decided that we will have our foreign policy dictated to us by decisions at the United Nations?
I shall have the opportunity of saying much more when the debate on this matter, which I hope will come, takes place, but I feel that it would have been a mistake if a strong protest (I almost said a violent protest) had not been made from the Back Benches of this House to show that at least there is a very strong opinion which protests at this kind of attempt to bully another country by external interference with its internal policies. If ever there was a threat to the peace of mankind, my Lords, this is the kind of thing that is.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I entirely agree with the noble Lord (I do not think it was really in dispute) that someone who sits on the Back Benches is as much entitled to express his conscience as anybody who sits on the Front Benches. On that, certainly, there is no argument. But I think it ought to be quite plain that the United Nations, and not just this country, have adopted this policy.
The Security Council, in the resolution I mentioned, called upon the Government of South Africa to abandon the policies of apartheid and discrimination, and to liberate all persons imprisoned, interned or subjected to other restrictions for having opposed the policy of apartheid; they solemnly called upon all States to cease forthwith the sale and shipment of arms, ammunition of all types and military vehicles to South Africa; and requested the Secretary-General to keep the situation under observation and report back. That is the attitude of the Security Council, and it is, broadly speaking, the attitude of the Free World. So I hope that the noble Lord will not assume that it is just some peculiar idiosyncracy of Her Majesty's Government. It is an expression of the opinion of the Free World.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, the noble Earl said that the South African Government had not been consulted. Can he say, in view of the immense importance of this decision to the whole of the Free World, whether the Dominions of Australia and New Zealand were consulted?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I have not that information by me. Of course, as the noble Lord is aware, a number of States, including the United States, have already put this policy into operation; but I cannot inform the noble Lord, offhand, which countries within the Commonwealth, if any, have been consulted.
LORD CONESFORD: My Lords, may I ask one more question on the moral issue, because I want to clear my mind, so far as possible? I gather that this resolution of the United Nations has very great importance in the view of Her Majesty's Government. Do I understand that the equally strong resolutions on the subject of Hungary, which are still

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being disobeyed by the Communist world, have no moral importance and involve Her Majesty's Government in no consequential duties?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, the noble Lord is taking us rather far afield in asking us to share some responsibility for the conduct of the Communist world. If the noble Lord will tell us how to put right the situation in Hungary, no one will be more grateful than I shall be.
VISCOUNT MONSELL: My Lords, will the Government study the results of the last time the Government put sanctions on a foreign country due to Left Wing prejudice and pressure? It was a total fiasco in 1935, when we put sanctions on Italy. It resulted in Mussolini being thrown into the arms of Hitler, and made the last world war possible.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I might be tempted to make too hot a reply to that suggestion, but I think there are many of us who regard the betrayal of collective security at that time as one of the main events leading up to the war; so I am not exactly with the noble Viscount in his line of thought. But I think that to call this Left Wing prejudice, if I may say so with great respect to the noble Viscount, would be somewhat fantastic. This is the opinion of the United Nations; and the United States, which is hardly a country of Left Wing intellectuals, has in fact already taken these steps.
LORD COLYTON: My Lords, may I ask the noble Earl the Leader of the House whether he i aware how bitterly this decision will be resented by the workers in the shipbuilding, aircraft, armaments and engineering industries, who have already had a taste of the Government's medicine over contracts for Spain and Portugal? May I ask him, also, whether he is aware that already all over the country engineering firms are reporting a falling off of orders as a result of animosity engendered by the Government's attitude, not only towards South Africa, Spain and Portugal, but also towards the Scandinavian Powers?
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY: My Lords, are the Government aware that, irrespective, perhaps, of
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some of the details of the Statement that has been made to-day, the Statement made will greatly hearten many people in this country as a resolute attempt to carry out the intention, not only of themselves but of their predecessors, not to export to South Africa arms which may be used for the enforcement of the policy of apartheid?
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, I must not attempt to evaluate the respective weight of the opinions of noble Lords, but if there is one noble Lord whose opinion brings moral sustenance it is the most reverend Primate the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury. May I just answer the noble Lord, Lord Colyton? Whether this is going to be popular with aircraft workers I have no means of knowing.
SEVERAL NOBLE LORDS: Oh!
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: I have no means of knowing; but if noble Lords think they are so successful in an election, then they must do better next time than they did last time. But, at any rate, that is not quite the footing on which we are approaching this question. This is not a search for popularity: this is an attempt to do right, and I am very glad to think that noble Lords who come to this matter somewhat dispassionately—the noble Lord the Leader of the Liberal Party and the most reverend Primate—have supported our policy in outline very strongly.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I am sorry to intervene again, but I feel that I should do so, in view of something which the noble Lord the Leader of the Liberal Party said. I do not know whether he meant to imply it, but he seemed to me to imply that those of us who sit on these Benches condoned a Government which supported a policy of apartheid. We have made it perfectly clear that we do not. We have adopted exactly the policy on which the most reverend Primate has just congratulated the Government. This was exactly our policy and not the policy of noble Lords opposite. We have said that we would not export to South Africa arms which could be used for the purposes of enforcing the policy of apartheid. That is where we stood, and that is how we voted in the United Nations. I am very glad to hear the most reverend Primate

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agrees that this was the right policy. What I am saying, however, is that we do not believe that it is sensible to base your trade policy on a policy of trading only with those with whom you agree. If the Government go on like this, there may be many people in the world who are not prepared to trade with the Government of noble Lords opposite.
THE EARL OF LONGFORD: My Lords, if I may answer the noble Lord, this is not a trade embargo: the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition was going outside the proposal in suggesting that it was. He argued that the most reverend Primate, if he had really understood the issues, would have supported the late Government instead of us. I am afraid that I must leave that to the most reverend Primate to decide. He has, in fact, issued very encouraging words in our favour this afternoon. I can hardly believe that he would have done so if he had not understood what he was saying.

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE BILL [H.L.]
4.21 p.m.
Debate resumed.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, the temperature is now reduced to normal, so we might go back to the Administration of Justice Bill. I should like first of all to congratulate the noble and learned Lord who sits on the Woolsack on having introduced his first measure in such admirable terms. This is not an easy Bill to follow. I myself have tried to understand it, but until I heard the noble and learned Lord Chancellor's explanation of it I did not really get to the point of understanding what was the main purpose of this Bill.
It is, of course, unfortunate that when people want to understand what this Bill is about and try to interpret it they will not he able to use the noble and learned Lord's speech here in evidence. Certainly, if any question arises on the Bill it will stand or fall on the language of the Bill itself. I do not want to pursue this, because I said something of this kind in my speech last Wednesday in connection with the gracious Speech. But I hope that it will be possible to resolve
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this difficulty so that when one comes to try to interpret the Bill one will be able to get such help in interpreting it as may be available without having to try to understand the necessarily complicated and difficult language in which a Bill of this kind is phrased.
I understand that the main, though not the only, purpose of this Bill is to deal with a difficulty which has arisen over the years—namely, the difficulty of money in court depreciating in value to the detriment of the person on whose behalf the money has been placed. I am content to accept the fact that the noble and learned Lord who sits on the Woolsack believes that it will do so, that his predecessor accepts it also and that the Bill is based upon a Report of another noble and learned Lord who is now sitting in this Chamber. But I would repeat that if one tried to ascertain this for oneself by reading the Bill, one could never come to that conclusion.
As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Dilhorne, told us, there is not very much in the Bill that is controversial. I, too, find myself in some difficulty about Clause 19. I understand fully the objection that the noble and learned Lord, Lord Dilhorne, made to the clause, but I am not even sure that I come eventually to his conclusion. As I understand it, money may be paid into court on behalf of a widow either for herself alone or for herself and dependent children. Sometimes there is a separate award for the dependent children. As the clause stands, I think it operates in either case. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Dilhorne, eventually came to the conclusion that he could accept Clause 19, because the money paid into court to a widow with children also included a certain amount for the maintenance of the children. It may not always be so; the children may have been awarded separate amounts on their own account.
LORD DILHORNE: My Lords, I think it is the practice to award separate amounts. But it is also the practice in such cases to award a substantial part to the widow having regard to the fact that there are children as well.
LORD SILKIN: My Lords, I do not want to argue this too closely just now, but I did want to show what was my own difficulty. I think, as I am at present

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advised—and nobody wants to be dogmatic over matters of this kind—that I should prefer to take the risk and let the widow have the amount of money which she has been awarded in the same way as if she were a spinster or as if she had no children. But I think we could deal with that mere adequately on the Committee stage. There may be instances where a widow has been awarded a sum of money and has a child of one year of age, and she may have to wait for twenty years before she can utilise the money that has been awarded to her unless she can satisfy some official of the court that she needs the money for some good purpose. I am not sure that that is the right approach in the case of a woman who has been awarded a sum of money.
There is only one other thing that I should like to say and, again, it is on the form of the Bill. It is, of course, inevitable that where you provide for the repeal of a number of Statutes and for the amendment of others, the provisions for the amendments appear at first sight to be obscure to the person who reads them. For instance, I see that there are 24 amendments to the Land Clauses Act, 1845. I have no doubt that the Land Clauses Act, 1845, needs amending, but this strikes me as a very cumbersome and inconvenient way to do it. It almost amounts to a revision of the whole Act. To the legal practitioner it must be most inconvenient to have to look up, perhaps in a few years' time, the Administration of Justice Act, 1964, to find out what, if any, amendment has been made to the Land Clauses Act, 1845. There are an enormous number of Acts that have been repealed, and i t is difficult to know later on whether these Acts are in existence or not. I would ask the noble and learned Lord who sits on the Woolsack to give very special consideration to this question of repeals and amendments, and to see that they are done in a way which is fairly convenient for the practitioner both at the Bar and in my own branch of the profession.
It is not always easy to ascertain whether or not a particular provision now has legal force. There may be some way to overcome this. For instance, is it possible to reprint the Land Clauses Act, 1845, in the way in which it will
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be in force after this Bill becomes law? That may not be a practicable suggestion, but I would appeal to the noble and learned Lord who sits on the Woolsack to give some consideration to this problem because it is a problem for practitioners in both sides of the law. Subject to that, I am sure that this Bill is a good Bill. It is submitted under the most excellent auspices. It is almost a bipartisan Bill, and I hope that it will soon come into law.
4.30 p.m.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, to take up this debate after the excitement which we have just been having is rather like coming to the tapioca pudding course after a hot Madras curry in the early stage of a repast. Probably the noble and learned Lord, Lord Dilhorne, would not particularly welcome any congratulations from me for having got this Bill ready, but I certainly think he deserves congratulation.
LORD DILHORNE: My Lords, I am sorry the noble Lord thinks that. I should welcome any congratulations the noble Lord might give to me at any time.
LORD CHORLEY: This is the first time I have spoken in the same debate as the noble Lord, when I have had the pleasure to find him agreeing with me. My criticism of the noble and learned Lord and his Government would be that they took much too long to bring this in. The Pearson Committee were appointed early in 1957 and issued their Report about twelve months later, which was a very smart pace, and we had to wait five or six years for the Bill—and even then the noble and learned Lord's Government did not bring it in. We have brought it in, and I think that the noble and learned Lord who sits on the Woolsack is entitled to a great deal of congratulation for having taken the initiative and for having given us this Bill as our first piece of legislative work in this Session.
I would add my own personal appreciation of the work that was done by Sir Colin Pearson and his Committee. It was an expeditious piece of work. All those who have had the friendship of that distinguished lawyer and know well his command of details his judicious approach to these problems and particu-

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larly, perhaps, his sympathy for the underdog in litigation and in the world at large, would expect from any Committee over which he presided a Report of this value.
If I may, I would refer to one passage in the Report as symptomatic of his outlook. He deplored the continuance in some county courts of the inquiries into widows' means in open court. When I was a young barrister, that was pretty well universal, but during the intervening years it has become much less general. A judge usually has the parties visit his room. Especially in small country towns, where so many of these county courts are, an open inquiry is very embarrassing to litigants. I mention this point only as being symptomatic of the sympathetic outlook of this distinguished lawyer, which those who have known him since his early days at the Bar would expect to find in the Report of a Committee over which he presided.
It must have given great pleasure to the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack to present even this Bill, because, although it does not make the radical reforms in the law which we are all expecting to have under his occupancy of the Woolsack, it makes important proposals. Two types of matters are dealt with. One copes with the inflation which has been allowed to run on in this area of legal administration far too long, and, as the noble and learned Lord pointed out, has had serious financial repercussions on many young people, and on older people as well.
It is significant that this should have come so late in the day. Trustees under the Trustee Acts, who were finding it very difficult to provide reasonable in- comes for their beneficiaries, were given power a number of years ago to begin investing in equities. The private sector comes first. Those who, in effect, are wards of the community have had to wait until now. Even after the Pearson Committee had worked so quickly to bring out this admirable Repot t, it will be six years before their recommendations are passed into law.
The Bill also introduces a number of reforms in the law which are desirable and long overdue. Obviously, these reforms should be brought before Par-
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liament and carefully and properly canvassed before they are passed into law and become operative. The first reform, which merely brings the legal position into line with the inflationary conditions that have grown up in this country over the last years, ought not to require a Pearson Committee every time. There ought to be some permanent machinery. Over the last few years Parliament has had Bill after Bill—to put up fines from 40s. to £10, or whatever it may be; to put up the limitation in an action against a shipowner whose ship has caused damage; to deal with all sorts of grievances arising from inflation, very often very late in the day, which have been quite obvious to everybody for a long time.
There ought to be some permanent machinery and I am very glad that the noble and learned Lord did glance at this problem, in passing, and suggested that, instead of having to wait for ten or fifteen years for another Pearson Committee and another Bill, some machinery might be established by which, if inflation goes on, from time to time the situation can be put right. Two or three years ago, in the Merchant Shipping Act, which brought £15 per ton of shipping into relation with the modern world, the Minister of Transport was given power to review the situation from time to time, and to establish a new ceiling when it was required. I hope that the noble and learned Lord will pursue this matter and evolve some machinery which will enable alterations to be made at the proper time.
This Bill not only deals with the particular difficulty of funds in court but also in Clause 20, which has been referred to by more than one speaker, brings the £50 minimum debt for a bankruptcy petition into relation with the requirements of the modern world. It is really quite ridiculous that a man can be made bankrupt on the basis of a £50 debt. That was no doubt all right at the time of Queen Victoria, but that this should continue until 1964 and be left to this particular Bill to put right is quite ridiculous. The threat of bankruptcy is a very strong form of blackmail, and it is very easy for a man to be in debt for £50. I doubt very much whether the sum of £100 provided in the Bill is high enough and there will be time in Committee stage to put this up to £200 or £300.

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I think that everybody will agree that the proposal of the Pearson Committee, which has now been more widely extended in this Bill, that all these sums should be paid into one fund and the fund properly invested in the light of a modern investment policy, which has been used in all sorts of other spheres of economic activities over the last years, is a very proper one. I agree that the Public Trustee is the obvious person to be entrusted with the charge of this onerous and quite difficult public duty. No doubt, as one would expect, he will take expert advice in the investment of the fund, but what I am a little worried about is that he is not required to do so. I think that it might be well to tighten that up. It might be possible to give the noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chancellor, or some other Minister, the power to issue some sort of regulations or directions, specifying the sort of advice the Public Trustee should take.
I happen to be very much concerned with one of the largest national charities, which has funds going into millions of pounds and which was for a long time, like so many other charities, very much handicapped by the strait-waistcoat of the old trustee investment arrangements. Now, of course, we are much freer. But we have benefited enormously from the expert advice of one of the best investment firms in the City of Lot-Icon. I am sure that other noble Lords know much more about these matters than I do, but it is astonishing what a difference that can make to the prosperity of a national charity. If you get—as you can quite easily, because we have them in the organisation I am thinking about—really knowledgeable people from the City who come up and form a finance committee, they will discuss these matters with the investment experts in the City——
LORD DILHORNE: My Lords, I think the noble Lord may not be aware that the Public Trustee has a high-powered advisory committee on investment policy consisting of eminent people in the City.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, I am obliged to the noble and learned Lord for that intervention. I prefaced these observations with the remark that I had no doubt that the Public Trustee did take advice. What I was anxious about was that it should be stated in the Bill that he
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should be advised in this way. It is sometimes as well in an Act of Parliament not to rely entirely on the discretion of a particular public official.
The other matter on which I should like to say a word is the question of the control of widows' damages. I was glad to hear the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack say that this was still, to him, a rather open question. It is obviously a difficult question. I hope that an Amendment will be put down on the Committee stage which will enable us to have a full debate on this problem. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor pointed out that the Law Society, representing the solicitors, were in favour of retaining the present arrangement. But, as the Pearson Committee points out, the Managing Clerks' Association, who presumably have the same sort of experience, as the solicitors themselves, or possibly even more, take the other view. It may be that some sort of compromise could be reached by which the widow without children would be prima facie entitled to have the money, unless for good reason the judge who handled the case directed that an investigation should be made and a possible qualification applied.
Many people who have had a good deal of experience of matters of this sort take the view that the mere fact that women are controlled in this way, while men are not, is in itself a factor in building up habits of mind which enable them to be cheated: that they would not be cheated so much if they were not coddled. That is obviously a point of view to which attention ought to be given. It must be very irksome and upsetting to many women to feel that they are being treated in this way, whereas men are not. After all, there are many men who are not capable of looking after substantial sums of money which they may obtain in actions at law; who are equally as feckless and unable to take sensible financial decisions as any woman.
I have often thought that it would be useful (perhaps the Lord Chancellor would consider this suggestion in connection with this law reform programme) if we introduced the status of spendthrift, which is known in a number of Continental systems—in France, for example. Where, from experience in the family and among friends, it is

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found that a man or woman is, without being non compos mentis, incapable of looking after his or her finances in a sensible and sound way, he or she can, in effect, be subjected to a certain amount of control under the status of a spendthrift. Such a system could be introduced here, both for men and women, and could perhaps be applied to an elderly widow who has had no experience. A spinster, after all, usually gains a certain amount of experience in looking after her own affairs. But the rather elderly woman who is likely to be involved in a case of this kind has often had no experience, because the husband has attended to all the financial matters; and therefore she is to a larger extent at the mercy of sharks and people who come round and try to sell her bankrupt businesses and that sort of thing.
There are obviously on both sides difficult and important problems to be solved before we finally reach a decision on this matter. If we could find some sort of compromise, going a little further towards the protection of these women than the present Bill goes, then I, for one, should be glad to help in working it out. I hope that when we come to the Committee stage we may be able to improve this Bill in the way I have indicated.
LORD CAWLEY: My Lords, before the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor replies, I should like to ask a question. Clause 24 provides that Chancery registrars shall now be qualified to become Chancery masters. I wish to ask whether it is now to be primarily from the ranks of Chancery registrars that Chancery masters should be selected.
4.47 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, we have had an interesting short discussion, and I should like to say at the outset, in reply, how grateful I am to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Dilhorne, for the tribute he paid to the Public Trustee. I am sure that it is well deserved. I think the reason why it is not anticipated that this work will add anything substantial to the staff of the Public Trustee is because in the ordinary case the Public Trustee is a trustee of a particular settlement: he has to consider its terms and the position of the beneficiaries; and there may be other trustees
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as well. But what he will do here is to constitute and carefully supervise one or more unit trusts. As has been made plain, the only shareholder will be the Accountant General, and therefore he will not be concerned with matters of detail. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Dilhorne, pointed out to the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, the Public Trustee does not act without advice. He has an honorary investment advisory committee, which includes stockbrokers, bankers and managers of investment trust companies, all of whom are well-known people of the highest standing in the City. So far as Clause 19 is concerned, we will certainly take into account the two points which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Dilhorne, was good enough to raise.
The noble Lord, Lord Silkin, also raised two points. The first was a point that he raised recently in your Lordships House—namely, that it seems unreasonable to expect a judge to understand what an Act is supposed to be doing when he is not told anything about it but is simply given the Act to read. I have some sympathy with that point of view. What we do, in this country is, of course, most unusual. In nearly every European system of law the first thing that happens when an Act of Parliament is passed is that the Government issues a White Paper explaining what the Act is intended to do, and the reasons which have led to its being passed. But here, when a judge has to construe an Act, this is the first thing at which he looks. The one thing he is not allowed to know is why the Act was passed, or what it is supposed to do. I have great sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, who does not think that that is very sensible. In fact, sometimes the courts almost seem to take a delight in so construing an Act of Parliament as to produce exactly the opposite result to what we all know Parliament in fact intended. I have always thought that a construction of Acts of Parliament ought really to be a sort of partnership between Parliament and the courts—the object of the courts being so to construe an Act as to give effect to what Parliament intended.
It is almost accidental that we act as we do, because the old Preamble was like the sort of White Paper which most countries issue. Indeed, as your Lordships know, some of the Preambles of the old Acts are extremely interesting from an

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historical point of view. I remember the Preamble to the Act which deals with Gretna Green. It explains in detailed horror all the awful things that used to go on at Gretna Green, exactly what the blacksmith did, and how essential it was that this should be put a stop to. It is because we have no Preamble that the judges are no longer allowed to know what Parliament's real reason was.
Secondly, the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, raised the question of repeals, and the general way in which Acts can he amended and amended, and the difficulty which even lawyers have in finding out what the effect of some later amendments in other Acts are. There, again, personally I entirely agree with the noble Lord. As we know, the Statute Book is in the unfortunate position that amendments and amendments are made by later Acts, and to look at one subject only you may have to look at 60 different Acts of Parliament which amend and amend one another. It may be that ultimately we shall reach a stage in which we do not allow any Acts to be amended, but that when we want to amend an Act we repeal it and re-enact it with the proposed amendment. In that way we should always have one Act of Parliament, and one only, dealing with any one subject.
In answer to the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, may I point out that £50 is not raised to £100; it is raised to £250 which, I am told, is a little more, if anything, than a figure which corresponds to what £50 was.
LORD CHORLEY: Is that the same as presenting a petition in bankruptcy? I thought it was £100 in that case.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I was referring to the administration order. It may well be—and again, I sympathise with him when he expressed the view
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—that it should be possible to devise some way in which financial figures in Acts of Parliament may be varied other than by an Act of Parliament. I think I have suggested that, in effect, myself.
Then, with regard to the Chancery master or district registrar, the object 6f Clause 24 is to enable a Chancery or district registrar to be appointed a Chancery master, and a district or county court registrar to he appointed a taxing master. At the moment, eligibility of the appointment is limited, because under the present provisions he must be a practising solicitor of not less than ten years standing, and one of the difficulties is that a young man may become a district registrar before he has practised for that period. What is desired is to enlarge the qualifications so that a wider choice may be made. How the choice will be made must depend on the circumstances of the particular case.
I, too, hope, with the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, that an Amendment will be put down with regard to widows' damages, so that the matter may be discussed at the Committee stage. If somebody likes to put down a "spendthrift" Amendment of the nature indicated, there would, of course, he no objection. One could perhaps consider that at the same time. But this question of the widow's damages, which is obviously of importance to a substantial number of people, is not at all a political, and still less a Party political, point; it is a matter of opinion. It is just the sort of point on which two heads are better than one, and the sort of point on which it is unlikely that if it is considered by a substantial number of your Lordships in Committee, they would be wrong. I shall await to see what Amendments are put down and the discussion which will then ensue.
On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.

ELECTRICITY PYLONS IN AREAS OF NATURAL BEAUTY
4.56 p.m.
LORD EGREMONT LORD EGREMONT rose to ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will consider causing the Central Electricity Board to put underground 400 kV power lines in areas of outstanding natural beauty. The noble Lord said: My Lords, I rise to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. I must ask your Lordships' indulgence. This is the first time that I have addressed your Lordships. Until recently, and for twenty years or more, I was what some people call a "back room boy", and in those circumstances one was seldom seen and even more seldom heard. Therefore, it is with more than ordinary diffidence that I address your Lordships this evening.
I do not wish to inject anything of a politically controversial nature into this Question. What I should like to do is to inject some common sense. I once raised this question with the predecessor of the present Minister of Power. I was met with a look like a stone wall with broken glass on top. Nevertheless, hope springs eternal in the human breast. What I am talking about are pylons 160 feet high, which is only a few feet less than the height of Nelson's Column. They would be twice the size of pylons which your Lordships have known, and disliked, before.
What I have particularly in mind are fifteen miles of West Sussex—fifteen miles of outstanding natural beauty, over which it is planned to plant these pylons. These pylons, which are 160 feet high, would, so to speak, be passing through; they would be carrying 25 cables from Dungeness to Cornwall. The cables would be very thick. They would form a screen which would sag to about 25 feet off the ground. It is possible that large landscape features elsewhere in the United Kingdom might absorb huge pylons of this size: I do not know, but I suppose it is possible. What I do know is that the West Sussex countryside is small, intimate and beautiful. It cannot absorb these huge pylons. They would stick out as terrible emblems of what a monopoly might successfully do to raddle and ruin the face of the fairest
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part of Britain, within 60 miles of London.
These huge erections would march across a skyline, and much of the line would be on high or open ground in sight of the Downs and the Rother Valley. For instance, between Lodsworth and Midhurst, the line would be on Or near the summit of the escarpment—at one point about the 400 foot contour line, where pylons and cables would be silhouetted against the skyline and visible all the way from Chanctonbury Ring, fifteen miles to the East, to a corresponding distance to the West. These giant pylons would cross the centre of the open country which constitutes the famous view from the Downs above Harting.
What about the economics of the scheme? These giant pylons, at least 160 feet high, carrying 400,000 volts, would be the biggest pylons one had ever seen. But not for long. The voltage of the super-grid transmission network is expected to be raised to 750,000 volts in the 1970s, needing even more awful, wider, taller towers. It does not bear thinking about—unless we put the lines underground. The plain fact is that to put underground the lines, for example, in these fifteen especially beautiful miles of West Sussex would mean, on the Electricity Board's own figures, an additional cost equivalent to only three-quarters of 1 per cent. of their estimated programme of expenditure up to 1969. I am convinced that the economics could be made more simple and easy if only we got down to tackling the problem really earnestly.
We have here in the Central Electricity Board a monopoly which has given the impression, unwittingly perhaps, that it is a corporation without a conscience to be pricked or a bottom to be kicked, for why cannot these lines go underground? "Oh", they say, "it is far too expensive. If anybody else could suggest a cheaper way of putting the lines underground we might adopt it." So long as we have this buck-passing we shall have bigger and bigger pylons and a more and more horrible Britain. Such an attitude is not distinguished. It is like Euclid's definition of a point: no parts, no magnitude, only a position.
My Lords, is it too expensive? Here are some more figures. I took them from an able article by a Mr. G. C. Gracey in

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the July issue of Design. To put underground 1 per cent. of future super-grid lines would add no more than one-tenth of 1 per cent. to bulk supply charges. This would cater for most of the cases where visual amenity is a serious concern. If you take into account the conservative nature of financial policy in respect of depreciation, you will find that it would not represent any significantly large expenditure. I apologise for boring your Lordships with these sums, but they are important. I do not expect any definite reply to-day from Her Majesty's Government; but when they study figures such as these I hope they will be agreeably surprised. And these figures do exist. In the meantime, and in any case, in the matter of putting cables underground the Electricity Board are still living in the horse-and-buggy age. You would hardly believe it, but the insulation of underground cables to-day is still the oil insulating paper that was introduced by (I need hardly say) one of the Ferrantis about 1880. Not nearly enough is being done to find alternatives to the overhead by item. It will not be done unless people make a fuss, and I am making a fuss now; and if the Board's wayleave officer asks to see me at Petworth I shall have him thrown down the stairs.
One final word about expense. Delays clue to public inquiries alone can cost from £10,000 to £20,000 a week. if £20,000 were offered as a prize for the best method of reducing the cost of underground cables by 10 per cent. we might be getting somewhere. I do most earnestly suggest to Her Majesty's Government two things: first, that they should cause the Electricity Board to put underground these cables in this most beautiful part of West Sussex, and, secondly, that they should cause research about putting cables underground to be much increased. Well, my Lords, these are some views from the erstwhile back-room boy. I only hope that, after Her Majesty's Government have had time to consider them and similar views, they may suddenly start singing:
"See what the boys in the back room will have
And tell them we're having the same."
5.5 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I should like, if I may, to support
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the noble Lord, Lord Egremont, on what he has said. I am sure we should all be extremely grateful to him for raising this subject. As your Lordships know, it is his maiden speech in this House—and a very good one too! And, what is more, it has been devoted to a subject with which this House is, I think, particularly fitted to deal because, although it may be regarded as in some ways a controversial subject, it is certainly a non-Party subject and is entirely devoted to saving something of the beauties of this country which are so rapidly disappearing before our eyes.
I do not think we in this country quite realise how quickly these things are being eroded. Not so long ago we had Manchester's assault upon the Lake District which your Lordships who were here at the time will well remember. Then we had a similar proposal as that to which the noble Lord, Lord Egremont, has referred, to run pylons across the beautiful Avon Valley. And now we hear to-day of a similar desecration of one of the loveliest parts of Sussex. If it could be proved to our satisfaction that there is no alternative to this desecration no doubt we should seriously have to consider whether we should be justified in rejecting proposals of this kind: but, so far as I know, no public evidence has been produced that all possible efforts are being made to find some alternative.
These great, powerful public institutions with which we are all now so familiar seem to think it quite unnecessary for them to make any effort to justify their actions to the public. They just issue their fiat and expect the country to accept it without more ado. Nor are we given any idea of their future plans of where all this is going to lead; whether this is the end of the desecration or whether there are further things to come along. They are wrapped in mystery until it is too late for us to make any effective opposition to them. As the noble Lord, Lord Egremont, has said, the outlook, if not for us—and some of us are getting quite old now—for our children, does not really bear thinking about.
What I should like to ask the Government to-day is this. Could they not appoint some body, some independent body, to look into matters of this kind and cross-examine the Central Electricity Generating Board and try to find out,

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first, what their present plans are and, secondly, what their future plans are; and not only to cross-examine them but to publish the results of their cross-examination? The House of Lords is a body which I think is noted for its breadth of mind and independent judgment, and now that this subject has been raised here I do hope that the Government will give an assurance that they will at any rate look further into this and kindred schemes before it is too late, and make a report to this House on what they discover.
5.9 p.m.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: My Lords, it is a very pleasant task indeed to join with the noble Marquess in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Egremont, on his excellent maiden speech, which, I may say, he has made in the presence of his father on the same Bench—something which does not happen very often in this House. I do not know whether the noble Marquess can recall a former occasion, but in my time in your Lordships' House I do not think it has happened before. I also had the great pleasure of sitting with the noble Lord's uncle on Benches on the other side of the House. I remember, too, serving with him in the war in North Africa, and I have therefore become accustomed to his rather special brand of wit—what we might describe as the Wyndham wit. Being a neighbour in Sussex, I felt obliged to say something to support his plea for further consideration of this matter, further consideration before these enormous electricity pylons are allowed to disfigure the beauties of our countryside.
Apart from our declared interest in West Sussex, we should, I think, also consider other parts of the British Isles, not only the Lake District which the noble Marquess mentioned but the Highlands of Scotland and the glorious scenery of Wales. I do not like the charm of our countryside being marred by these what I might describe as rather inferior Eiffel Towers. To-day I see a Derbyshire farmer has been fighting the Generating Board for more than a year over the super-grid it is proposed to run across his land right in front of his house. Scenes which Constable immortalised for us are being spoiled, so that the artists
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of the future will have to include in their landscapes these large steel, scaffold-like edifices linked together by sagging wires.
I am sure that your Lordships will agree that no one wishes to deprive the inhabitants of any part of these Islands of enjoying the benefits of electric power. These should be available to all. It is also essential, if the industrialisation of this country is to spread, as I fear it must, much more evenly to the less well developed areas. I fully recognise that there are many difficulties involved in placing these power lines underground; not the least of these are of course financial. However, I consider it is unfortunate that in this technological age we have not yet been able to evolve a system whereby these cables can be laid underground speedily and at relatively low cost. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Egremont, that further research should be undertaken with this end in view.
I believe that the Generating Board do take some trouble over the siting of these pylons. They say they do. But I hope the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, who is to reply for the Government will at least be able to give us an assurance that they will never be erected without any regard to the scenery which they are spoiling. I hope that in certain areas perhaps for short distances the cables will be put underground, maybe a mile or two, or less, and not necessarily the entire cable. In the case of the area mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Egremont, even if the whole 15 miles of cable cannot be put underground perhaps certain parts of it may be; and this would not involve the very great cost of putting longer lengths underground.
The noble Lord has mentioned the towns of Lodsworth and Midhurst, which know well, too, and the view of the Downs above Harting. Such pylons would destroy that glorious country in which, as Belloc said, Chanctonbury is crowned in the middle place. I think, too, of a particularly lovely avenue of beech trees leading to my own home in Sussex at the end of which rises one of these massive constructions, albeit, some three miles away. It might have been better had it been sited in the centre of the avenue, but in fact it is not. I must admit that it would be a great joy if it could be moved, either out of sight or centred more appropriately. The only

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compensation for mists and bad weather in winter is that it is not then visible.
My Lords, on such occasions as these I remember the eloquence and skill of the late Lord Birkett, who advocated so wisely and strongly that we should progress by protecting lather than by marring the beauty spots of this country. This non-political yet none the less controversial issue is one which I hope your Lordships will earnestly consider, and I am very grateful to my noble friend for having raised it. Your Lordships may remember the word; of Belloc:
"The moon stood over Chanctonbury, so removed and cold in her silver that you might almost have thought her careless of the follies of men."
My Lords, none of us should be careless of what I believe to be our sacred trust.
5.16 p.m.
THE EARL OF DUDLEY: My Lords, I should like to add my praise and congratulations on his maiden speech to the noble Lord, Lord Egremont, a very old friend of mine, of whose great abilities and very nimble wit I have been aware for many years. He does not always show it because he is naturally reticent, which I suppose was ingrained in him when he was a back-room boy; but now he is no longer a back-room boy I hope he will come here often and give us the benefit of his opinions and good sneaking, and I hope his noble father will he sitting on his left. I do not know whether your Lordships read an article in the Press the other day criticising a book by the noble Lord, Lord Snow. It showed a great genius for journalism and also a pretty wit. Perhaps he started that when he and my son were co-editors of their school magazine. I am getting rather tired of some of our political writers and I hope he will turn his genius to this line as well.
I sympathise very much with what he says, because I own a 2,000-acre property in a most beautiful corner of Hertfordshire. It is in the Green Belt and one might be in the heart of the country. It really is a lovely part: of natural beauty. The noble Marquess has been there and knows I am not "overbaking the pudding". The Central Electricity Generating Board are going to put pylons clean across my farm and the farms of my neighbours, starting this summer. They will not be as big as the ones my noble friend Lord Egremont talks about, but the
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concrete bases will be 17 feet in diameter. It is a considerable handicap to my farm. My farm is one of a thousand acres there, and in the interests of good husbandry I have taken out a great many hedges to enable me to reap and sow more quickly than I did. But now, with these things, it will be a case of "dodgem" round the pylons at great cost in labour.
I know it is a difficult position. I know that the actual underground burying of cables is nothing difficult with present machinery; it costs practically nothing at all. I am not to benefit, by the way, from these pylons that go across my land; they are to boost the electricity supply from Watford to Chesham. They are not helping me, and I still have several cottages on my property where there is no electricity. But I understand cables have to be buried in oil-impregnated tubes. I did not know until I heard my noble friend Lord Egremont's speech that that invention was so old. I believe it is very costly; I think it is eight times the cost of putting them overhead. There is nothing I can do about it. I signed my agreement last week, doing it hatefully, not wanting to do it in the least degree, but not wanting to get on the wrong side of the Electricity Board, hoping I shall get some electricity in my cottages.
I hope the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, will give us a full assurance that the Government and its technological departments will look into this matter very closely, and that in this scientific age it will be possible, at a later date, to bury these cables at a reasonable cost and restore the beauty of the Green Belt. After all, what is the use of having a Green Belt if you are going to ruin it by these electricity pylons? You might just as well build houses on it, and the Government might make a little extra money from advertisement hoardings along the road. So I hope they will really get down to work to see what can be done in regard to this matter.
5.21 p.m.
LORD CHORLEY: My Lords, I hope that your Lordships will forgive me if I speak again this afternoon, but I think that I have spoken in every one of the debates on this subject over the last fifteen years. As honorary secretary of the Council for the Preservation of Rural England, and being greatly concerned with these matters, I should like to say how much I agree with what the noble

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Lord, Lord Egremont, has said, and to congratulate him on using his maiden speech to bring this important matter once more before the House.
I want only to say a few words in support of his plea that this section—after all, it is a short section—of the big Grid line in West Sussex should be put underground. Undoubtedly it will be most expensive, but the late Minister made one or two orders requiring this sort of line to be placed underground. There is the particularly well known case of the line from Derbyshire across South Yorkshire. That was most expensive. The Minister accepted the view that the countryside there was of outstanding beauty, though I do not think it could in that respect be put higher than this countryside in West Sussex. So, with this valuable precedent, I hope that the new Minister will see his way to follow the precedent so admirably set by the Minister who now sits on the other side of the House.
I should like it to be known that we in the amenities movement have a great deal of sympathy with Sir Christopher Hinton and his people. We have to criticise them from time to time, but I am quite sure that he is sensitive to this problem. I have more than once heard him speak on it, and anybody who has heard him could not think that he was other than quite sincerely sympathetic to the view of the amenity societies.
Undoubtedly this is mostly a question of expense. A great deal of trouble has been taken in Sussex to try to find the least objectionable line. The Board are now employing the services of one of the most outstanding amenity planners (if one can use that term) in England, Miss Sylvia Crowe, whose work is known to everybody concerned with these matters and a great deal of trouble and time has been put into the solution of this problem. The difficulty is that it is not soluble on the overhead-line basis, at least over long areas of this beautiful countryside; but in this exceptionally vulnerable section I feel that a strong case has been made out for burying the cable, with, if necessary, a subsidy from central funds. It is only a question of a few miles. I agree with what the noble Earl, Lord Bess-
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borough, said about it: obviously, we cannot expect to have the whole length of this line put underground. But we can hope, and, I think, expect from the new Government, that sympathetic consideration will be given to putting a fairly long stretch of the line underground in this particularly vulnerable section of this lovely county.
5.26 p.m.
VISCOUNT MERSEY: My Lords, I want only to ask two questions of the noble Lord who is to reply. I take it that this is really a question of finance, and that no Government, neither the present nor the late Government, would wish to put up pylons if they could possibly put the line underground. On the figures that we have been given, such an enormous difference in cost is shown that it makes it difficult for the Central Electricity Board to carry out such a policy as is now urged except at the expense of putting up their charges, which will hit many people all over the country. But the difficulty I have found, in looking at the figures we have been given (no doubt we shall be given some more) is to know whether they are correct.
I take it, and it cannot be in dispute, that underground cables are a great deal more expensive than pylons. I accept that point. But if you work out what the cost of pylons is going to be, that is only the start of the story. Obviously, you have to deal with maintenance. I have no idea of what sort of figure that amounts to; but structures of this kind obviously have to be repainted, and so on, and the figure involved must be a considerable one.
Then I think of the unfortunate people with houses or cottages, or whatever it may be, who suddenly find themselves and their amenities practically ruined. One may have a small house with a pylon of this size only about 20 or 30 yards from its door. I take it that the value of the house would be halved, and I assume that the owner would have redress in the ordinary course of events. He would also, no doubt, apply for a reduction in the rateable value of the house. I should have thought he would possibly have a good case for redress in respect of the reduced value of the property, and might well ask for compensation. I should be most grateful if, when he comes to reply, the noble Lord

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opposite could give us some information on what is proposed in that respect, because I think it is immensely important; and, of course, it all adds to the cost of having the pylons.
That is all I have to say, except that I should like to join with other noble Lords who have congratulated Lord Egremont on his excellent speech, which gave no evidence at all of his being an inexperienced "back-room boy". I hope that he will come here and speak to us often in future, and will raise questions of this sort which I think are of great interest to all noble Lords on both sides of the House.
5.28 p.m.
LORD SOMERS: My Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, replies, I should like to say that, although I am no expert on these subjects, I cannot feel that the laying underground of cables is so far away. I well remember that when I lived in the depths of the country I had to connect my property with a water main in the village, which was about a mile away. This was done by a method which I had not encountered before. The pipe was attached to the rear of a tractor and was drawn through the ground at a suitable level, rather as a piece of cotton is drawn through a piece of material. I should have thought that methods like that, provided that the ground is soft, could also be used for cables. Of course it is a different matter where one has to cross under roads. It has already been noted that, naturally, not all cables can be put underground, but I think that the Government should give earnest consideration to this question of spoiling both our natural beauty and the amenities of private property, which has been mentioned by other noble Lords.
Before I sit down I, too, should like to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Egremont, on his maiden speech. When I compare it with my own, I am filled with envy. I only hope that we shall hear him many times again.
5.30 p.m.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, I, too, would join with every other noble Lord who has spoken in congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Egremont, on a most entertaining maiden speech in which his native wit poked through. I am very
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glad that he now has an opportunity to exercise his talents in public, because I feel that that wit often must have been suppressed when he was serving his twenty years as a back-room boy. Although I would add that it was "some" back room—in fact, it might almost be described as a "power house"; and that, no doubt, is why he has chosen this particular subject for his first essay in your Lordships' House. I am particularly pleased, too, that he has made this speech in the presence of his father. I imagine that this is an occasion which cannot often be repeated because the circumstances would not be so likely to arise again.
My Lords, I am aware that my voice sounds like gravel. I do not know whether my face looks like a wall with broken glass on top, as was the case with a former Minister of Power when he was asked this particular Question. It may not be that I can wholly satisfy the noble Lord, nor indeed any other noble Lord who has spoken so far; but I would congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Egremont, on the start which he has made in this House, not only in making his maiden speech, but in taking this particular subject. It is a tribute to the importance of the subject, and no doubt to his own qualities, that, instead of what I had anticipated—that is to say, that the noble Lord would open and that I would close—we have had, I think, eight speeches in this debate. For that I am grateful, and I can give an immediate assurance that my right honourable friend will study the whole debate and pay great heed to what has been said.
One thing I should like to make clear is that, so far as I am aware, everyone, including myself, who has spoken in this debate is a land-owner—I, of course, on a very much smaller scale than the noble Earl, Lord Dudley. I have not 2,000 acres, but, like the noble Earl, I have pylons on my land, and I understand that I shall shortly be giving wayleaves for more pylons. One of the reasons why I am in agreement is that, like the noble Earl, I am anxious to get electricity on to my own small farm in places where it was not before.
The noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, said that if it could be proved to our satisfaction that there was no alternative

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to desecration, then we should have to accept it.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I did not quite say "accept it". I said that we should have to consider it very seriously.
LORD STONHAM: It might amount to the same thing. But whether or not I shall prove this to the noble Lord's satisfaction, at least I am going to give the facts as I see them, and it may perhaps give a somewhat different picture from the one that has already been presented. The Central Electricity Generating Board in formulating their proposals, and the Minister in considering them, are under a statutory duty to take into account the effect which the proposals would have on the natural beauty of the countryside. Whenever objections are made to a proposal to construct 400,000-volt lines in an area of outstanding beauty, the possibility of placing at least some part of the lines underground is always considered. But because of the very high cost of placing 400 kV lines underground this can be done only in very exceptional circumstances, and there could be no question of making it, as Lord Egremont asks, the invariable rule in such areas, because the cost would be beyond anything we could contemplate. Each case must therefore he considered strictly on its merits.
The noble Earl, Lord Bessborough, asked for an assurance that decisions of this kind would never be taken without the most searching inquiry and the most careful consideration of all those kinds of things which have been raised in this debate. This scheme first started, as it were, in a practical way in 1959; there have been searching inquiries going on ever since. The noble Lord, Lord Egremont spoke almost as if there were a degree of unanimity in the area about what should be done in this particular case. But no fewer that nine different schemes have been put forward: the red scheme, the green scheme, the yellow, the purple, the short blue and indeed the long blue, the brown, the minor deviation and the Buriton diversion. Indeed, even the two Inspectors, having picked up pieces of each of those schemes to put into a composite whole, came to the point where they themselves disagreed. Most remarkable
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reasons have been put forward for objections and suggestions. For example, the Nature Conservancy objected to the green route, particularly where it went through Crimbourne Wood, which was part of a larger area of woodland of considerable scientific interest known as The Mens.
I was asked also about the extent to which advice was taken, and my noble friend Lord Chorley mentioned Miss Sylvia Crowe. She was engaged by the Central Electricity Generating Board to advise on this route; she is a Past President of the Institute of Landscape Architects. Having considered the whole matter, in advising the Board to apply for the red route she was guided by considerations such as these: the views to and from the South Downs; the views from Blackdown and its associated hills and ranges; the effect on local landscapes; the effect on views from individual properties; the use of broken and complex landscapes; the elevation of the ground, and the possible use of tolerance in siting the towers. In the light of such examinations, and the fact that Sir William Holford is a member of the Board and has taken a particular interest in this subject, it cannot be said for one moment that these matters are lightly considered or that the people who make the decision have no regard for amenity. But when one considers these things one realises that a decision has to be reached eventually. The noble Viscount, Lord Mersey, raised the quite important point about somebody's property being ruined and asked about compensation. There is, I understand, compensation available when value is affected; it is usually settled by negotiation. It could go to the Lands Tribunal if agreement was not reached.
It has been suggested or implied in this debate so far that the only way to save our lovely countryside from desecration is to put lines underground; but a great deal can be done to mitigate the effect of overhead lines on the countryside by careful routing and great care is taken by the Board in making their proposals. The Board consult local planning authorities and so on.
The noble Marquess asked whether the C.E.G.B. could not be instructed to tell us what are their plans for the future

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and where they are moving. They have consulted county authorities and told them their plans for as far ahead as 1970. That is a continuing process which is going on. They have consulted the National Parks Commission and other interests, and, of course, the Minister in considering all these plans is in consultation with the Minister of Housing and Local Government.
However, when one speaks of amenity, my right honourable friend the Minister of Power has to bear in mind that visual amenity, important though it is, is only one of the amenities. It is one of his prime duties to ensure that throughout the country there is a sufficient supply of the important amenity of electricity. Other solutions have been considered; for example, whetter localised generation with fewer transmission lines would not be preferable. But if that solution were adopted, then the number of power station sites which would have to be obtained each year would be very much greater, and the Board's capital cost would be increased by as much as £35 million a year. The smaller stations. which would thus be provided, would be considerably less efficient, and therefore more costly in operation.
The question of cost has been mentioned, and I should like to deal with the implications of adopting the proposal which has been embodied in the noble Lord's Question. The National Parks, and areas of outstanding natural beauty so far designated account together for something like 15 per cent. of the total area of England and Wales. Many places, including the one we are now discussing, have not yet been—although I have no doubt This one will be—designated as areas of outstanding natural beauty. What I am saying is that the areas of such beauty which we want to preserve are considerably more in total than 15 per cent. of the entire land area of England and Wales, so it is a very big thing that we are thinking of.
The C.E.G.B. have planned some 1,200 miles of 400 kV overhead lines to be built by 1970, in the next six years, and there will be more after that. Of course, it is not possible to say what proportion of those 1,200 miles will fall within the designated areas, but it will not be possible to avoid them entirely, especially as con-
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sumers in and near them want more power.
I must emphasise this point about underground cable being enormously more expensive than overhead lines. For very heavy duty 400 kV lines the cost overhead is about £54,000 a mile, but underground cable to carry the same amount of energy would cost, according to the latest estimate, £1,182,000 a mile. That is 22 times as much. When the Board originally gave their estimate for this particular inquiry, they themselves said £900,000 a mile. They had hoped to make economies, but the cost of cooling underground is so great that the current estimate, based on the estimates of the contractors who will themselves provide and lay cable, is £1,182,000. The cost of the particular 15 miles underground with which the noble Lord is mainly concerned would he £18 million.
These are not matters that can be considered lightly. Heavy insulation of underground cables has to be provided, whereas the insulation of overhead lines is provided free by the surrounding air. If we said, as the noble Lord asked, that in future all lines going through areas of outstanding beauty must go underground, it would be tantamount to signing an open cheque, and it would be bound to have some effect on the price of electricity. More important, it would involve a considerable diversion of capital resources which we just cannot afford. Of course, that is not to say that these lines are never going to be put underground. My noble friend Lord Chorley mentioned some 3½ miles in the High Peak district, but the C.E.G.B. may be able there to take advantage of a disused railway tunnel. In the same way, in the Glaslyn area there is another 3¾ miles which is going underground to preserve a marvellous vista of Snowdon. But these circumstances are wholly exceptional.
Although the issue in each case is mainly one of cost, it is by no means the only factor. Your Lordships should not think that this is all honey, that there are only advantages in putting the cables underground. The physical operation of placing these lines underground is fraught with all kinds of difficulties, especially in cultivated areas. For example, for the equivalent of the Bolney—Lovedean line, in which the noble Lord is interested, four trenches placed at least six feet apart

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with the necessary access road would make a corridor of land at least 42 feet in width. That would be another Roman road going right down to Cornwall, but double the width. That would involve a considerable amount of disturbance to the properties which would have to be crossed. I am talking about going underground. The trenches and the access road would involve the clearing of hedges and woodlands along the route.
While it would be possible to cultivate the land immediately over and adjacent to the cables, once they were laid, it would not be possible to erect buildings or structures of any sort along the route. There would be drums of cable weighing anything from 13 to 16 tons each which would have to be transported to the site, and joints involving excavation of large pits would be necessary every 240 yards—about every furlong: nearly eight to the mile. For cooling the cables there would have to be a heat exchanger unit, the size of a large bungalow, every two or three miles; and every seven miles or so there would be a substantial building, much bigger than a large bungalow, to house the compensation equipment for balancing the charging current of the cables. Of course, there might be difficulty in finding acceptable sites for these buildings. There would be the scar created by the placing of the cables. Also, it has been found that underground cables tend to dry up the surrounding earth, and this would be bound to have a noticeable effect on the vegetation growing above.
My Lords, with all these disadvantages how could we possibly justify the expenditure of well over £1 million on every mile for laying underground cable—22 times as much as the cost of overhead lines? These lines with which the noble Lord is particularly concerned—and rightly, of course—form part of a major transmission line across the South of England, from Dungeness, in Kent, to Exeter, and then beyond into Cornwall. This line is required to reinforce supplies to meet the increased demands for electricity from consumers in the Southern Counties, and to connect with new power sources on the coast.
Since the public inquiry, criticism of the Board's proposal has centred largely on this western section which we have been discussing, between Petworth and
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Buriton. Of course, as I mentioned, several alternative routes were suggested. To give an indication of the extent to which this matter has been inquired into, an alternative was suggested by the Midhurst Rural District Council, which would have had the effect of taking the lines further away from Midhurst and Cowdray Park. The inspectors recommended this route, and another alternative further east, for investigation before any final decision was taken. But after consultation with the Minister of Housing and Local Government, the former Minister of Power decided to reject the inspectors' recommendation and to consent to the route proposed by the Board.
The decision letter, which is a very long letter, makes it clear that the time factor was only one of the factors involved in the decision. If the alternative routes had held out some hope of acceptance, and time had been of little account, they might have been investigated. As it was, it certainly appeared that they would be at least as hotly opposed as the Board's route, and, consequently, a further inquiry would have had to be held, so that a great deal of further delay, with all the risk to supplies which that would involve, would have been inevitable. As I said, the proposal has already been under consideration for nearly five years.
My Lords, I must make it clear that my right honourable friend the present Minister has no power at all under the Act to withdraw the consent which his predecessor granted to the Board. This consent carries with it deemed planning permission, and provides a tolerance of 200 yards on either side of the approved route. So it is a swath from Sussex to Cornwall, a quarter of a mile wide, that we are considering. But before the Board can construct the lines they must either obtain voluntary wayleaves from the owners and occupiers of land to be crossed by the line, or, failing that, obtain compulsory wayleaves from the Minister of Power.
The noble Lord, Lord Egremont, said, "If the inspector comes along, or the official comes along, asking for a way-leave, I shall kick him down the stairs." He is, of course, perfectly entitled to do that, if he likes, but I should not have thought it would strengthen his case. It might, at least to some extent,

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damage the image which he has already created by his speech to-day. But he has every right, of course, to refuse voluntarily to grant a wayleave, in which case the matter would have to go before the Minister to decide whether to grant the Board a compulsory wayleave in any particular case. And before that was done the owner or occupier concerned would be given an opportunity of being heard. This would normally be done by appointing one of the Minister's inspectors to hold a hearing at which the cases of the Board and the owner-occupier could be heard, and the Minister would reach a decision in the light of the inspector's report.
THE EARL OF DUDLEY: My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord one question? He tells us of the difference in price between overhead cables and underground cables, and says that the cost of the latter is twenty-two times higher. Does that apply only to the larger type which the noble Lord, Lord Egremont, mentioned—that is, 400 KV power lines—or does it apply to all power lines? I have been in very close touch with the Central Electricity Board about my land, and they have told me that it is only eight times.
LORD STONHAM: I am glad the noble Earl has asked that question. This price of £1,182,000 applies only to the 400 KV lines. There are, of course, pylons carrying lines with 275,000 volts which are only 136 feet high, compared with the 165 feet high pylons of which we are now speaking.
THE EARL OF DUDLEY: But they are just as ugly.
LORD STONHAM: Yes, but these are not all that much more ugly. One would have imagined this was something terrifically new. But the important thing for the noble Earl to bear in mind is that these 400 KV lines will carry three times as much current as the 275 KV lines. Therefore, there are far fewer of them, and far fewer pylons; and that is why, perhaps not in the area affected but certainly in the aggregate, and nationally, they produce less scars.
I was dealing will the point about wayleaves. If an owner objects, there can be a hearing and the Minister has to decide. If the Minister decides not to grant a compulsory wayleave, then the
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Board has to find a way round; and if the Board does apply for a compulsory wayleave over the noble Earl's land, then that is the procedure that would have to be followed—although, of course, I cannot anticipate, assuming that the noble Lord did refuse to grant a wayleave, what my right honourable friend's decision might be in that case.
My Lords, I have tried to answer the questions that have been asked. I did not, when I started, imagine that I was going to satisfy everybody, but I have given, I think, facts which must be considered and which are basic to this problem; and I hope that that at least will be of use to the noble Lord in further considering this matter. But I want to say this, on the general question: we have to face the fact that this country has an urgent and increasing demand for electricity which has to he met; that demand is doubling itself every nine years, according to the latest count, and the interests of the country require that the necessary plant and equipment for meeting this demand should be provided, not only efficiently and quickly, but also with due regard to securing a proper balance between the claims of amenity and the claims of economy.
I am seeing my right honourable friend on (I think it is) Thursday, and I wilt most certainly see that these points are very thoroughly brought to his notice, although I am quite sure that he will have read this debate even before then. But I say to your Lordships that after prolonged and searching inquiry it has been decided that these to some extent conflicting claims of amenity and economy have been best reconciled in the scheme which was approved by the former Minister of Power, and that my right honourable friend has agreed that in the national interest it must now go forward.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I know that nobody has any power, on an Unstarred Question, to say anything further, and all I want to do is to ask the noble Lord a question, though I must say that I was a little surprised by his very definite statement that it is impossible for the Minister to undo any decision made by a former Minister. That certainly does not seem to have been the attitude of the Government in certain

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other spheres, as we heard only this afternoon.
The question I want to ask is this. I understand from the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, that the plans of the Electricity Generating Board are pretty well completed up to 1970, anyhow, and that they have consulted the National Parks Commission and the county councils on these plans. The only people who have not heard about these plans are the general public. If they are so widely known as this, would it be possible for the noble Lord to suggest to his right honourable friend that some type of map could be drawn up which would show what plans have been approved up to 1970? Because, even if there is nothing to be done about these plans—and I would agree with the noble Lord that he made a very powerful case—I think we ought to know what we are up against; and I would be very grateful if he would ask just that question of the Minister.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, on the question of my right honourable friend's powers in this matter, I would repeat that under the Act as it stands he has no power to vary a previous decision. The noble Marquess will be aware that my right honourable friend the Minister of Transport, greatly to my regret, has not the power to vary certain decisions made by his predecessor under the 1962 Transport Act—which decisions, in my view, will devastate the countryside. But, unfortunately, without further legislation nothing can be done. On the noble Marquess's question, however, I should like to make it clear—and I am sure he will accept this—that before the C.E.G.B. can publish tentative plans they must consult with major authorities in order to secure some measure of agreement. But, apart from that reservation, I think he is certainly on a very good point, and I will bring it to the attention of my right honourable friend.
LORD REDESDALE: My Lords, before the noble Lord finally sits down perhaps he will give me the chance (I know that he has been asked many questions to-night) of asking just one further question. In view of the fact that the demand for electricity will go on increas-
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ing in the years to come, there will obviously be, on this basis, need for bigger and bigger pylons. There has been some talk in the past about a superconductor system using liquid nitrogen to cool the line. I was wondering whether the noble Lord could give us some assurance that the C.E.G.B. will be given a very substantial grant at this stage to enable research to be carried out now on new methods of conducting electricity, so that in the future, before they have to build something twice the height of Nelson's Column to carry it, we may have a different system, a system which one would hope would be more economical, would save charges all round and would be able to carry the electricity demands made upon it in the years to come.
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, of course I cannot commit the C.E.G.B. to grants for research, but they are already spending millions of pounds on research.
THE EARL OF BESSBOROUGH: And on super-conductivity.
LORD STONHAM: I was coming to that. They are spending £11½ million on underground cable, mainly in urban areas, every year. It is in their interest to get these costs down. But, on the point which has just been raised by the noble Lord, where a good deal of money has already been spent on research, it was thought until recently that it might be decades before that system would produce results, but only last week Dr. Kurti, of the Clarendon Laboratory, said it would be feasible in five years or so—that is an opinion, and it is the most recent opinion we have had—but we do not know at what cost. Obviously, all these matters are being very carefully considered. There will be even more intensive consideration in the hope that we can get a breakthrough: and if we get a breakthrough, then it will be much easier to take down pylons than to tear down power-houses.
LORD REDESDALE: But not, my Lords, to grow the trees they have to cut down underneath.
House adjourned at one minute past six o'clock.