Sitting of 26 October 1965

Preamble
The House—having adjourned on 5th August, 1965, for the Summer Recess—met at half-past two o'clock.

DEATH OF MR. SPEAKER
THE CLERK, at the Table, acquainted the House that it was his sad duty to inform the House of the death, on 2nd September last, of Mr. Speaker.
Then the SERJEANT laid the Mace under the Table.

ELECTION OF SPEAKER
The First Secretary of State and Secretary of State for Economic Affairs (Mr. George Brown)(addressing himself to the Clerk of the House, who, standing up, pointed to him, and then sat down): Sir Barnett Cocks, I have to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the death of the Right Hon. Sir Harry Hylton-Foster, late Speaker of this House, gives leave to the House forthwith to make its choice of a new Speaker.
Mr. E. Shinwell: Sir Barnett Cocks, by virtue of the Gracious Message we have received, it is the responsibility of hon. Members and right hon. Gentlemen to elect one from among our
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number to occupy the Chair as Speaker of this House. I regret the tragic circumstances which have made this ceremony necessary—[HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]—circumstances that we all deplore. I learn that tomorrow tribute will be paid to our late colleague, Sir Harry Hylton-Foster. Therefore, all I do now—and I have the assurance that I represent the views of every hon. and right hon. Gentleman of this House—is to express our sincere sympathy with that gracious lady, the widow of our late colleague, Lady Hylton-Foster. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]
I have a proposition to make to the House, and have a suspicion that it will be accepted unanimously in all quarters. If that be so, this is the first occasion since I entered the House in 1922 that any proposition of mine will have been received with complete unanimity by my colleagues.
It is customary on these occasions to dilate on the qualities expected of a Speaker. Naturally, we expect the Speager of this assembly to be seized of the need for impartiality. Impartiality is not easy to define and is less easy to put into practice. I am reminded of the mayor of a provincial town who when he was elected to his high office said, in order to ingratiate himself with his fellow councillors, that it was his intention to be neither partial nor impartial. That, I think, represents the difficulties associated with impartiality. There are motives,

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there are principles, there is a background and the like, all factors which operate, sometimes excessively, in seeking to interpret impartiality. There is, of course, another quality, a very important attribute, we expect from a Speaker. That is intelligence.
So I venture to make my proposition. It is that my right hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. Horace King) be elected Speaker of this House. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."]
I have been engaged in some research into the kind of Speakers who have occupied the Chair. I am bound to say that they were a mixed bunch. Some were accused of peculation. Some were found guilty of chicanery. Some were beheaded. Some sought this honourable office, this office of great dignity, in the hope of amassing wealth through the medium of fees associated with the private office, and on occasion there were Speakers who sought to leave the Chair and were forcibly restrained. There has been an infinite variety of Speakers in the past, but now for the first time—I may be corrected, but my researches represent accurately the view I am about to express—we have someone proposed who has high academic distinction, indeed a doctor of philosophy. We have never yet had a doctor of philosophy as Speaker. Philosophy denotes knowledge and something ever superior to knowledge, wisdom and judgment. These are qualities in the possession of my right hon. Friend.
He has also the quality of experience. We can recall those long nights, excessively long in the judgment of many hon. Members. We can recall the stresses and strains and the turbulence and how my right hon. Friend comported himself, leaning neither to the right nor to the left but resting himself on sound and basic principles, the principles of democracy in a democratic assembly. He gained vast experience in consequence, and that experience I am certain he is ready to place at our disposal if, in the judgment of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen, we decide to elect him.
My right hon. Friend has other qualities. I learned from the newspapers recently that he is something of a pianist. Of course, he is not the only musician in
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this House. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition is no mean performer on another instrument. Somewhere on these benches is my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Mr. O'Malley), who is another musician. There are several in this assembly. My right hon. Friend the Member for Itchen may regard himself as something in the nature of a conductor, adapting the strings to the woods and, on occasion, seeking to subdue the cacophonous strains of the brass. Some day we may have a Parliamentary orchestra. All the ingredients are there at our disposal.
These are the attributes of my right hon. Friend. But there is something even more important. We expect Mr. Speaker to be not a superior person, but a human being; to exude a sense of humanity. I recall that when Mr. Speaker Morrison occupied the Chair some years ago I had some difficulty with him. We were at loggerheads. We had occasional quarrels. One day he invited me to his own room at half-past four to have a cup of tea. I could hardly decline, so I repaired to his room. I saw no evidence of tea cups or tea pots or tea caddies. Mr. Speaker Morrison was engaged in supping beer from a pint pot. I was astonished. He invited me to join him. I declined. He asked me whether I was teetotal. I assured him I was not. I said I occasionally liked a glass of whisky. He went to a cupboard, procured a bottle, and poured me out a stiff portion. After that I thought he was the best Speaker I had ever known. Far be it from me to suggest that this should be a universal practice.
What are the qualities that hon. Members expect from Mr. Speaker? This is very simple. I will explain them. When an hon. Member rises in his place he should immediately, without hesitation, catch Mr. Speaker's eye. If that happens, then Mr. Speaker is a great Speaker. But if the hon. Member has to wait through long periods of time until he is called, as time passes his enthusiasm for Mr. Speaker gradually dwindles.
We are faced today with the selection of a right hon. Gentleman, a colleague of ours, to occupy this honourable and dignified position, one that I feel sure is the ambition of many right hon. and hon. Members, with my exception. The idea of wearing a wig and ruling this

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assembly is quite beyond me. I am in a way, in a more modest fashion, a Speaker in that I am the Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party. Unfortunately in my case it is without any salary attached to the job.
My proposition is that my right hon. Friend should be elected unanimously to fill the Speaker's Chair with the dignity we expect of him, with the judgment that resides in him, with compassion, with understanding, and, in particular, with a due regard to the rights of minorities in this assembly.
I beg to move,
That the Right Hon. Dr. Horace King do take the Chair of this House as Speaker.
Sir William Anstruther-Gray: Sir Barnett Cocks, in rising to second the Motion that is before the House, I am sure that the House will allow me to preface my remarks for a few moments by echoing the words of sympathy which the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) expressed on our behalf to Lady Hylton-Foster. I think the House would expect that of me. Not only was Sir Harry my friend for 40 years, but for five years, up to the end of the last Parliament, I had the privilege of working under him as Deputy Speaker or as Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means. No man can know better than I how conscientious he was in the service of the House; and who can say to what extent he sacrificed himself in serving us?
Sir Barnett Cocks, I would like to turn to the Motion which I have been privileged to be allowed to second. In doing so, I shall not dilate so much on the qualities that we require of the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. Horace King), because I think we are all agreed that he holds them in great measure. I want to dilate rather on the difficulties of the office of Speaker in a Parliament like this. I do this, not because I have the slightest doubt that the right hon. Member will be able to cope with those difficulties, but because I believe that he will do so more easily if the House appreciates how considerable they can be.
The first thing—it is most difficult for a kindly man to face this fact—is that it is impossible for a good Speaker to please everybody. Quite the contrary. Further,
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the more evenly divided the House and the more important the ruling required on a marginal point, the clearer it becomes that what will please one side of the House is likely to displease the other. Yet Mr. Speaker must face decisions without fear or favour. I am quite sure that the right hon. Gentleman will do so.
The closure, I suppose, is the commonest occasion when this takes place. I do not mean the automatic closure at the end of a debate when both sides are determined to vote. I mean a closure on a controversial subject, perhaps during the Report stage of a Bill. It all depends from what point of view Mr. Speaker's decision is regarded. By and large, the Government will want him to accept the closure. The Government want to get on with their business. By and large, the Opposition will hope that Mr. Speaker will decline the closure, because the Opposition wants to delay the Government's business and ensure that all points against the Motion are heard in full. There Mr. Speaker is faced with the impossibility on an important matter of pleasing at the same time both sides of the House.
This can arise again with Standing Order No. 9. I do not want to labour the point, but very often it is marginal whether a matter is urgent, is of public importance and is definite. The case can sometimes be foreseen. Then Mr. Speaker will have had time to give full consideration to it, and probably 99 times out of 100 he will give the right answer. However, it is possible, as all of us know, for a point to be raised under Standing Order No. 9 quite unawares. Then Mr. Speaker is faced with giving an immediate decision, a hurried decision; but yet, if he is a good Speaker, that decision must not be just an opinion. It has to be a ruling which the House as a whole, and on both sides, will accept. I do not think that any of us who have considered the position of Speaker in this House will underrate the burden that we place upon the right hon. Member to whom we entrust that important duty, and also the heart-searching that he will have as to whether or not he is doing right in his decisions.
The right hon. Member for Easington mentioned the calling of a Member to make a speech or to ask a Question. The Member who is called thinks Mr. Speaker

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splendid, but what about the other Members who are not called? Whatever they think Mr. Speaker is, "splendid" is not the word.
I should like to give an occasion from my experience, if the House will allow me. Eighteen months or so ago, when I was Chairman of Ways and Means, I found it impossible during a debate to fit in a certain old Member whom I had known for many years. I will not say whether he is still a Member of the House, and I will not say on which side of the House he is sitting if he is still a Member. He came up to me when the last Government Front Bench speaker had been called and the last chance had gone. I was sitting in the small Chair over there and he said, "Bill, we have been friends for 20 years. Now you have left me out of this debate and I never want to talk to you again." Ordinarily that sort of thing runs off me like water off a duck's back, but the right hon. Member for Itchen is a kindly man and I would say to him, "Do not take it too seriously when an hon. Member who is bitterly disappointed is for just an hour or two more disgruntled than he should be".
My last point, and it is a serious one, applies to this Parliament in particular. It is the question of the naming of a Member and causing him to be suspended from the service of the House, which, after all, means five sitting Parliamentary days. The Chair, of course, is always reluctant to suspend a Member. Firstly, it is rather a confession of failure if one cannot control an assembly without resorting to sanctions. Secondly, it may well have been grist to the mill of the hon. Member concerned to get himself suspended, and not only grist to his personal mill but grist to the cause which he may be representing. Therefore, for that reason in particular, the Chair is always reluctant to suspend a Member. The Member gets headlines in the Press, he gets a mention on the B.B.C., and probably gets invited to appear on television, and gets paid for it, too! But sometimes, in the case of gross disorder or the striking of blows, authority must be asserted, and, let hon. and right hon. Members believe me, I conjure up no hypothetical situation when I speak of
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the striking of blows. I have seen blows struck in this House before now, and so have other hon. and right hon. Members. I hasten to say that it was a long, long time ago, and time cures everything.
If Mr. Speaker is reluctant, and he certainly is, in a normal Parliament to suspend an hon. Member, how much more that must be so with the situation today when the Government have one, two, or is it three, majority? [An HON. MEMBER: "Three."] Anyway, when it is so marginal. There might require to be not one hon. Member but two or three hon. Members suspended, all on the same side. Would I be wrong in saying that there are certain differences of opinion between certain Members which might make blows not inconceivable even on one side of the House or the other and not necessarily across the Floor? In those circumstances Mr. Speaker will know that if he suspends a couple of hon. Members from the House for a week it may bring down the Government. All of us are prepared to grant great powers and authority to the Speaker. Speaking for myself, I am particularly glad to grant great powers and authority to the right hon. Member for Itchen, but it had never occurred to me, and I would not think it would ever occur to the Leader of the House or to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition, that we should give Mr. Speaker the power to make or unmake Governments. Yet that is the situation which we find ourselves approaching.
I have made much of these difficulties, not to alarm the right hon. Member for Itchen—he is well aware of them already—but purely so that the House may appreciate what a formidable task we are inviting him to shoulder in electing him as Speaker. I am seconding the election of the right hon. Gentleman because, in my opinion, he is the best man for the job, and I believe that that is the opinion of the House as a whole. Nothing can be certain in this uncertain world, but it seems to me that the right hon. Member has every qualification. I believe that he will be a good Speaker. It may well be that he will become a great Speaker. May I be allowed to say to him that the whole House this afternoon wishes him all success in his exacting task?
Dr. Horace King: In accordance with ancient

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custom, I beg to submit myself to the will of the House. This is a solemn moment at all times, dating back even before the first recorded Speaker of the House. Today, for me it is a sad one. The late Sir Harry Hylton-Foster and myself were friends. I believe that Sir Harry will be remembered as the kindliest and gentlest of Speakers, and I of all men in this House know how much he prized his sense of fairness and utter impartiality. Parliament has lost a noble and distinguished Speaker, and every hon. Member of the House has lost a friend. I say that as a personal tribute, knowing that Parliament's own tributes will be paid tomorrow.
I am grateful for the warmth and generosity of the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell). Nobody could ever accuse my right hon. Friend of having been obsequious or subservient to the Chair. That has been true during the whole of his long and distinguished Parliamentary career, except in the year when he was Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party Conference, when he showed a deference to the Chair which had never been equalled before. I have no illusions. I know that he will accept the stern Rulings of the Chair in future with the same modified rapture—to quote Gilbert—which he has always shown.
I know that my right hon. Friend's boast is that he never prepares a speech, that he believes that "impromptu speeches are not worth the paper they are written on". I would remind him and the House that when Shakespeare's words were first printed and the editors of the First Folio boasted that Shakespeare was so perfect that they received a manuscript without a blot in a single line, Ben Jonson said:
"Would he had blotted a thousand."
I am sure, however, that nobody this afternoon would wish to blot a single word of the utterance which the right hon. Gentleman has made.
I am deeply grateful to my good friend the right hon. Member for Berwick and East Lothian (Sir W. Anstruther-Gray) for years of friendship, just as the House is equally indebted to him for his own splendid services as Deputy Speaker. I know that he might have occupied the Chair himself, and, had he done so, he would have done so with great distinction.
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I count it an act of friendship and supreme loyalty to Parliament that he should today have seconded the Motion.
I have noticed the ominous warnings in the speeches of both right hon. Gentlemen. I understand that when a Privy Councillor is invited to tea, the tea has to be Irish coffee. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] It must be unique in history to be honoured by two powerful Chairmen, the Chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party and the Chairman of the 1922 Committee. If I may coin a phrase, it would be to say that Prime Ministers may come and Prime Ministers may go, but the Parliamentary Labour Party and the 1922 Committee go on for ever.
Since the House elected me as Chairman of Ways and Means, I have never made a party political speech. Perhaps half the House will forgive me if for a moment I speak for the last time as a Labour man. Today, it seems that the first Labour Speaker will be elected in this Parliament. The pioneers, men like Keir Hardie and Arthur Henderson—whose son is still with us—who came here at the turn of the century could hardly have dreamt that the moment might come in history when the Speaker's Chair might be occupied by a Socialist.
I am deeply conscious of the joy which today will bring to the movement for which I have worked since I was a boy of 15. This day may be a "first" in many ways: the first Speaker from Southampton in its 650 years of Parliamentary representation: the first trade unionist—although here I may be wronging the legal profession—[Laughter.]; the first member of the teaching profession—and I know that the teaching profession will be very proud today; the first elementary schoolboy. After my parents, I owe everything to those who taught me at school and the State which sent me by scholarship to university.
Above all, however, for the thousands and thousands of men and women who have done all the drudgery work in the constituencies for the Labour Party—and may I say to every right hon. and hon. Member that but for the loyal work of many men and women, especially the women, none of us would be here—to have a Speaker chosen from the Labour Party is indeed an historic occasion.

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I now sever myself completely from all party politics. This is no light matter. No man easily breaks with the political faith which has given the whole of his life purpose and meaning except for the even greater faith that he has in political freedom itself.
If as the only non-party man in the House I might venture to advise the House, I would say never be ashamed of party politics, never be ashamed of party loyalty. Loyalty is a virtue, not a vice. My own loyalty henceforth must be to no party, but to Parliament itself.
I hope that in all our conduct and speeches in the House of Commons, we may remember that we are here not because of some merit on our part or our condescending acceptance of the votes of the electorate, but because free men and free women have faith in us, have faith in the principles which we put forward in election campaigns and have faith in our free Parliamentary way of life.
It is in that spirit that I am today conscious of the confidence that my fellow Members of this House have placed in me and more profoundly moved by the loyalty and the affection which the Opposition benches have shown to me just as much as the Government benches have shown to me.
If in a few moments the man whom you have chosen as Speaker resists in a token way as he is dragged to the Chair, I would hope that British citizens would regard this as no idle ceremony but would take it as a reminder that freedom did not spring armed from the head of Zeus but had to be won stage by stage, and that one of the most important and one of the longest battles in that history was that for a free choice of the Speaker, a Speaker who would show fear or favour to nobody—king or baron, Tory, Socialist or Liberal, Front Bencher or back bencher—because he is the servant of only one master, and that master is the freely elected House of Commons. We are indeed citizens of no mean city, and it is as a proud but humble citizen that I now submit to the will of the House.
The House then having unanimously called Dr. HORACE KING to the Chair, he was taken out of his place and conducted to the Chair by Mr. SHINWELL and Sir WILLIAM ANSTRUTHER-GRAY.
Mr. Speaker-Elect(standing on the upper step): Before I take the Chair, I wish to pay tribute to the Clerk and other officers and servants of the House, whose services we can command but whose loyalty and devotion are so generously and lavishly given to every hon. Member of this House.
I humbly thank the House for the great trust that it has placed in my hands. This Chair and this House are the heart of the free world. May we together—for without you I am nothing—preserve and enhance the dignity and efficiency of the Mother of Parliaments, remembering all those who sacrificed life and limb in two world wars to keep it free.
Mr. SPEAKER-ELECT sat down in the Chair.
Then the Mace (which before lay under the Table) was placed upon the Table.
Mr. George Brown: Mr. Speaker-Elect, as has been said, tomorrow will be the occasion on which we can say what we feel about your distinguished predecessor in the Chair and Lady Hylton-Foster. Today, however, it is my privilege, on what is for the most part, quite rightly, a back-bench occasion—which, I think, all of us will feel has been fully used today—to be the first to congratulate you on your election to the highest office which this House can bestow on one of its Members.
I am grateful to have the chance to do this, not only because—and in saying this I assure you that I am not trading upon the hope of favours to come—I have had the privilege of your personal kindness and friendship for very many years, but, as you yourself have said, because you are the first Member of our party to be entrusted with this great responsibility. On this side of the House, therefore, I am sure we shall be forgiven if we not only feel but also show some emotion as well as some pride in seeing you installed in the Chair.
Your office, however, as you said, is one which divorces you not from your political faith—that we know can never happen—but from the personal challenge of political life in this assembly. In your apprenticeship as Deputy Speaker, the whole House has seen you apply in practice the impartiality, the balanced judgment and the dignity which is so essential

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to anyone who occupies the Chair. But, more that that, we have come to appreciate in you also that degree of kindly wit which has so often helped the House during a difficult passage. Every one of us in this House knows full well that, whatever his party, whatever his views, whatever his standing, he will be assured by you at all times of the fullest protection of his rights as a Member and of a fair hearing in accordance with the great traditions of the House.
Yet we do not elect a man to the Chair because of those qualities alone. He must be, as has been said, a man we can trust as a friend, a man we can go to quietly and alone for guidance and help when the need arises. Again, we know that you have those qualities in full measure. In the long history of this House, there have been many great Speakers. There can be no possible doubt in the minds of any of us that today we have chosen from among us one who possesses all the attributes which the House looks for in the greatest occupants of the Chair and the Office to which you have been elected.
Your task, Mr. Speaker-Elect, will be no easy one. Conflict and passion can never be removed from our proceedings, and I am sure that none of us would wish it to be otherwise, and some of us would find it difficult to have it otherwise. But those conflicts and the heat they generate throw on you, we all recognise, a very great burden. Your sense of humour and your great understanding of us will, we know, quickly abate the storms and bring back the harmony so essential to our deliberations.
You have one advantage, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) pointed out, over all your predecessors. You are the first doctor of philosophy to occupy the chair, and there may be—indeed, I think there will be—many times when we shall cause you to feel the need to call up all your philosophic wisdom. But we on our part, because of the great respect we bear for you already, will be all the more anxious to ease your task on those occasions.
You have, of course, like your distinguished predecessor and others before him, another advantage in the help you will be able to call for from your delightful wife. She is, I believe—I hope I shall
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get away with this—almost as learned as you are yourself, and a pioneer, to boot, she having taken her degree at Cambridge before women were formally admitted to that institution. She combines so many other virtues, as those of us who know her know so well, which go to make a perfect help-mate that we can regard you as doubly fortunate. Mrs. Speaker is not known to the official annals of the House. Yet each one of us knows how important a part she plays in the rôle that you are now going to play.
Mr. Speaker-Elect, I believe that I can speak for the whole House when I say that I congratulate you and wish you a long and very happy term of office.
Mr. Edward Heath: Mr. Speaker-Elect, tomorrow will afford us the opportunity of expressing our grief at the death of the late Speaker and our sympathy with his widow.
Today, I should like to join with the First Secretary of State in offering you on behalf of all my colleagues the warmest congratulations and a welcome to your wife at the Speaker's House.
Those of us who have known you since 1950, when we came into this House together, have known you as a friend. When we recall your days on the back benches we do not recall that you were violently partisan. Indeed, as becomes a doctor of philosophy, we think of you as in many ways the quiet seeker after truth, and during your past year as Chairman of Ways and Means we have been greatly impressed by your patience, fairness and unfailing courtesy to us all. At no time was this better shown than during the long and complex debates on the Finance Bill, and the congratulations which were offered to you at the end of those proceedings were genuinely and deeply felt. We believe that this augurs well for the future, as does, indeed, the remarkable speech which you have just made to the House.
But, Mr. Speaker-Elect, you have not been elected Speaker because you were Chairman of Ways and Means. Indeed, it has been constantly reaffirmed in this House on previous occasions that the Chairman of Ways and Means has no automatic claim to succeed to the Chair. No, as my right hon. Friend said, you have been elected because the whole House feels that of all its Members you

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are the one most suited to become the occupant of the Chair. This, I have no doubt, will be a source of strength to you in the arduous times which lie ahead.
If I may say so, I was glad that you were rightly proud of being the first Speaker from your own party, but I know that all the time that I have been in the House the party opposite have understandably and honourably looked forward to the time when one of their own Members would be in the Chair, and not only your party but you yourself should rightly be proud of this great honour. Yet now when the moment has come, when you lay aside all partial affections and when you don the mantle of impartiality, I hope you will also feel rightly proud that we your former opponents not only congratulate you today but offer you our wholehearted support in maintaining the position and dignity of the Chair in the service of the whole House.
Mr. J. Grimond: Mr. Speaker-Elect, I should like on behalf of the Liberal Party to be associated with the sympathy which has been expressed to Lady Hylton-Foster.
We should also like to be associated with the congratulations which have been offered to you. You said that you were proud to be a Member of the Labour Party and proud to be the first Labour Speaker. We all understand and, indeed, share your pride, but I think that the other parties, too, might claim some part of you. You have always shown a truly Liberal regard for liberty, and I think that the Conservatives could find no one who has shown a deeper respect for the traditions and institutions of this country.
You know full well, Mr. Speaker-Elect, that you take the Chair with the affection and respect of everyone in this House. We on our side know that we shall always get from you not only justice but sympathy. It has been said that you may find it very useful to be a doctor of philosophy. I suspect that it may well be more useful to have been trained as a schoolmaster.
I believe that you, coming to the Chair with many of the most important attributes that any Speaker could have, will add this particular lustre to this office, that by your command of the
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English language and your knowledge of English literature your judgments will be read not always with agreement but at least with pleasure. So may we say that we, too, look forward to a very successful Speakership.
Mr. R. H. Turton: As Father of the House, may I offer you my congratulations on your election, Mr. Speaker-Elect. You were an outstanding Chairman of Ways and Means and last autumn, during the illness of the late Speaker, you filled that Chair with great distinction. I wish you many years of happy occupancy of it, and that, I am sure, will be to the benefit of the House.
May I add this, Mr. Speaker-Elect. I believe the back benchers, on both sides of the House, wish to see the proceedings of this Parliament carried out with greater expedition and with greater efficiency. Tomorrow we are going to debate certain proposals of the Select Committee, but I am convinced myself that we shall not get that progress without accepting a much stricter measure of discipline from the Chair. If you, Mr. Speaker-Elect, decide to treat us all—and, may I add, Front Benchers as well as back benchers—with greater firmness, all of us—although at times we shall find it irksome on the occasions when we are the victims of that firmness—all of us will welcome the change. The reputation of this House as the greatest debating chamber in the world lies in your competent hands.
Sir John Fletcher-Cooke: May I speak for a moment on behalf of many thousands of people who hold you, Mr. Speaker-Elect, in the greatest regard and respect and who cannot, of course, be here today? I refer to the citizens of the city of Southampton, one part of which you have represented with such great distinction for many years, the other part of which it has been my privilege to represent for just one year. I know, Mr. Speaker-Elect, and I am sure that all hon. Members know, too, with what great affection and respect you are regarded in your constituency, and, indeed, in the whole city of Southampton. I am sure that it would be appropriate for me to place on record on this occasion the great joy with which the news of your election to this high office will be received in the city of Southampton and the pleasure it will cause to the Mayor, the

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Sheriff, the Councillors and, indeed, all the citizens. I know, too, that the citizens feel that by your assumption of this great responsibility today our name will be added to the list of illustrious sons which Southampton has given to the world and that you will bring credit both to that city and indeed to Westminster.
Mr. George Brown: I have to signify that it is Her Majesty's pleasure that this House should present their Speaker on this day at Four o'clock in the House of Peers, for Her Majesty's Royal Approbation.
3.23 p.m.
Sitting suspended till Four o'clock.
On resuming—
Message to attend the Lords Commissioners;
The House went:—and, having returned;
Mr. Speaker: I have to report to the House that in the House of Peers Her Majesty, by Royal Commissioners, has been pleased to approve the choice made of myself to the Office of Speaker.
My first duty to the House is to repeat my very respectful acknowledgments and my grateful thanks for the great honour which you have conferred upon me in placing me in the Chair, and to dedicate myself, by God's help, to be worthy of that confidence.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
The Lord President of The Council (Mr. Herbert Bowden): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a short business statement.
In view of the late start on the business of the day, it would perhaps be unreasonable to expect the House to deal not only with the debate on Northern Ireland, but also with all the Bills scheduled for today. Two of them are unlikely to engage the House for long.
The third is Patents (Employees' Inventions) Bill [Lords]. This subject is now under discussion in the International Labour Organisation and is on the agenda for the International Association for the Protection of Industrial Property.
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The fact that it is desirable, if possible, that the development of our law should follow international trends has led me to decide to defer discussion on this Bill.
The House should know also that I have been informed that the hon. Member in charge of the Motion on the Agricultural Lime (Amendment) Scheme, 1965, has decided not to proceed with it this evening.

JOINT ANTI-SUBMARINE SCHOOL, LONDONDERRY
The Minister of Defence for The Royal Navy (Mr. Christopher Mayhew): Before the debate on Northern Ireland begins, it may be convenient to the House if I make a statement, on behalf of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence, about the future of the Joint Anti-Submarine School at Londonderry.
My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and I have visited this establishment, and we have given long and careful consideration to the representations made to keep this Training School at Londonderry, by the Prime Minister and Government of Northern Ireland, the Mayor of Londonderry, the hon. Member for Londonderry (Mr. Chichester-Clark) and other hon. Members.
Nevertheless, we have come to the conclusion that the advantages in economy and efficiency to be gained by moving the school to Plymouth are so great that they must be accepted. The move will save between £400,000 and £500,000 a year, and will also make available well over 200 officers and ratings for service elsewhere. The run-down will not take full effect for about three years, and during that time, in conjunction with the Government of Northern Ireland, Her Majesty's Government will make every effort to bring new employment to the area.
This was a hard decision to take, because it must break a strong and fruitful link between the Royal Navy and this part of Northern Ireland, and will be a blow to the city and people of Londonderry. Nevertheless, quite apart from the substantial economies I have mentioned, the move will have decisive operational advantages not only for the Navy but also for the R.A.F.
Mr. Ronald Bell: Can the Minister tell me what capital cost will be incurred at Plymouth as a result of the transference there of this school, and what capital expenditure will be written off at Londonderry as a result of facilities there becoming useless for other purposes?
Mr. Mayhew: The capital cost at Plymouth will be less than a single year's saving on the move—that is, less than £500,000. As for the value of the accommodation which we are leaving, it is difficult to calculate this, but we have circulated all relevant Government Departments with a full statement of the facilities and the accommodation.
Mr. Thorneycroft: Is the Minister aware that this is a very sombre note to strike just before the opening of a debate on Northern Ireland and that in Northern Ireland the Government will be judged by their actions rather than their words? Is he also aware—[Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order. May we begin as we mean to go on? There is no point in hon. Members shouting across the Floor at each other.
Mr. Thorneycroft: I am obliged, Mr. Speaker. Is the Minister aware that the forthcoming debate today will provide an opportunity, which I hope the Government will take, of spelling out the case for this step in far more detail than has been spelled out here, because at the moment it is wholly unconvincing, having regard to the damage which it will do in Northern Ireland?
Mr. Mayhew: The case, broadly, is that the move will, in effect, make available to the Navy the equivalent of 1½ extra submarines and 1½ extra frigates and 200 more officers and ratings and will bring about a saving of nearly ·500,000 a year. We are strongly pressed by hon. Members opposite to make economies in defence expenditure. Indeed, I thought that it was the Opposition's policy to try to restrain Government expenditure and to make it economic. If that is so, the Opposition have no right whatever to oppose a move so obviously dictated by operational and economic considerations.
Mr. Chichester-Clark: Is not this a shocking decision both socially and economically? How many hundreds of
20
unskilled men, mostly middle-aged, who have known no other work will be put out of work by it? Is this really an eleventh-hour decision? If the Minister has had all the figures wrong this summer, will he make a new submission to his colleagues and see that the matter is considered by the Cabinet, otherwise the regional professions of the Government will look like an empty cynical sham?
Mr. Mayhew: It is quite untrue to say that there has been any confusion on our part about the figures. May I remind the hon. Gentleman that the figures which I have mentioned to him, and, indeed, to the Mayor of Londonderry and to the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, are that 232 unestablished and 249 established civilians are involved. But, as I say, this move will not take place for two or three years. After all, we in the Navy Department have been concerned, unfortunately, with the possible redundancy of thousands of civilian workers in recent years as a result of trying to ensure greater efficiency and greater economy. In all cases, by taking great care in individual cases we have avoided hardship, and we firmly intend that this will happen again.
Mr. Ogden: Is my hon. Friend aware that this is an honest and courageous statement to make, particularly in view of the debate which will follow? Is this to be a complete closure and abandonment of the base, or is there to be any attempt to maintain a nucleus for possible use which we hope will never be called upon? Is this to be a mothball operation?
Mr. Mayhew: No. The plan is to replace the base with other forms of work using this accommodation.
Mr. Lubbock: Has the Minister considered extending the scope of the consultants who have been appointed to try to help with the Short Bros. and Harland redundancy so that they can also advise on the kind of work which would be most suitable for the people who will be made redundant in Londonderry?
Mr. Mayhew: I will look into that suggestion.
Captain Orr: Is the Minister aware that this decision will be greeted with anger and dismay in the whole of Northern Ireland? As my hon. Friend the Member for Londonderry (Mr. Chichester-Clark)

21
said, it involves the livelihood of hundreds of people who will have difficulty in finding other employment. What does the Minister mean when he says in his statement that the Government will make efforts to find alternative employment for those in the area? Can he amplify that? Will he repudiate the laughter with which his statement was greeted by hon. Members opposite?
Mr. Mayhew: Of course, as I said in my statement, this is bound to be a blow to Londonderry. I have been there, and I have spoken to everyone concerned. I am fully aware of the deep emotional attachment on both sides—on the Navy side and on the side of Londonderry—but I ask hon. Members who are constantly pressing the Government to be efficient and economical in their defence expenditure to judge whether we should go on renouncing economies of the scale I have explained and operational advantages of the size I have explained even for the prospect of the possibility that in two or three years these civilians may still be without work, which I do not expect. We have to balance one thing against the other. In my view, the Opposition should have faced this problem years ago when they were the Government.
Mr. Stratton Mills: Would the hon. Gentleman give the House the unemployment figure in Plymouth compared with that in Londonderry?
Mr. Mayhew: Not without notice. But it is part of Government policy to build up Plymouth.
Sir Knox Cunningham: The Minister stated that this scandalous closure was due to economic considerations. Would he say how much public money will be involved in unemployment benefit for the people who will be put out of work in Londonderry?
Mr. Mayhew: Our plan is to take new work there. We sincerely hope that there will not be extra unemployment.
Mr. Emrys Hughes: The Minister has visited Londonderry with a view to effecting economies. Is he aware that he could achieve far greater economies if he went to Garloch and scrapped the £45 million polaris base?
Mr. Mayhew: I assure my hon. Friend that we shall apply the same effort to being economical and efficient in Garloch as in Londonderry
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: We have pursued this far enough.

CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANS AND DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
Resolved,
That Sir Samuel Storey be Chairman of Ways and Means and that Mr. Roderic Bowen he Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means.—[Mr. George Brown.]

CHAIRMAN OF WAYS AND MEANS AND DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
  ADJOURNMENT
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Edward Short.]

NORTHERN IRELAND
4.28 p.m.
The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sir Frank Soskice): May I, Mr. Speaker, as the fourth Member who has been fortunate enough to catch your eye since you were elected to your new Office, say how very glad I am to see a very old friend in the Chair.
This debate was asked for in the summer by a number of hon. Members who sit for constituencies in Northern Ireland, and I have been giving thought, together with my hon. and right hon. Friends, to the question of how we might best assist the House in debating and discussing the affairs of Northern Ireland. I am bound to say that I start at some disadvantage in having to follow the making of a statement which I know has caused disappointment, although the conclusion was absolutely inevitable and was supported by arguments advanced by the Minister to which no possible answer could be found. It is one of those unhappy decisions which have to be made [Interruption.]—but if one is to make—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I hope that hon. Members will listen to the Home Secretary.
Sir F. Soskice: it is one of those unhappy decisions which have to be made,

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but, unless one is to shut one's eyes to the needs of efficiency and economy, one really must face up to the disappointment which decisions of this sort quite naturally cause.
I thought that it would be most helpful to the House if I opened the debate by a brief review—I emphasise the word "brief"—of the situation today in Northern Ireland, touching some of the matters which are of current interest, but I must say at the outset that I have not any particularly new striking facts to put before the House and I shall, therefore, open the debate by covering the general situation. All who are interested in or attached to, and who have an affection for, Northern Ireland have long watched the progress of its economy. It has passed through its difficulties. It has lived under stress and strain in years past, and progress, as and when it manifests itself, must bring great satisfaction to all who are interested in the well-being of the citizens of Northern Ireland. The close trade relations which exist, and have always existed, between Northern Ireland and Great Britain, and, in particular, the fact that Great Britain is the main market for Northern Ireland produce, must inevitably mean that the prosperity of Northern Ireland is very closely bound up with that of the rest of the United Kingdom.
The fact that Northern Ireland is rather more remote from United Kingdom markets and, accordingly, that an additional burden is put upon costs and employment, naturally requires close thought and attention in this country, as in Northern Ireland. But it is right to say that the picture which presents itself when one looks at the happenings in Northern Ireland is one of substantial progress. It is a developing community. As every visitor to Northern Ireland will have observed, there is a great deal of enthusiasm and of hope among its citizens and of satisfaction at seeing the way in which their industry is developing and their economic life is moving forward. If one wants indications or tokens of that progress, one has only to think, for example, of the new University of Northern Ireland which will be established at Coleraine, not very far from Londonderry, the new motorways, the new house building programme, the hospitals and the schools,
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and, perhaps more important and more striking even than they as one goes about the country, the new industrial estates.
I mention, in particular, the capital investment in the new dry dock to be constructed at Belfast as a result of the financial arrangements recently approved by Her Majesty's Government and announced by my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State in this House on 3rd August last. On the final figures, the new dry dock will measure 1,100 ft. in length and 167 ft. in width, with a 165-ft. gate entrance. It will be the largest dry dock in the United Kingdom, capable of taking vessels of up to 160,000 and 170,000 tons. The only new fact with regard to the dock which I can put before the House is that the first pile was driven on 22nd October, just a few days ago. It is universally accepted that this dock should be of particular value to Harland and Wolff, and one thinks with gratification of the substantial orders which that company has obtained, an order from Norwegian owners for a 167,000 tons deadweight tanker and for five bulk carriers. There is no doubt that the construction of those vessels should give a substantial boost to shipbuilding in Northern Ireland and to the tone of industry generally in that country.
Unemployment still remains at a figure high by comparison with the rate in the United Kingdom as a whole, but there is—one has been very glad to note it—a gradual downward tendency and more people than ever before are now in employment in Northern Ireland. The current figures are probably known to hon. Members, particularly to those who sit for Northern Ireland constituencies, but as they are of interest to the House as a whole I shall just give them. The current figure for unemployment is 27,452. That is a high figure which, unfortunately, constitutes 5·5 per cent. of the insured population. But, on the other side of the balance sheet, if one may so put it, during the 12 years from June, 1953 to June, 1965, the number of persons in employment, both those self-employed and those employed by other persons, rose by the substantial figure of 21,000 to a total of 554,000, that is, a rise of about 4 per cent.
Northern Ireland benefits greatly, and must continue to benefit, by the continuing diversification of its industrial structure. This will strengthen its economy and

25
protect it from the onset of temporary fluctuations in trade. Everyone is glad to see the progress which is being made in this regard, actively encouraged and stimulated by the Northern Ireland Government and, as it were, endorsed by the recommendations of the Wilson Report which was published last year. It is an interesting fact that the rate of economic growth in Northern Ireland has actually been faster than in the United Kingdom as a whole. For example, the index of industrial production in 1964 was higher in Northern Ireland than in the United Kingdom. The value of retail sales has been rising faster than in the United Kingdom. Quite apart from the rate of rise, overall investment in new buildings and works continues to go up and is now similar in scale to that of the most favoured regions in Great Britain.
As I said earlier—I desire to repeat it out of my own personal experience, having visited the country—one cannot travel about Northern Ireland and meet people there without feeling that they ate buoyed up by a sense of hope and enthusiasm and pride in the performance of their country and its economy. Certainly, a lot remains to be done. Complacency is always the enemy of performance, and I hope not to encourage any sort of complacency, but the performance is, nevertheless, substantial and impressive. I wish to say on behalf of the United Kingdom Government that my right hon Friend the President of the Board of Trade and other colleagues will, of course, do everything they can to foster, encourage and assist that growth.
A feature of it to which I should like to call attention is the success which has been attained in bringing new industries to Northern Ireland. The four methods are, of course, well known, and are also in accordance with recommendations by the Wilson Report. Those methods are: (1) Government factory building, including factories built in advance of occupation—"advance" factories; (2) financial assistance towards the initial costs of new development; (3) grants towards annual capital expenditure on buildings and plants; (4) derating of industrial premises, a fuel subsidy and training arrangements.
The result of endeavours along those lines is, of course, published material already, but it may be helpful to dwell
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upon it for a moment. The result of the endeavours which I have described is that about 200 new industrial projects have come into being. By March, 1965, they had provided 61,400 new jobs. A measure of the timing is given by the fact that 56,200 of those have been provided since the end of the war in 1945. That figure of 61,400 should rise to 79,000 through jobs to be provided by undertakings now under way which have not yet completed their development.
Over the past four years, 19 advance factories have been built. Of those, 15 are already tenanted and the remaining four await tenants. Nine more are in the course of construction and another 14 are planned. In the aggregate, I put that before the House as an impressive programme, which has contributed substantially towards the amelioration and, one hopes, in due course, liquidation of the problem of unemployment in Northern Ireland, which we all wish to see overcome. I think that there are very hopeful portents in the programme which I have described.
So much for industry and commerce. I should now like to say a little about Northern Ireland's agriculture, which is, after all, one of the three staple industries of Northern Ireland. Hon. Members who sit for Northern Irish constituencies probably know that agriculture there labours under one substantial disadvantage—the remoteness of the farmers from the main markets in Great Britain. Her Majesty's Government have decided to raise the level of the special assistance grant—known as the "remoteness grant"—which is designed to offset this disadvantage for Northern Irish farmers. My hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State announced that this was to be done when addressing the Ulster Farmers Union in Belfast in August this year, though he did not give the figure. I am now in a position to give it.
Following this year's Farm Price Review, the Government announced that they would be reconsidering the level of the Northern Ireland special assistance grant. The grant was last reviewed in 1962 and fixed at £1¼ million. Unless renewed, it was due to end in 1967. The Government have now completed their review of the grant and they have decided that it should be renewed for a further period until March, 1971. With

27
regard to the amount, the decision is that, as from April, 1966, the annual amount should be raised by £½ million to £1,750,000.
It will be necessary to bring that—
Captain L. P. S. Orr rose—
Sir F. Soskice: May I just complete my sentence and then face the disapproval which the hon. and gallant Member for Down, South (Captain Orr) is about to voice?
I was about to say that, in order to achieve that result—whether satisfactory or not in the view of the hon. Member—a Statutory Instrument has to be brought into effect under the 1957 Agriculture Act. I hope that that will be found an adequate and satisfactory increase—
Captain Orr indicated dissent.
Sir F. Soskice: I am disappointed to note that the hon. Member shakes his head. He is entitled to his own view, but that is the figure which we have thought appropriate.
I should point out that that figure is estimated on the principle that it is not meant to equal the full estimated effect of the Northern Irish farmers' remoteness from markets in Great Britain. It is estimated so as to offset the disadvantage that the Northern Irish producer is under by comparison with producers in other remote areas—I emphasise the word "remote"—in the United Kingdom.
A figure of a different dimension might have been appropriate if it had been intended as an amount to offset the full disadvantage of the remoteness of the Northern Irish producer. If it were calculated on that basis, a different result might ensue. However, I would put it to the House—and, in particular, to the hon. and gallant Member for Down, South who has indicated his disappointment—that if one considers the purpose for which it is designed, it is not only ample but on a by no means ungenerous scale.
Production and productivity of labour in agriculture in Northern Ireland have risen steadily since before the war. There has, at the same time—if one considers the whole agricultural scene—been a trend towards fewer and larger farms.
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This trend is noticeable as part of the general United Kingdom pattern—towards farm sizes which are more suited to give full scope to modern, mechanised agriculture.
It is probably of interest to the House to know that the number of individual holdings in Northern Ireland has fallen from 105,000 in 1923 to 68,000 in 1964 and the number of farmers working on their own farms from 75,000 in 1923 to 43,000 in 1964. At the same time, total full-time employment recorded in the Agricultural Census at June, 1964 was 68,000. Farm incomes as a whole in recent years have, in general, kept pace with farm incomes in the United Kingdom as a whole.
The serious problem, as everybody knows—I am sorry if I repeat what is trite—is, of course, the small farmer. Many farms provide full-time employment for one or more men but the farm business is often too small to provide a fulltice occupation by itself. Faced with that situation, in this year's Review White Paper the United Kingdom Government announced a combination of measures to help farmers whose businesses are viable or potentially viable to achieve a more efficient and more satisfactory scale of production and marketing: the extension and change in character of the Small Farmer Scheme, steps to improve agricultural credit facilities, and grants to encourage the further development of agricultural co-operative marketing. These measures in the aggregate should help to go some of the way towards solving this perennial and anxious problem of the small farmer in Northern Ireland.
In addition, further measures were announced last August in the White Paper "The Development of Agriculture". The Government—speaking of the United Kingdom Government—hope that the proposals made in their White Paper for the encouragement of co-operation between farm businesses and for the encouragement of amalgamations will help the agricultural community in Northern Ireland. All these developments which are outlined in the White Papers to which I have referred have been preceded by close consultation with the Farmers' Unions and other interests involved.
I know that the House is anxious and concerned about Short Bros. and Harland.

29
I am not in a position to make any very precise or definite prognostication about the future of Short Bros., but the House will expect me to say what I can about them before I sit down. The House will remember that, following the review earlier this year of military aircraft requirements, the First Secretary of State appointed consultants to carry out a comprehensive review of the company's potential and to advise on making the best use of its labour force and its other assets. The consultants are primarily concerned with the scope for redeploying Short's resources. The consultants' report has not yet been received, and it is not yet possible to take decisions on the redeployment of the firm's resources. But the House may have noted with pleasure that the firm has received an order to supply parts for the Phantom.
All that I can say at the moment is that we are naturally very concerned about the problem of Short's. As was previously stated in the House, there can be no doubt that the long-term interests of Short's will best be served by diversification to reduce the heavy dependence of the firm on aircraft work. I am told that the consultants have made good progress with their assignment and that their report should be available shortly, but I can give no more precise indication than that. One warning I think I ought to utter: whatever measures are recommended, diversification cannot be expected to produce immediate results. Additional aircraft work, if available, would be the only means of mitigating the severe decline which might otherwise have to be anticipated in the number of workers employed there. But I give the assurance, which I hope the House will accept, that the Government are most anxious to find some additional aircraft work to help during the period until diversification can produce some noticeable and substantial results.
Mr. Stanley R. McMaster: Would further work include design work? It is vital that some design work should be included in any additional work given to Short's.
Sir F. Soskice: I am fully conscious of the hon. Member's anxiety about the design team, although I am not in a position to give him a categorical answer
30
to his question. The Government have fully in mind the presence and value of the design team and the value of the existence of that design team, which has worked together. But I can give no further indication beyond that. I hope that the hon. Member will accept that that is the only answer which I can give.
Mr. Hector Hughes: I refrained from putting a question until my right hon. and learned Friend was interrupted. He spoke about increasing the assistance grants to trade, industry and commerce in Northern Ireland on the ground that Northern Ireland is remote from the markets of the rest of Britain. Does he realise that the same argument applies to the north-east of Scotland? In granting increased assistance grants to Northern Ireland—against which I do not say one word—will my right hon. and learned Friend take care that he does not tend to prejudice trade, industry and commerce in the north-east of Scotland?
Sir F. Soskice: I am naturally very conscious of the very proper and laudable interest which my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hector Hughes) has in another part of the community. It is right and proper that he should espouse those interests. But this debate is on Northern Ireland, and the remoteness grants of which I have spoken were to be appropriated for the purpose of agriculture. Of course, the Government have very much in mind the interests of every sector of the United Kingdom for which they are responsible, including that for which my hon. and learned Friend spoke.
Sir Knox Cunningham: The right hon. and learned Gentleman has given certain assurances about Short's. Would he give an assurance about the design team there—that the Government has no intention of treating them as they have been treating the team at Sea Eagle?
Sir F. Soskice: I do not think that I can go further on this point. I hope that the hon. and learned Member for Antrim, South (Sir Knox Cunningham) will accept that the Government wish to adopt a sensible approach, bearing in mind the value of the cumulative experience of the members of the design team. But I do

31
not think that the hon. and learned Member would expect me to go further than that. I am not in a position to give him any positive assurance. If I were in such a position I should have pleasure in giving the assurance. Hon. Members on both sides of the House do not like assurances which are not subsequently fulfilled. I am sure that no one would expect me to give an assurance unless I were fully authorised to do so and could do so after mature consideration.
There are difficulties about the position of Short Bros. I hope that they will be overcome. They form a very valuable unit in the economy of Northern Ireland and of the United Kingdom.
These are the preliminary considerations which I thought that I could usefully put before the House in initiating the debate. Fortunately the debate may continue for some time. I have no doubt that hon. Members will have a number of points to make. If he catches your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, my hon. Friend the Joint Under-Secretary of State will do his best at the conclusion of the debate to deal with individual points which emerge in it.
Mr. Henry Clark: We have had a statement about the future of Sea Eagle from the Minister of Defence for the Navy, who gave some figures of the economies which would be effected by the removal of the Anti-Submarine School from the north of Ireland to the south-west of England. To anyone who has not been initiated into naval economy, those figures sounded incredible. As Sea Eagle is likely to be a subject of debate throughout the day, it would be of the greatest assistance if the Home Secretary could give us some idea before he concludes of how these economies of £500,000 will be achieved and where the half-submarine and half-frigate come in—because, frankly, these figures leave me guessing.
Sir F. Soskice: The question was addressed to me but perhaps it would have been more appropriately addressed to my hon. Friend the Minister of Defence for the Navy. It may be that he will catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, later in the debate. I know that the hon. Member for Antrim, North (Mr. Henry Clark) would sooner have my hon. Friend's ex-
32
pertise in reply than he would have my reply, such as it would be. I hope that he will therefore excuse me if I say no more than that.
5.0 p.m.
Mr. R. Chichester-Clark: The Home Secretary has, I am bound to say, said very little indeed, although what he did say he said very well. While most of his speech consisted of a commendation of the work of the Government of Northern Ireland, he found it more difficult to make any commendation of his own Government. Indeed, that would be even more difficult after what we have heard this afternoon.
The hon. Gentleman the Minister of Defence for the Royal Navy has introduced a great chord of dismay throughout the province of Northern Ireland by his announcement this afternoon about Sea Eagle. I find it hard indeed to believe that the Government can go on with this decision and, though this may be the eleventh hour, I appeal to them to think again.
Last week, the Londonderry Committee sent the hon. Gentleman—and he knows all about this, as do his colleagues in the Government—a submission in which the Committee urged—as far as I know, with complete truth—that his figures had been wrong throughout the whole of this year. "Yes", the hon. Gentleman will say. "No doubt some were established while others were not established". But there is no getting away from the fact that in his letter to me—dated, I think, 30th September—he came out with a completely different figure to that which had been produced earlier. There will no doubt be many occasions on which we can argue this matter in Parliament. In the meantime, I say that my hon. Friends and I intend to return to this subject on many future occasions.
I find it hard to believe that hon. Gentlemen opposite, who claim to speak to the electorate as representatives of the party which cares about the people, can do a thing of this kind, a thing which makes a sham and nonsense of all their professions about regionalism, their care and concern for the unemployed. [interruption.] Hon. Gentlemen opposite interrupt and I hear one saying "Nonsense" and another "Hear, hear." It is their usual party spirit.

33
What the decision of the Government will mean for hundreds of people in Londonderry—many of them, as I have said, unskilled; many of middle age who have not known any other work throughout their lives except that concerned with the Navy—is hard to visualise. Further, there is nothing genuine of which we know which will give them an opportunity to do other work. The Government's statement makes optimistic noises about alternative employment, and if they intend to go on with the closure I hope that they will be successful and will do something quickly.
I want to know, as do many other people, what the Government have in mind to provide equivalent employment in Londonderry—to provide the spending power which is such an enormously important matter in an economy of the type which exists there. The right hon. and learned Gentleman must realise that for himself, particularly since he has been told it time and again. The spending power is indeed enormous, with the personnel who are permanently there. He must be aware of this since it is a N.A.T.O. base. Ships' crews come there from many other countries and add additional spending power to the economy. That spending power is badly needed there now. From the defence point of view, what the Govearnment propose will probably be entirely illusory in terms of a saving.
I appeal to the Minister to consider the matter afresh. Would it not be better for him to return to his colleagues and say that he may have been wrong in his figures, that he wants time to think again, that he wants to consider the memorandum which has been sent to him and which, in all courtesy, he should have considered when it was sent by the Londonderry Committee? I hope that he will indeed look at the matter afresh and ask the Cabinet to think again and arrive at a decision which will remove the dismay which he has created this afternoon. It really is an incredible decision and one which will not be forgiven in Londonderry unless he agrees to go back, even at this last moment, on what he has said. As I say, we will most certainly return to this issue again.
Having said that, it would be churlish of me to begin this debate for the Opposition without acknowledging the
34
considerable personal success which the Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Office, enjoyed on his visit to Northern Ireland during the Recess. He will probably be the first to agree that some of that success was due to the constructive and co-operative way in which he—and this goes for all Members of the Administration who have visited Ulster—was received by the Government of Northern Ireland. It is right and proper that this close and harmonious relationship should exist whatever the political colour of the Governments in London or Belfast.
In particular, when the hon. Gentleman was there he travelled to address a large meeting of Ulster farmer. Their mood, since the last Price Review, has, to say the least, not been exactly serene. The hon. Gentleman, who is well versed in both biblical and literary analogies, must have reflected on the story of Daniel in the lion's den as he winged his way across the Irish Sea. The fact that he managed to emerge from the den comparatively unscathed was, I think, in some degree due to his own capacity to excite sympathy—of which we in the House are well aware—and partly to the dexterity with which he produced a bone and waved it at the farmers in the form of a promise to renew the remoteness grant.
He will also remember the familiar line, "The quality of mercy is not strained", and we must hope that the farmers will recall that now that the amount of the remoteness grant has been announced this afternoon, the hon. Gentleman will also recall the less familiar line "A Daniel come to judgment." I fear the latter will be in the minds of the farmers of Ulster when they hear the announcement because they will not believe that the amount is enough and they will say that the hon. Gentleman's bone does not have enough meat on it. That is bound to be the case.
Indeed, I doubt whether it will be anything like enough. Great play was made about it not being intended to make up the price differential, but the price differential is a high one. For example, in 1963, it was about £5 million, which is something to be considered. Further, if the amount announced was enough, then surely that amount could 'have been used for new outlets, such as the development

35
of packaged foods and so on, which would have been of considerable help.
When the hon. Gentleman faced the farmers he had another weapon in his armoury in the form of the White Paper which his right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food had produced. I do not know whether he found that a rather blunt weapon. If the Government expected the farming community of Northern Ireland to rhapsodise about the White Paper, they must have been disappointed—designed, as it is, to accelerate the process of small farmers leaving the land—sending them on their way with a "douceur", although in Ulster they might call it a "luck penny". I assure the Government that the White Paper has not thrilled the farming community of Northern Ireland very much. My hon. Friends and I are aware that whatever may be said about providing alternative employment for these people, such employment is not there for them at present. Until this problem is faced the White Paper will not mean as much as it might. Of course, there is economic sense in having a more capital intensive agriculture, operating at a higher level of productivity, and to this extent we appreciate the object of the White Paper, but until the problem of alternative employment is really faced the White Paper will not carry us far, and this is the view of the farmers there.
This is relevant, too, to the amount of the remoteness grant because some of these funds could be used to develop new outlets like packaged and processed foods, which would provide additional jobs at, so to speak, one remove from the land. It is most important that the Government think this issue out clearly.
Another point which is relevant to the whole question of agriculture in Northern Ireland is the proposition to bring about an Anglo-Eire free trade area in the British Isles. We in the House have been kept very largely in the dark about these negotiations and I rather resent the way we have been treated. Statements should have been made more frequently and I hope that in future such statements will be made at more frequent intervals because this matter is of particular importance at the moment for Northern Ireland as well as for agriculturists
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throughout Britain. We know that talks have been going on and it is fair to say that such a free trade area arrangement was only one of the possibilities mentioned in last July's joint communiqué.
On the industrial side, we in Northern Ireland should, on the whole, if the negotiations are carried out properly, have very little to fear. The position for years past has been that the Republic has been enjoying the advantages of being in the Commonwealth, so to speak, without being in it; without having to face up fully to the responsibilities that are involved. They have been sending their industrial products into Northern Ireland and the rest of the United Kingdom virtually duty-free.
They have also maintained a high tariff wall to protect their own industries and thus deprived us of what in Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom as a whole might be described as traditional markets. There have been some limited relaxations—10 per cent. on 1st January in two successive years—but let us not forget that the Her Majesty's Government's own action in putting on the surcharge last year, in all probability, prevented another relaxation of 10 per cent. That must be borne in mind in these negotiations. There have been these limited relaxations but, basically, we have not yet got very far.
It must be apparent to all that no one in Northern Ireland really confuses the economic border with the political one. The economic border was a wall erected unilaterally after the two Governments in the island of Ireland were set up, and had nothing to do with the political situation. Everyone at home realises full well that we in Northern Ireland are not tied to the United Kingdom by a few Customs posts but by the will of the great majority, by sentiment and by commonsense. There is no doubt or difficulty about this. If the tariff wall fell down tomorrow we are no more likely to run into the arms of Dublin than General de Gaulle is to waive the sovereignty of France.
Neither politically nor economically have we a great deal to fear from industrial free trade so long as it really is free trade and not a typically Irish compromise such as enjoying all the benefits of free trade while retaining the advantages of protection of some products of particular interest to us. I can think of

37
some that fall into this category, and I know that representations have been made to the Government. We have more efficient industries in our end of the Island, of that I have no doubt.
But a bargain, if there is to be a bargain, must be two-sided. If the tariff walls are to come tumbling down on the Eire side it will not be done without hope of some reward elsewhere, and it does not take great analytical skill to see that this can be only in the sphere of agriculture. I suppose that the Republic anticipates that it will get greater access for its agricultural products, and I would be surprised if hon. Members on both sides of this House who have agricultural constituencies will not want to look at this side of the bargain very carefully.
We should like to know whether the Government can today make an interim report on how these negotiations are going. We would be very disturbed in Northern Ireland at the thought that concessions of this kind, very damaging to our agriculture, might be made to secure industrial benefits which, although welcome, are bound to be problematical, and probably phased over a considerable time. We hope that we may be told something of this later in the debate.
On the question of agricultural concessions, I have had very worried representations from the Northern Ireland grain trade concerning component animal feeding stuffs. This trade may sound small in the context of this debate but it is of immense importance at home, and I therefore ask the Government to take it very seriously. We are also bound to remember, as I hope the negotiators will, that many Northern Ireland firms, being smaller than those on this side of the water will, of necessity, find it more difficult to compete initially with firms in the United Kingdom as a whole because they have not the same economies of scale that there are in this country, and therefore have not the same promotional experience of firms here. They may therefore find it rather more difficult to withstand losses in the intial stages that the larger firms in Britain find more easy to withstand. A great deal depends, of course, on the way in which the negotiations are carried out.
If there is to be free and open competition within these islands it must be fair and equal competition. By that I
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mean that we in Northern Ireland face, next door, so to speak, a competition country. Both of us are anxious to get American investment, and other foreign investment from wherever we can, and at any time we can, but in this case we are facing the competition of a country which pays lower wages, which imposes lower social charges on the employers, and which can, and often does, exempt exports into the British market from taxation. This must be borne in mind by the negotiators.
In their zeal to appease the Republic for the wrath they roused by the imposition of their surcharge last year, the Government must be seen not to forget about their own people when conducting these negotiations.
When the present Government took office the one direction in which they were expected to be particularly active was regional development, and we in Ulster, being pragmatic people, had some sympathy with that aim and were prepared to wait and see whether it was to be fulfilled. We all know now what form it has taken, but it sometimes seems that the Local Employment Act has given way to Parkinson's Law. We have councils and boards, we have the D.E.A. and the N.E.D.C. and all the other intricate machinery of liaison between these bodies. I am sure that the First Secretary—and, I think, the Home Secretary—would agree that Northern Ireland has done its best to tie in with all this complicated machinery.
"Let's go with Labour and we'll get things done". What have they actually done? I wonder whether the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Ogden) would cheer if he had had to listen from this side this afternoon to the announcement that has been made? He is on the other side of the House, and was put up by his own Front Bench to ask a stooge question—
Mr. Eric Ogden: The implication is that I was put up to say what I said a little earlier. I think that statement should be withdrawn. I would ask the hon. Gentleman not to make such allegations.
Mr. Chichester-Clark: Of course, if the hon. Gentleman tells me that it is untrue, I will at once withdraw it, but I am sure that he will understand that from this side it did sound extraordinarily like that.
Mr. Eric S. Heffer: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Chichester-Clark: No. I have already given way, and I want to get on.
What have the Government actually done for the regions in general and for Northern Ireland in particular?
Mr. Hector Hughes: Less unemployment.
Mr. Chichester-Clark: The hon. and learned Gentleman wants to take credit for less unemployment in Northern Ireland. He thinks that because there is less unemployment—and, thank God, there is—it has something to do with his side of the House, but this afternoon's announcement means the creation of a little more unemployment. If he really thinks that he can take credit for something that is a matter of trends which have been improving all the time, he knows less than I thought he did.
What have the Government done for the regions in general and Northern Ireland in particular. There is their National Plan—and I am not as hard on the National Plan as are some hon. Members opposite. The hon. Member for Middlesbrough, West (Dr. Bray) is much more unkind about it than I am. In Northern Ireland, some are less unkind than others. At best, it can be called a useful economic Bradshaw, but I would call it a sublime combination of optimism and guesswork. I see the Under-Secretary of State nods—
The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. George Thomas): I was not nodding.
Mr. Chichester-Clark: Then the hon. Gentleman was not nodding—it was a nervous tic, or something.
Even the First Secretary would not claim that there was anything new in the National Plan for the regions or for Northern Ireland. In effect, it tells us, with that special gift which the Government have for presenting platitude as newly-revealed truth, that the underdeveloped areas have a greater part to play in the economy because of their manpower resources. Something like that was heard as far back as 1963, so it does not really get us very far at all—[Interruption.] I have said it rather earlier than the National Plan has. I have said it in
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earlier debates on Northern Ireland. I do not feel at least ashamed to have anticipated the National Plan.
The Government talk a great deal about tough decisions. "Tough" is one of those very "O.K." words in No. 10 and in Transport House. For "tough", top people now substitute "gritty". But, tough or gritty, this afternoon they have been vicious about Sea Eagle, unless they withdraw what they have said. They have been very tough over the aircraft industry. They have kicked the British aircraft industry in the teeth, and that was certainly tough for the aircraft industry.
We might remember their manifesto, "Signposts to the New Ulster," on which Labour candidates in Northern Ireland fought the last General Election.
"A Labour Government would look with especial sympathy on the problems which afflict the aircraft and shipbuilding industries."
I take it that that means such problems as having planes to build and that sort of thing.
If the Government look with sympathy on the British aircraft industry, it is rather with the sympathy of the gladiator tearing the dagger from the entrails of his victim. Certainly it is not obvious to any of us in the House. It is another of those instances where, if a company invited support on the basis of a prospectus as misleading as that manifesto, it could expect a Board of Trade inquiry. But I know that the Government have had unhappy experiences with Board of Trade inquiries into industrial disputes, where they have found that non-existent political prejudice exists after all. So perhaps that is not a very good idea.
Let us come now to what is the specific problem of Short Brothers and Harland, of which the right hon. Gentleman spoke this afternoon. It is, after all, very much the Government's problem. They own a controlling interest in it, and certainly one would have thought that a Government which believed in public control of the "commanding heights of the economy" would have wished to make Short's an example of how well these things could be run and what they could achieve.
The Government came into power and acted very swiftly. First of all, they cancelled the contract upon which much of Short's employment was to depend up to 1970, which was the HS 681. That is

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three years' work gone, some say; some say more. Then, as the right hon. Gentleman reoalls, they appointed consultants. I recall that the consultants were first mentioned in the House by the First Secretary on 2nd February, and that is quite a long time ago. I do not underestimate the difficulty of the job that they are trying to do because, as I said myself and as the Home Secretary said again this afternoon, you do not suddenly find diversification overnight, because Short's is not that kind of place. Short's is a modern plant for the building of planes, and one cannot turn it into a machine tool factory overnight. The Government should not try to build up optimism round that sort of possibility. It will take time, and it certainly has taken time. It has taken far too long, and, the longer it takes them, the greater are the chances of creating a lack of confidence. It has come to the point when the Government should say quite clearly, if they believe it, that the firm of Short's still has a place as a plane-maker, and the Government should say it quite firmly so that competitors and others realise that the Government mean what they say.
There are certain questions which we must ask them in more definite terms. One I have asked is this, is the firm to remain predominantly a manufacturer of aircraft? It not, why not? Have the Government come to the conclusion that the idea that only giant consortia can survive in the industry is a fallacy? No doubt that is an idea which is in the opposite sense encouraged by the giant consortia themselves. But, if Fokker's of Holland—Short's and Fokker's have worked together—can make a go of the business, why not Short's of Belfast? What have the Government to say on that one?
They have to ensure that the firms reputation as a plane-maker is not left in doubt very much longer, because that is the danger. I want them to make it clear that that danger does not exist, and I would like it said this afternoon, because time is slipping by.
Thirdly, there is the work-load gap between now and 1970. In view of what has happened, is it too late now to fill that gap? If it is too late, and there are bound to be severe redundancies, let the Government come clean and say so,
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because we want to face realities, the people in Belfast want to face realities, and the Government ought to face realities. The future of Short's is really a key issue in Ulster. We do not want verbal tranquillisers about it. The Government's intentions, their goodwill and their competence will be largely judged by their performance in this matter, because not only is Short's a source of employment for thousands of men; it is of immense value as a vital nucleus of high technical competence whose loss would be severely felt in efforts to attract new and more sophisticated industries to Ulster. The National Plan took the aircraft industry to task for hogging scientists, technicians and technologists, but if we did not have an aircraft industry in Northern Ireland, we should have fewer scientists and technologists.
What are the Government going to do about filling the hole which they have created by the cancellation of the HS 681? That is an important question, as the right hon. Gentlemen knows.
I do not want to be negative, so let me go back to "Signposts", the manifesto that the Labour Party produced for Northern Ireland at the time of the last Election:
"From a Labour Government, Northern Ireland can be certain of receiving genuine co-operation and exceptional consideration for its exceptional unemployment figures."
How can the Government live up to that promise? By tough measures, yes, but they must be tough positive measures and not tough negative ones. There is vague talk in the National Plan about putting more teeth into the location of industry policy. We discussed that in the last debate on the subject. Let them do the kind of tough talking which the last Government had to do to get the motor industry out into Scotland and Merseyside. That is the kind of tough talking we want to see. There is the old cliché about the carrot and the stick, but it is only the United Kingdom Government which can apply the stick, however many carrots the Northern Ireland Government hold out. It is a long, slow business to build up employment from firms which at their peak will employ a few hundreds. But we have had success in doing it, and we now want some really big development steered into the right places. That

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must be done if the national policy for the regions is going to be effective.
As I said in the last debate, and I was to some extent echoed by the Under Secretary to the First Secretary, all that may mean using fiscal policies in new and adventurous ways. The last Government showed the way by the manner in which they administered the depreciation scheme. Are this Government considering some additional fiscal means of making the location of industry policy still more effective?
We heard a great deal about Government-sponsored industries before the last election. We were told that there would be all sorts of Government-sponsored industries based on Government scientific and technological research. The hon. Member for Middlesbrough, West would agree that that theme has been somewhat muted of late. I do not know whether that is because the Minister of Technology, that classic case of political schizophrenia, has more troubling matters than technology on his mind, such as wondering whether to stand up or sit down after listening to a speech by the First Secretary. That could be the case. If it is, we want to see action in that field, somehow or other. From time to time in scientific research in Government-based industry, or even in administration, new establishments are required to serve the needs of the United Kingdom as a whole. We have been pressing for ages now for something of that kind, and we hope that when such establishments are being set up in the future, some of them will be sent to Northern Ireland to try and alleviate our particular problem. Except in the defence field, where it is true that the Royal Naval Aircraft Yard at Sydenham plays a key rôle in maintenance of the Fleet Air Arm, there is no substantial Government activity yet set up in Northern Ireland. This would be a very welcome happening. What we want is something like the National Engineering Laboratory at East Kilbride, which serves not only Scotland but the nation as a whole. I should like to hear something on those lines.
I do not doubt that someone in this debate will wave the flag of discrimination. If I went into detail I should certainly get out of order, but I must say to those who want to wave that flag,
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you don't do Ulster any service. "We have to deal with this thing ourselves." "No successful solution for the provinces' problems can possibly be imposed from outside." Is there anyone in this House who disagrees with that? [An HON. MEMBER: "There is."] This is very interesting because I quoting the exact words of the Government's party's representative on the National Council for Civil Liberties at a conference in London some time ago. This indicates that hon. Members opposite cannot even agree about that. We cannot impose solutions of this kind from outside.
Mr. Simon Mahon: Is the hon. Member admitting that there is a grave degree of discrimination in Northern Ireland?
Mr. Chichester-Clark: I know that the hon. Member for Bootle (Mr. Simon Mahon) is always sincere in these matters. I wish that one could feel that certain hon. Members opposite were not listening a little too carefully, not to wiser counsels in their own party but to minorities in their constituencies who speak with accents which are nothing to do with the United Kingdom nor any part of the Commonwealth. I fear that this too often happens and I am afraid that this is true.
On this question of discrimination employment is the test case. There is still far too much unemployment. There are still not enough houses. The Government at home have been acting vigorously and courageously—this has been admitted—to try to put that right and to try to bring more jobs and houses there. They have been doing this, but while there is a shortage—this must be faced by hon. Members—men will cry, "Discrimination". It is very easy for any man to become bitter because he has not got a job or has not got a house. He is encouraged to become bitter by too many people. This applies to both faiths and there are those only too anxious to cry that there is discrimination. I have often had occasion when people of my own party have said that they were being discriminated against in one way or another—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Samuel Storey): Order. I am afraid the hon. Member is doing what he said he would

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be likely to do if he pursued this matter. Now he is getting out of order.
Mr. Chichester-Clark: I was afraid that that would be the case, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I do not wish to go into detail about it, but there are reasons for discrimination cries which come from long-term social trends. I would not for a moment aver that there was no discrimination in Northern Ireland, but equally I say that I do not believe there is any more there than in any other country in the world. I think we have it everywhere. While these trends continue and until we can give jobs and houses for everybody—this is what we should be working for in this House—I am afraid there will be those who cry "Discrimination". We who want to set our faces against it—and that is the vast majority of us—know that it can be cured only by bringing more jobs and houses to Northern Ireland.
We have had a grave blow from the Government this afternoon about the Sea Eagle, one which I feel personally very deeply about and I know that my hon. Friends also do. I am afraid that doubt has been thrown on the Government's regional good intentions. I hope that we shall hear this afternoon something more than we have heard so far, which will do something to restore the shattered confidence of people in Northern Ireland in the will of this Government and their determination to bring to an end unemployment and to bring greater prosperity to the people there.
Mr. Heffer: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I wish to ask why it was out of order for the question of discrimination to be discussed. I ask because I understand that under Section 75 we have ultimate responsibility for Northern Ireland. Therefore, it seems that in any discussion of Northern Ireland any relevant matters connected with Northern Ireland are in order. I should like you to explain this point.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: What is in order in this debate is what the United Kingdom Government are responsible for. For instance, discrimination in housing in Northern Ireland is not a matter for the United Kingdom Government; it is a matter for the Northern Ireland Government. If there is any discrimination it
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would be contrary to the Act and would be actionable in the courts. There is no responsibility on Ministers in this House.
Mr. Hector Hughes: Further to that point of order. The hon. Member for Londonderry (Mr. Chichester-Clark) several times enunciated prejudices against the Republic of Ireland. Does he realise that that is contrary to the policy enunciated jointly by the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and the Prime Minister of Southern Ireland? How can it be out of order to refer to that?
Mr. Chichester-Clark: Further to that point of order. I think the hon. and learned Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hector Hughes) must have misheard something I said because I did not enunciate any prejudice against Southern Ireland, but I merely showed the anxiety that these negotiations should be fairly conducted and that our own people should not be forgotten before the negotiations are concluded. There are certain anxieties. There is no prejudice. We are all basically in favour of free trade if it can be brought about.
5.37 p.m.
The Minister of Defence for the Royal Navy (Mr. Christopher Mayhew): I do not know whether it would be appropriate for me now to reply to the specific requests for information about my statement which have been made by a number of Opposition hon. Members. If it would help I am willing to give more fully the reasons for this statement. There are operational advantages in Londonderry over Plymouth. It is nearer to deep water and there is less shipping there than at Plymouth. Those are points in favour from the point of view of submarine training, but there are overwhelming disadvantages.
Basically the trouble is that our main bases for submarines and frigates are in the South-West and our main antisubmarine training is in the South-West. In Londonderry there is only one form of anti-submarine defence and there are other forms of basic training, helicopter training and anti-submarine training in the South-West. The trouble about Londonderry is two-fold. First, if we can spare a precious submarine to go to Londonderry for these exercises, while it is being used there it is used only by one

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part of our anti-submarine training activities. It is under-used and badly under-used, whereas if it is exercising at Plymouth, in the South-West, all our antisubmarine training effort can make use of that precious submarine's exercise time. This is basic.
The second major disadvantage of Londonderry is its distance from main bases. It is a long way from the South-West to Londonderry for a slow-moving craft such as a submarine and time wasted in going there and back would be enormous. It works out, as I have explained, if we can concentrate anti-submarine training in Plymouth, that the time saved by frigates and submarines going there and back makes available to the Navy one-and-a-half extra submarines and one-and-a-half extra frigates. These are facts which I think cannot be disputed. I have explained them at great length to all concerned, and I doubt whether the adjective "vicious" is correct for use in relation to the Government's decision. The speech of the hon. Member for Londonderry (Mr. Chichester-Clark) was perhaps proper in emotional content for the hon. Member for Londonderry, but not for the official spokesman of a great party which demands efficiency and economy in defence expenditure. I am surprised indeed that the right hon. Member for Monmouth (Mr. Thorneycroft), who, after all, knows some of the facts, can declare that the Conservative Party would continue refusing these economies, refusing these availabilities of ships and men, in order to stay in Londonderry.
May I finish by clearing up the point about the figures of civilians stated by the hon. Member for Londonderry. The figure given in the memorandum to which the hon. Gentleman referred and which have read was 659 civilians affected. This is the wrong figure. The hon. Gentleman has no excuse for getting it wrong, because it includes two establishments which we have no proposals to close. There is a fuel establishment at Lisahally and there is an armament depot at—I forget the local name.
Mr. Chichester-Clark: Kilnappy. I know it well.
Mr. Mayhew: The hon. Gentleman's figure included both those establishments
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and also the Admiralty constabulary to go in them. We have no proposal to close those establishments. The right figure is 481, not 659. Finally, on the hon. Gentleman's suggestion that I mentioned an earlier figure of 232. These figures, as the minutes of our meeting will show, referred to established only. The right figure for established, plus un-established, is 481. There is no lack of clarity on our side.
Mr. Rafton Pounder: Before the hon. Gentleman sits down—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: I think the hon. Gentleman has sat down.
5.42 p.m.
Mr. Stanley R. McMaster: We heard from the Home Secretary a cheerful statement of the position in Northern Ireland. It is true that the position in Northern Ireland has been improving steadily over the last ten years, but I would direct the right hon. and learned Gentleman's attention particularly in this context to the Labour Party's document, "Signposts for the Sixties". The very first part of the document is headed, "The Dangers of Complacency". I detected a great deal of complacency in what the right hon. and learned Gentleman said.
We in Northern Ireland are still too dependent on a few basic industries—agriculture, textiles, shipbuilding, and our aircraft industry. We still have far too many unemployed. The right hon. and learned Gentleman mentioned a figure of just over 27,000. Though this represents an improvement, our unemployment figure has remained stubbornly at over 5 per cent. ever since the war. At the moment, there is still over 6 per cent. of men unemployed, including many skilled men who cannot find work.
We have training schemes for these men. They have been mentioned in the National Plan and in the Wilson Plan, to which the right hon. and learned Gentleman referred. These training schemes need to be enlarged and much still needs to be done to direct new industry to Northern Ireland. I was very disappointed when I read the National Plan. I went through it in some detail. The section of the National Plan which deals with development areas and regional planning—I refer to Chapter 8, page 84—shows what a difference there is between

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the standard of living and the rate of unemployment in Northern Ireland and that for the rest of the country. For instance, the average income per person is £61 in Northern Ireland, while that for the rest of the country is between £90 and £100. These are facts which cannot be concealed, even though the employment position has been improving.
Special help is still required. The credit squeeze which the Government have initiated, and particularly the very severe deflationary Budget introduced earlier this year by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, have done great damage to Northern Ireland's hopes of finally conquering this last, stiff, 5 per cent. of unemployed. More attention should be given to finding ways of protecting areas such as Northern Ireland and other development areas from the rigours of such a credit squeeze, particularly the very high interest rates. Some way should be evolved of making money available at a lower rate of interest to help areas such as Northern Ireland to bring about industrial expansion.
Such a lower interest rate would not only help to attract new industry to Northern Ireland. It would also help our existing industries to expand. While the prevailing high interest rates continue in the United Kingdom we shall not see the kind of expansion which we became accustomed to during the period of the last Government in helping to fight unemployment. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] I forecast, because I hear voices opposite questioning this, that if the present high interest rate and the credit squeeze continue a major crisis will develop in the United Kingdom and one of the first areas to be affected by such an economic crisis will be development areas—marginal areas — such as Northern Ireland.
I was sorry that the Home Secretary referred to transport costs only in passing. Further inquiries should be made with a view to standardising transport costs in the United Kingdom. The word "postal-ise" is sometimes used. The analogy is obvious. What is wanted is a standard transport rate for goods sent from any part of the United Kingdom. Such a scheme would be a great help to development areas and would help to achieve one of the ends set out in the National Plan, which is to make use of
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the slack resources and unemployed to be found in such areas.
There have been inquiries into our shipping rates across the Irish Channel. Some anxiety has been expressed at the fact that British Railways, which runs some of these shipping services, makes a profit on these services which helps to subsidise losses on the railways elsewhere in the United Kingdom. This matter should be studied again in an effort to ensure that industrialists in Northern Ireland who are seeking to expand their industries are not being penalised to subsidise uneconomic railways in the rest of the United Kingdom.
The House will know my constituency interest in the Belfast dry dock. I was very disappointed in the decision taken in this matter. Fifty years ago when the existing dry dock was laid down it was the largest in the world. When it was laid down those who established it were thinking 50 years ahead. Are we thinking 50 years ahead now? This is a dock which would take boats up to 160,000 tons dead weight.
Mr. George Thomas: One hundred and seventy thousand.
Mr. McMaster: The Home Secretary said 160,000 to 170,000. Which did he mean? Did he mean 160,000 or 170,000? It depends on the breadth of the beam whether the boat is 160,000 or 170,000 tons. Today boats of 200,000 tons are being built. In Japan a dry dock is being built to take boats up to a width of 185 feet. We have only one site in Belfast for such a dry dock. Why not build the dry dock to take boats of a width of 185 ft? Why not think ahead? Why not keep our shipyards in the forefront of the world? Why should we allow the Japanese to take the lead? Cannot we think further ahead than next year or the year after that? Once a dock has been built of a certain width, it cannot be widened. The difference in cost may be £1 million or £2 million. I call for the type of imaginative decision which the Labour Party always claims that it stands for and the type of foresight which was displayed 50 years ago when the existing dry dock was laid down. It is a matter of only another 20 ft. A dock can be lengthened later, but it cannot be widened. I ask that this point be considered before it is too late.

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A great deal of money has been invested by Harland and Wolff over the past five years in improving their facilities. One can see a new attitude between management and men. An inquiry is being conducted at the moment by the Geddes Committee into the efficiency of our shipyards. The corollary is that the facilities there should be as good as those to be found anywhere else in the world.
Under this heading I should also like the Government to consider again their policy towards British shipowners, a point which I have mentioned often before in the House. The right hon. Gentleman referred to it and we were all delighted to see Harland and Wolff winning an order for a Norwegian bulk carrier of 167,000 tons. We were delighted to see other orders for tankers and carriers which have been won abroad by Harland and Wolff and other British shipyards, but is not it ridiculous that the Government, who before the election kept on saying that they were going to build at home instead of buying overseas, should allow British shipowners to go to Japan and Germany for their ships? Has the right hon. Gentleman's attention been directed to the four tankers ordered by Shell, three in Japan and one in Germany, and the vessels ordered by P. & O. in Japan and Germany, who often in the past were customers of Harland and Wolff?
Foreign owners are fickle. They come to us one year and then go to a cheaper market the next, and we are not prepared to extend credit to British shipowners to buy ships here. I ask the Government to look again at this question and to consider the fallacy and stupidity of winning foreign orders and the resultant foreign exchange while at the same time wasting that advantage in buying ships abroad for British owners.
The aircraft company already mentioned in the debate, Short Brothers and Harland, is also in my constituency. The case for the aircraft industry is similar to that for the shipbuilding industry. The Government did great damage to the aircraft industry in this country when they cancelled the TSR2, the P1154 and the HS 681. They did more damage than they realised. In recent years 70 per cent. of productive effort in the British aircraft
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industry has been devoted to meeting military needs. I know that the party opposite and many of its members have criticised this high proportion being spent on military needs. But in America 80 per cent. of the productive effort goes on military requirements. France devotes about 60 per cent. to military needs. We have sold many of these military planes abroad, including the Canberras and the Hunters. In the past ten years we have earned £1,370 million. We are earning over £100 million per annum by the export of military and civil aircraft like the Viscount, the Hunter and Canberra and by selling aircraft equipment such as radios, seats, and engines.
One can see why the Americans were so eager to sell us the Hercules in place of the HS 681, a modern short take-off freighter. It was because the American aircraft industry would like to see the British aircraft industry being put out of business. The British industry has been one of the largest exporters of aircraft, second only to the American. Four or five years ago our exports were equal to half of the American orders. The Americans have great salesmen like Henry John Cuss who go round the world criticising the British aircraft industry and suggesting that Australia and New Zealand should not buy such aircraft as the B.A.C. 111 or the Trident from Britain because the British aircraft industry is not supported by the Government and might go under altogether. This is the result of cancellations like these.
A substantial part of the HS 681 was to be built in Northern Ireland. This was mentioned by the Prime Minister on 2nd February, 1965. In a debate on that day I interrupted the Prime Minister when he was making a statement. He said, with reference to that statement and to me:
"I know that the hon. Gentleman wants to ask about the Belfast."—
that is, the freighter aircraft built in Northern Ireland—
"The Belfast is in production. We are very concerned, as the hon. Member is, about the effect of what I have just announced on the sub-contracting programme for Short and Harlands. We are very much concerned. One of the things which we want to look at—I do not want to raise hopes too much—is the possibility of getting some other subcontracting either as a result of the manufacture in this country of Phantoms or in the

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matter of some of the new planes which we have announced, whether the Comet, the Kestrel or one of the others."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 2nd February, 1965; Vol. 705 c. 933.]
What new work have the Government directed to Short and Harlands? There is the promise by the Prime Minister that he would try to send work to Northern Ireland, but not one bit has been sent since February.
The management of Short and Harlands have gone out for one contract in collaboration with Fokker to produce the Fellowship or the Friendship aircraft. They have won work on the Phantom by competitive tender, but none of this has been directed by the Government. I ask the Government to consider honouring this pledge of theirs and I ask whether work, for example, on the side panels of the Hercules aircraft or the tail of the Phantom which has not yet been allocated, should not be sent to Northern Ireland in order that this vital industry for Northern Ireland should be retained and kept viable in Belfast.
This industry in the past has been a vital income-earner, but there are other considerations besides the earning of foreign exchange by exports. Firstly, the aircraft industry is a technological leader. The party opposite has made great play of its fondness for technology and how it would support technology when it came to office, but the Government have whipped the feet from under the technological industry which leads in metallurgy, computers, electronics and other advanced technologies. The industry is vital to Northern Ireland for this reason, and the apprenticeship school of Short and Harlands has led the way in Northern Ireland. Now the future of the whole industry has been placed under a dark cloud by the present Government.
The Government should have considered the Belfast as an alternative to the Lockheed Hercules. The Prime Minister, on the day to which I have referred, seemed to be badly briefed. He did not even know that a new version of the Belfast had been put forward to replace the Hercules and to meet the requirements of the Labour Government. He did not know that the requirement for the Belfast had been changed, without any tender being put to the British aircraft industry, and that once the decision was taken to cancel the HS 681 no fur-
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ther tenders were invited from the British aircraft industry to develop another transport aircraft.
I suggest that the Government should review seriously their policy towards the aircraft industry. The defence element is absolutely vital. It helps to provide money for research and development which keeps this industry in the lead. If it is suggested by the party opposite that the civil elements of the industry can remain viable if one takes away the military part, this is patent nonsense. It is only by the military contracts which America, France and Germany and all other countries give to support them that their civil industries are kept going. This serves three purposes: one, it helps to maintain the independence of this country in a vital arm of our defence; two, it provides a valuable export earner—I have already mentioned some of the aircraft in this connection—and, three, it helps to lead technology not only in Northern Ireland but in the rest of the United Kingdom.
I cannot leave this subject without mentioning the missile side. Short Brothers and Harland has been in the forefront with its Sea Cat missile, which, in the last year, earned over £1 million in export orders. But very little assistance has been given to Short Brothers and Harland to develop other missiles, and other missiles will be needed not only for naval use but for land use. I ask the Government to consider, in particular, this missile factory of Short Brothers and Harland, remembering the importance of that company to the economy of Belfast and to the economy of Northern Ireland. Unless more work goes there quickly, there may well be a dip in employment in Short Brothers. This was forecast some years ago. The work on the HS 681 was meant to fill the gap, but that has been taken away and not sufficient other work has been put in its place.
To sum up, the party opposite can do very much more not only to meet unemployment in Northern Ireland but to help to bring up the standard of living there, to bring up the average wage to the level which rules throughout the United Kingdom generally, so that the prosperity in the United Kingdom which we see here in London can be shared equally with those who live in Northern Ireland.
6.2 p.m.
Mr. Bernard Floud: I hope I may be forgiven if I do not follow the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) into all the intricacies of the aircraft industry, as I was under the impression that this debate today was to be on Northern Ireland generally.
Captain Orr: Would the hon. Gentleman forgive me—
Mr. Floud: I have not really said anything yet, so I can hardly be asked to give way. At a later stage, perhaps.
I was about to say—I am sure that the hon. and gallant Member will appreciate this—that I hope that we all here realise that when there are changes in defence policy or when there are contractions in certain industries because of technological changes, there is bound to be produced a considerable measure of disturbance for the people who work in the industries involved. We all have sympathy with those people, and we would all want to do everything possible to ensure that the disturbance is reduced to a minimum and that alternative employment is found. I do not confine my sympathy, as some hon. Members opposite seem to do, to people in the aircraft industry or in the defence establishments. I feel equally strongly about finding new jobs for redundant railwaymen or for redundant miners, and I wish that hon. Members opposite would sometimes express as much concern for redundant workers in industries of that kind as they do for workers in the aircraft industry.
Let us not imagine, as one might after listening to the speeches of the hon. Members for Belfast, East and Londonderry (Mr. Chichester-Clark), that contractions and closures in the aircraft industry are events which happen only under this Labour Government. I need not remind the right hon. Member for Monmouth (Mr. Thorneycroft) that two or three years ago, when he was Minister of Defence, one of the oldest-established aircraft engine firms in this country, Napier's, the employer of more than 2,500 workers and probably the biggest single employer in my constituency of Acton, was closed down, its design teams broken up and scattered to the winds and 2,500 people made redundant. That was not a pleasant situation. No redundancy ever is. But
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let not hon. Members opposite pretend that problems of change of this kind occur only when a Labour Government are in power.
Towards the end of his speech, the hon. Member for Londonderry devoted a good deal of time to the subject of discrimination or no discrimination. I hope that I shall be allowed to keep as much in order as he did on this subject. This week, the eyes of the world and our thoughts are very much concentrated on an area in Central Africa where racial problems and racial discrimination are a very important feature of the situation. This afternoon, we are discussing a part of the United Kingdom itself where, in the view of very many people, religious differences, claims and charges of religious discrimination have been a feature of everyday life for decades. This is a part of the United Kingdom, an area very much closer to us than Rhodesia and for which we have at least as much responsibility.
Thirty years ago, the philosophy of the ruling group in Northern Ireland was expressed very succinctly by the then Premier of Northern Ireland, Lord Craigavon, when he said, "All I boast is that we are a Protestant Parliament and a Protestant State".
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Samuel Storey): Order. The hon. Gentleman is going out of order. He must deal only with what is the responsibility of the United Kingdom Government. These are matters for the Northern Ireland Government.
Mr. Floud: I shall do my utmost to keep as much in order as I understood the hon. Member for Londonderry was keeping in order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, when he talked about allegations of discrimination in housing.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. What the hon. Gentleman is now saying is a reflection on my conduct in the Chair. He must not pursue that.
Mr. Floud: Naturally, I withdraw any suggestion of that kind, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but when I heard the hon. Member for Londonderry talking about charges of discrimination in relation to the allocation of houses and replying to those charges, I thought that I should be in order also in referring to them.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: That was when I rose to rule the hon. Gentleman out of order.
Mr. Floud: With great respect, Mr. Deputy Speaker—I say this most sincerely—I accept that you ruled him out of order when he was talking about discrimination in particular circumstances with reference to housing, but I think I am right in saying that he had already said a considerable amount on the general question of discrimination. If he was in order in talking about discrimination generally, should I be equally in order if I talked about discrimination generally?
Mr. Deputy Speaker: No. The hon. Gentleman must confine himself to what is the responsibility of the United Kingdom Government.
Mr. Floud: I bow to your Ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I certainly was not intending, because it would have been fruitless anyway, to take up the time of the House this evening by discussing details of the situation in Northern Ireland which are widely believed to exist. I say frankly that I do not believe that anything which I or other hon. Members here today could say, whether in order or out of order, would have very much effect on the Northern Ireland Government. What I wish to do is to address some questions to Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, the Government who, as I understand, have ultimate responsibility for this part of the United Kingdom which we are discussing.
When the Labour Government was returned to power a year ago, the religious minority, if I may describe them in those terms, in Northern Ireland had high hopes. They knew that in this House, year after year, for about seven years, Lord Brockway, when a Member of this House, had introduced a Private Member's Bill which would have outlawed discrimination and incitement. The Bill which he introduced year after year would have made it an offence to discriminate to the detriment of any person on grounds of colour, race or religion or to incite publicly contempt or hatred of any person or persons because of their colour, race or religion. That Bill, if enacted, would have applied to Northern Ireland, and it was known by people in that territory that that Bill, introduced in this House—
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman cannot refer to legislation in this debate.
Mr. Floud: With great respect, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I am not referring to legislation, am I? I am referring to a Bill which was introduced seven times and objected to and never became legislation. Am I in order in referring to that kind of process?
Mr. Deputy Speaker: The hon. Gentleman cannot refer to a Bill which has been introduced on those terms. He must confine himself to the matter which we are debating today, which is the United Kingdom Government's responsibility for Northern Ireland.
Mr. Floud: Would I be in order, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in mentioning that a Bill which was introduced but which was objected to seven years in succession would have applied to Northern Ireland?
Mr. Deputy Speaker: No.
Mr. Floud: If I am not in order in saying that, naturally I withdraw it and express my regret. But that Bill, if it had got further than it did, would have dealt with religious discrimination as well as racial discrimination.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. Any question of religious discrimination in Northern Ireland is not a matter for the United Kingdom Government.
Mr. Floud: Naturally, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I bow to your Ruling, but in my innocence I should have thought that if racial discrimination in Rhodesia was a matter of very much concern to us in this House, religious discrimination, if it exists, in Northern Ireland would also have been a matter of concern to this House, as I thought the hon. Member for Londonderry made very clear.
I should like to address myself primarily to the question of Her Majesty's Government's responsibilities for certain matters in Northern Ireland. Since under the rules of order I am not allowed to develop this point quite as I should have liked to do, I should like to refer to the text of a letter which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister wrote in September, 1964, shortly before the

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General Election. He wrote to the secretary of an organisation in Northern Ireland.
"I agree with you as to the importance of the issues with which your campaign is concerned and can assure you that a Labour Government would do everything in its power to see that the infringements of justice to which you are so rightly drawing attention are effectively dealt with."
It is perfectly true that the Prime Minister went on:
"We recognise, however, that in existing circumstances this is no easy task."
I recognise that it is no easy task. I also recognise that many of the tasks with which the Labour Government have been faced have not been easy tasks, but that has not prevented the Government from facing up to them.
I do not believe that the Prime Minister would have pledged a Labour Government to do everything in their power in these matters if we here had no power to take effective action. I look forward to hearing from my hon. Friend who is to reply to the debate details of what action in accordance with the Prime Minister's pledge has already been taken and what further action is contemplated to end the scandal of systematic religious discrimination in Northern Ireland.
6.15 p.m.
Mr. John Maginnis: I shall not try to follow the line of thought of the hon. Member for Acton (Mr. Floud), but at this stage I should like very much to congratulate the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary on his very interesting speech. I had the privilege of meeting him on one of his visits to my constituency, and I know that he appreciated all that was going on there in the scientific and agricultural fields. I was interested to hear his remarks about the general economic position of Northern Ireland and how at last things were looking up. I can tell him that the people of Northern Ireland are determined that once and for all prosperity shall be theirs not only for the present but for the future.
I am delighted to see the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department on the Government Front Bench. I know that he will take particular note of what is said. I also congratulate my hon.
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Friend the Member for Londonderry (Mr. Chichester-Clark) on his speech.
I listened very attentively to the statement about H.M.S. "Sea Eagle". I hope that the hon. Gentleman who is to wind up the debate will be quick to deny that the closing of H.M.S. "Sea Eagle" has anything to do with the current free trade negotiations. It strikes me that in the new negotiations once again the Southern Irish ports will be offered to the Royal Navy, to the detriment of the interests of Northern Ireland.
I now want to say a word or two about farming. I was interested to hear from the Home Secretary that at the moment 68,000 people in Northern Ireland are employed in agriculture. That is no mean figure. I am sure that everyone in the House realises that farming is the only industry in this country which works under a curse. The right hon. and learned Gentleman may not agree about that. However, we have great difficulties to overcome, and I am sure that everyone will agree that this year has been one of the most difficult years in human memory for agriculture.
I want to say a word particularly about the hill farms referred to in paragraph 17 of the Government's White Paper, "The Development of Agriculture". Among the many suggestions made are the improvement of the rural economy, the establishment of rural development boards, the development of forestry, the development of tourism, and the provision of reserve powers for purchases by rural development boards. These are all United Kingdom proposals, but if they should meet with the approval of this House they would I am sure, be welcomed by the Northern Ireland Government and the Northern Ireland Minister of Agriculture.
One thing about the proposals in the White Paper which worries me is where the money is coming from to buy the additional land for the small farmer. During the Recess I travelled around Northern Ireland and spoke to many small farmers about this thorny subject. Although the Government propose to give substantial grants and aids to any small farmer who buys additional land, it is also stated that no money has been made available to the small farmer from Government sources to purchase land for the

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sole reason that if the Government did this the price of land would jump. The Home Secretary will understand that land in small farming areas can be bought to advantage only by the people who live in those areas. I live in an area where there are small farmers and thousands of acres of hill land, and I cannot visualise anyone from outside the area coming in and buying up any land which may be made available on the market. That land can be bought and put into production economically only by people who live within a reasonable distance of the area. I am trying to make this point because I believe that all the proposals in this White Paper will fall down if first-class arrangements are not made to enable the small farmers to buy additional land, and land which is near to their own holdings.
All these suggestions to help the small farmers are very commendable, but they depend upon an economic price for agricultural produce, and again, I am afraid, the farmer is like the Psalmist, and like him one would say,
"I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help."
I should like to make three short suggestions. This is a major debate we are having in the House this evening, and I looked forward to taking part in it, but having spent some four hours in an aircraft during the day I am left with a severe headache and cannot continue to make the speech which I had at the outset intended to make, so I shall conclude it by making three short suggestions.
We all know that farmers in the United Kingdom are entitled to various Government grants. I refer to one, the cereal deficiency grant. People on the hill land, the marginal land, plough up an acre or an acre and a half or two acres and sow cereals, particularly barley and oats. I can tell the House that it is entirely uneconomic. Quite often those small farmers spend a good deal of money on fertiliser and seed and tilling the land, and then when they come to harvest the crop they get very little more out of it than they put into it. I would suggest the abolition of deficiency cereal payments to hill farmers and farmers on marginal land.
The second point I should like to make would be for increased grant for drainage on hill and marginal land. This leads
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me to my third point, which is to increase the grant for liming and fertilising and direct reseeding hill and marginal land. This would be far more important than trying to amalgamate or to do many of the things which hill farmers are trying to do. This would give them some basic help, and would be more economic for marginal land which is more economically used for stock rearing than arable farming.
One thing I want to make clear is that, in all these proposals which we have in the White Paper, and the many problems which the small farmers have, I hope that the Minister of Agriculture will not be likened to Christopher Columbus: when he set out he did not know where he was going; when he got there he did not know where he was; when he got back he did not know where he had been.
6.23 p.m.
Mr. Hector Hughes: First, I want to congratulate the Government and the Home Secretary on the constructive statement and speech to us. They contrast very vividly with the speech of the hon. Member for Londonderry (Mr. Chichester-Clark), whose speech was of a destructive character and quite inconsistent with the policies adumbrated by the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and the Prime Minister of Southern Ireland, both of whom have indicated a policy designed to bring both those countries together economically.
The House may be surprised, perhaps, at my intervening in this debate, because I sit for a Scottish constituency, but I remind the House that Northern Ireland and Scotland stick their noses towards each other geographically and have much in common, and I hope to argue, briefly, in favour of closer economic relations between Northern Ireland and Scotland. Too long has north-east Scotland been misrepresented in this House. I shall not go back over the history of the last thirteen years of the previous Government, but they regarded the expression "the north-east" as meaning part of the north-east—
Mr. Speaker: Adjournment debates may go very wide, but we are debating Northern Ireland, not Scotland.
Mr. Hughes: I am not going to pursue that line, Mr. Speaker. I merely

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mention it for the purpose of indicating the propinquity of Northern Ireland to Scotland and the common relations which exist between them and which should be cultivated and extended.
Mr. Chichester-Clark: I take the point which the hon. and learned Member has made about the propinquity of Northern Ireland and Scotland and that, in the hon. and learned Gentleman's elegant phrase, they are sticking their noses out at each other, but I want to make one thing perfectly clear to the hon. and learned Gentleman, that I think he misheard what I said, because is no way did I suggest that closer trading relations between Northern Ireland and Scotland were undesirable and in no way did I deviate from the policy of the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland or of anybody else. I think I made quite constructive remarks on that subject. The hon. and learned Member really did, I assure him, mishear what I said.
Mr. Hughes: The hon. Member has said that, but I do not agree with his construction of his speech. His speech will be in HANSARD and it will be open to everybody to read his speech and his argument, and the argument he propounded was inconsistent with the policy of the two Prime Ministers, the one of Northern Ireland and the other of the Republic of Ireland, whose policy is to bring economically the two parts of Ireland closer—economically: I am not saying politically; that is another matter—together.
There is much in common between Scotland, and, in particular, between the noble city of Aberdeen, and Belfast. They both have shipbuilding. Hon. Members opposite may laugh Belfast shipbuilding out of court, but it is a great and considerable industry, and it is right that notice should be taken of it; and in that Belfast has an interest in common with the noble and industrious city of Aberdeen. Both cities have shipbuilding and shipping, and both have fishing interests; and I am anxious, as I have said, to develop the trade and industry and commerce and employment between these two geographical units. The speech of the Home Secretary indicated how that can be done and will be done, and, therefore,
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I congratulate the Home Secretary, and I congratulate the Government, on recognising the geographical propinquity and the common interests, and they are doing their best to develop those common interests in order to increase the trade, industry and commerce of both of those areas.
6.39 p.m.
Sir Knox Cunningham: I know the hon. and learned Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hector Hughes) will not mind if I do not follow him along the lines of his speech, because I wish to draw to the attention of the Government one or two points which are of considerable importance to certain groups in Northern Ireland. The first is that of Service men on leave, and the point to which I refer is the granting of leave warrants to members of the Armed Forces for air travel between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. If a Service man in the United Kingdom has to travel from, say, certain of the Scottish islands to the mainland, or from the Isle of Man to the mainland, he may be given an air warrant for his journey, but he will not be given one if he has to travel to Northern Ireland. A Service man gets four travel-free warrants a year for sea and rail travel. It takes about fourteen hours to get from London to Belfast by sea and rail, whereas by air the journey takes only one hour. In consequence, what often happens is that the individual goes by air and pays the air fare out of his own pocket and forgoes his free warrant.
As I understand it, trooping by air to and from the United Kingdom is now a matter of course, and that Service men travelling on duty within the United Kingdom are given air travel warrants. For example, on Friday I travelled over from Northern Ireland with a Service man. The plane in which we were due to travel could not take off because of fog, so this young man handed in his air warrant and was given a certificate to travel by ship and rail to London, and no doubt the difference will be refunded as an ordinary accounting matter.
In certain cases and on certain planes the fare by air is less than the fare by sea and rail. I am, of course, talking about the fare paid by an ordinary member of the public. I have no doubt that the

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Government have a profitable arrangement with British Railways. I understand that things are a little easier with regard to air travel for the Royal Air Force and for the Navy than for the Army. I see no reason why the Government should not make a similar profitable arrangement with BEA, which is a nationalised corporation, so that Service men can be given warrants to travel by air.
All I am asking is that the money saved by the non-use of a railway warrant should be given to the individual who pays the cost of air travel out of his own pocket. This would not be difficult to arrange. The person concerned could be credited with the difference between the rail fare and the air fare. I ask whoever is to reply to the debate to consider this point which is of considerable importance to the many Service people who travel home to Northern Ireland on leave.
My next point concerns the Territorial Army in Northern Ireland. I ask the Government to consider very carefully the question of the reduction of the T.A. there, and I make a special plea for the retention in Northern Ireland of a Gunner unit in any reorganisation that may take place. In the 1947 reorganisation of the T.A. there were seven R.A.T.A. regiments in Northern Ireland. In 1955 these were amalgamated to form the new 245 Regiment, and since then this Regiment has been the strongest recruiting Gunner T.A. Regiment in the United Kingdom, and this year it won the Sunday Times Cup.
If the Territorial Army in Northern Ireland is reduced, this will, in the long run, adversely affect recruiting for the Regular Army. It must also be remembered, that at the moment about 400 civilians are employed by the T.A. Many of these people will lose their jobs if the T.A. is reduced, and will swell the unemployment figures for that area.
I ask that those matters be given careful consideration, and I ask particularly that a Gunner unit be maintained in Ulster. It may be necessary to have part of a unit in Scotland, and part of it in Northern Ireland, but I should like the right hon. and learned Gentleman to give us some assurance about its retention.
My hon. Friend the Member for Londonderry (Mr. Chichester-Clark) referred
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to the Anglo-Irish Free Trade Agreement which is now under negotiation. He referred also to the difficulties with regard to component animal feeding stuffs and asked whoever is to reply to the debate to deal with this.
I have two other points to make, and I hope that they, too, will be dealt with by whoever winds up the debate. My first concerns the flour millers who are based in the Republic of Ireland and who re-export flour to Northern Ireland. This started early in 1960, and since then there has been a sevenfold increase in the export of wheat flour to Northern Ireland. I understand that this is due to the special tax remission which is granted by the Eire Government to flour exporters, and due also to the reduction in the overhead expenses of the millers in the Republic gained by increased running time and the lower wage structure prevailing there. Wage costs in Northern Ireland for an equivalent sized mill range up to 37 per cent. higher than in the Republic.
Exports of flour from Ulster to the Republic of Ireland are restricted to licences granted by the Government of Eire, and these licences are granted only where the resultant products are used for re-export from the Republic. This state of affairs is unsatisfactory and unfair, and I hope that this situation will be taken fully into consideration during the discussions which are now in progress.
I hope that consideration will also be given to the question of retail quotas or protective duties which the Republic of Eire wish to retain in respect of pigs, pig meat and products made therefrom. The present state of affairs is unsatisfactory because there is no restriction on Eire products, whereas Northern Ireland products are precluded from the Republic of Ireland market because of these duties and restrictions. The result is inequitable and onerous to the pig industry in that part of the United Kingdom, and I hope that this matter will be considered by the appropriate negotiating authorities.
In his fair, courteous and delightful speech, the right hon. and learned Gentleman announced that the remoteness grant is to be increased and is now to be £1¾ million a year. I agree that the time has come to increase this grant, but I and many other people had hoped that the increase would be between £2½ million

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and £3 million rather than the very small increase which the right hon. and learned Gentleman mentioned in his speech.
The only other matter that I wish to refer to is the statement about the closure of "Sea Eagle", in Londonderry. We have had fair words and some promises. We have had an indication that work will be found for the 500 or more people who will lose their jobs because of this closure. What work? How will it be provided by the United Kingdom Government? What do they intend to do? These fair words are not enough. The action of closing this establishment will be bitterly resented. It is a severe shock to the whole of Northern Ireland. This Government will be judged by their deeds and not by their words.
6.40 p.m.
Mr. Paul B. Rose: On Sunday last I was privileged to visit both Londonderry and Dungannon. In Londonderry over 3,000 people are unemployed, and in Dungannon 1,100 out of a total of 6,500. I am sorry that the hon. Memember for Londonderry (Mr. Chichester-Clark) is not here at the moment, because I wanted to point out to him that this is not something new which has arisen since the Labour Government came to power. It was going on for a long time when hon. Members opposite were in power. At least this year we have seen some fall in the unemployment figures.
The situation in Northern Ireland is a matter of grave concern not only for those hon. Members who represent Northern Ireland constituencies but for all those who are concerned with the success of our Economic Plan and who have understanding and compassion for those people who are faced with the problem of unemployment. I remember only too well how, only a few years ago, Lancashire was faced with a similar problem because of the decline in the cotton industry. I have seen the demoralisation that sets in in such areas. Yet this is in the context of a situation in which we want 200,000 more people in our labour force. What a loss it would be to the economy if we were not able to use the labour force which exists in Northern Ireland, and if this labour force were not geared to the 4 per cent. economic growth rate and our drive to increase exports.
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It is for this reason that we at Westminster, who are concerned with our own regions, also have a duty to seek new inducements and new ways of assisting industry to develop in Northern Ireland—in this neglected area. I agreed with the hon. Member for Londonderry when, on 22nd February last, in our previous debate on Northern Ireland, he said:
"This debate should not be regarded as a regional matter of limited application."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 22nd February, 1965; Vol. 707, c. 52.]
I would add only the fact that those who accused me of interference in the affairs of Northern Ireland—because I happened to raise the question of social problems and the allocation of jobs—were very wrong. I believe that these matters are directly relevant to creating the kind of climate in Northern Ireland in which industry would want to go there and in which industrialists would consider it to be a suitable area for development, whether they be new industries, or whether they be concerned with the tourist trade, or agricultural processing industries.
A lot has been said about the question of the anti-submarine base. When decisions on defence have to be taken the overall economy of the whole country has to be borne in mind. Nobody who asks for cuts in defence expenditure should complain when cuts are made. I have said this even when defence cuts have affected my own constituency. An aircraft factory on the border of my constituency was affected in this way. It is sheer hypocrisy to look at this question from a parochial point of view. But what everybody has a right to do is to ask that new industries should be developed in the area, in order to provide employment. There is no point in maintaining obsolescent military establishments simply to provide employment. What we need is real industrial growth in the area. It is because I am a friend and not an enemy of Ulster—as the hon. Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Stratton Mills) tried to characterise me in Belfast Telegraph—that I am concerned about the social and economic problems of this part of the United Kingdom.
Today, less than 25 per cent. of the population of Northern Ireland lives west of the Bann, and over 3,500 people are leaving every year. Notwithstanding this

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mass emigration and the efforts, albeit inadequate, of past Governments both at Westminster and Stormont, unemployment remains at about 12 per cent. Yet the Wilson Report dismissed Londonderry in a line, merely saying that
"a development plan is needed and should be put in hand."
Of course a development plan is needed, and of course it should be put in hand, but it has to be based on adequate research and adequate information. This is what we need.
It would be easier to produce a development plan for this area and to get people there to work together if we did not have the existing electoral set-up, which creates a divided and despondent community, especially in Londonderry. The possibility of setting up new schemes has been considered. One suggestion is that we should create a sort of pilot Calder Hall atomic energy plant. That might be placed in or near Londonderry, and it could be used in co-operation with the South to provide power for the grids both north and south of the Border.
Having visited Northern Ireland this weekend, I have come to believe that tourism could be extended. I have seen some beautiful beaches in Northern Ireland, from the train. Londonderry could become the gateway to Donegal, and increased tourist trade would benefit both North and South. We have certain advantages. We have a port, we have water, and we have a large number of workers on the spot. There is also a site for an airport. We must build on very limited assets, and special inducements are required in respect of industry, not only by the Governments at Westminster and in Stormont but also the Government of Eire, in order to develop the whole of the North-West. This could demonstrate in practical terms what co-operation could do between the two Governments, North and South, together with the Government at Westminster.
The issue of north-western Ireland must not be dodged merely by easy talk about development of Northern Ireland as a whole, because there are existing communities to be considered, and there are human and social implications. We do not want to see any laissez faire policies such as we have seen in England, which have caused the drift to the South-
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East on this side of the Irish Sea. This is an inevitable result of laissez faire development.
I understand that the statistics show an estimated increase of 196,000 in the population of Northern Ireland between 1961 and 1981. But during the same period the population east of the Bann is expected to increase by 198,000. In other words, there will be no real development of the area to the west. It is alleged by some that the political implication of the plans is to consolidate the existing political power structure in the west. I hasten to say that I doubt this. From conversations I have had with many people in the area it seems to me that they feel that that is the motive uppermost in the minds of those responsible for the development of Northern Ireland. I do not believe that one can blame them for attributing such a motive, in view of the history of the area, but I rather doubt whether this is the motive. I believe that it is merely another example of the principle expressed by the Scandinavian economist, Professor Myrdal, in relation to laissez faire development, when he said
"To him that hath shall be given and from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath."
This is not to deny the validity of the idea that we have to develop the region as a whole. We know that earnings in Northern Ireland are only 80 per cent. of the United Kingdom average, and that emigration is about 10,000 a year. One of the troubles with this is that the emigration takes place from one part of the community rather than the other. This, again, is a source of bad feeling, because the motive imputed is that it is done to force out certain people to perpetuate the existing power structure. This may not be the motive—it may well be the working of blind economic forces—but it is causing a great deal of bitterness.
I should like to see a planning board established for the whole region. I should like to see far greater efforts made in industrial training and apprenticeship and greater effort also by the Board of Trade.
Mr. Henry Clark: What is the difference between the planning board that the hon. Member envisages and the Northern Ireland Economic Development

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Council which has been set up?
Mr. Rose: I am not giving way. When I spoke on the last occasion, I was interrupted so many times that I decided on this occasion not to give way, because formerly I was treated, I would say, with a great deal of rudeness by hon. Members opposite.
I believe that a great deal can be done in co-operation with the Government at Westminster, and a great deal can be done by the Board of Trade, particularly in trying to harness Northern Ireland industry towards helping our export drive.
Yesterday, while I was in Belfast, Short's announced that they had won an order which would ensure continuity of employment for the men who are working on components for the Belfast and the VC10. I have been concerned about the future of a factory in the Hawker-Siddeley group on the fringe of my own constituency and I know the anxiety that is caused by changes in the aircraft industry. Chances in that industry are inevitable. The buffeting about of that industry by Governments in past years did not start with the advent of a Labour Government. Harsh words have been used by people in the industry about certain former Ministers on the benches opposite. I know that there must be a great deal of concern about this matter.
Where changes occur due to alterations in the defence programme, alternative employment is needed. We are all grateful to the Government of this country for their Redundancy Payments Act, which, I understand, is being introduced also by Stormont. This Measure was introduced by the Government here and in that regard Stormont is only following suit. What is needed, however, are new prospects.
In that context, I want to know exactly what is planned at Short's. I understand that the idea of a machine-tool factory has been mooted. Machine tools are a branch of industry which has been neglected by private enterprise in this country and we have been forced to import when we should be exporting more. I wonder whether, in spite of the objections raised by hon. Members opposite, the site in question might not be ideal for a publicly- owned or Publicly-
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controlled machine-tool factory. Apart from its contribution to the economy, it would be a great boon to the people of Belfast.
In spite, however, of the Government's obvious concern—and the Government here have shown how much concerned they are with the problems of Northern Ireland in the way that Ministers have gone over there and in taking a great deal of trouble to consider the problems of Northern Ireland—Mr. Craig, the Minister of Development at Stormont, smashed all the china in the shop by breaking all the constitutional conventions between Westminster and Stormont when he called upon Unionist Members of Parliament in this country to work together with the British Tories to bring about an immediate General Election. This demonstrates the one-sidedness of a convention which allows Unionist Members in this House to vote against the Manchester Corporation Bill but will not allow my hon. Friend the Member for Acton (Mr. Floud) to raise the question of discrimination in Northern Ireland. There is nothing to prevent my raising the question of boundaries, because boundaries affect Westminster and we have control over the question of electoral boundaries for elections to Westminster.
In many cases, boundaries for Westminster elections are altered or formed by reason of boundaries in local government or boundaries for Stormont elections. I believe that there is an immediate case for boundary revision in Northern Ireland because of the population movement and the changes in recent years, and because of the injustice which is seen particularly in a town like Derry. It is also time to consider the convention that allows Northern Ireland Members of Parliament to vote on matters which in no way affect Northern Ireland. Obviously, on matters of internal security and matters which affect the nation as a whole, it must be open to them to vote, but when they vote on matters of no concern to them and yet resent our so-called interference in what is, after all, a region of this country, one wonders what this one-way traffic is all about.
When the Government's Race Relations Bill was introduced, one felt that it could have been extended to Northern Ireland and that it could have included religious discrimination. If I remember

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rightly, the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Mr. St. John-Stevas) said at that time that it was a golden opportunity to break this 40-year convention. Here was an opportunity when the Government could have broken that convention in the interest of justice.
The difficulty of extricating Westminster problems from Stormont problems is illustrated by the question of the boundaries and of the electoral franchise, the multiple vote and the fact that so many people—a quarter of a million of them—do not have a vote in local government elections.
Sir Knox Cunningham: Would the hon. Member agree that my constituency, which has 109,000 electors, should really have two constituencies and that the Northern Ireland Members at Westminster, twelve in number, have much bigger constituencies than any on this side of the Irish Sea and that there should be an increase in their number?
Mr. Rose: I am willing to concede that hon. Members representing Northern Ireland constituencies have very large constituencies. It is also a curious fact that they all represent the same party.
Sir Knox Cunningham: That is a matter for our constituents, not us.
Mr. Rose: If we were to ensure a fair drawing of boundaries which paid due regard to the interests of all parties in Northern Ireland, there would be no objection. Until this is forthcoming, until we see less of the gerrymander at work there in local and Stormont elections—
Mr. Speaker: Order. I have been watching the hon. Member's attempt to avoid breaking the thin ice on which he is skating. He has broken it now. Boundaries for local government and Parliament in Ireland are matters for Stormont.
Mr. Rose: I respectfully agree, Mr. Speaker. I have tried to avoid any incursion into matters which are within the province of Stormont. The difficulty is that many of these matters like boundaries, for example, depend very much on the boundaries for other elections, just as in many cases local government boundaries dictate Parliamentary boundaries on this side of the Irish Sea. My point is that this often distorts Parliamentary boundaries.
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In an editorial on 25th March, the Unionist Belfast News-Letter stated that:
"reform of the franchise is long overdue."
A lot of people have been talking about "one-man, one-vote," in Rhodesia—
Sir Knox Cunningham: Would the hon. Member agree—
Mr. Rose: I am not giving way again.
Sir Knox Cunningham: The hon. Member mis-states facts.
Mr. Speaker: Order. If the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Rose) does not give way, the hon. and learned Member for Antrim, South (Sir Knox Cunningham) must not persist. The hon. Member for Blackley cannot in this debate reform the franchise of Northern Ireland.
Mr. Rose: Yesterday, because of the great courtesy and kindness extended to me by the Hon. Brian McConnell, Minister for Home Affairs in the Northern Ireland Government, I was able to spend about an hour discussing some of these problems with him. Some of the problems are entirely outside the scope of this debate, but I think it fair to say that the question of the application of an ombudsman to Northern Ireland is not outside the scope of this debate, because the White Paper refers to the extension of this principle to servants of the Crown and to the Imperial Civil Service in Northern Ireland. One wonders why the White Paper concerning the appointment of an ombudsman does not say that he should also deal with cases raised in Northern Ireland.
As a result of my interest in Northern Ireland, I have become a sort of unofficial ombudsman and I have received letters every day with questions about Northern Ireland. Hon. Members on that side of the House need not be concerned. I am not putting in for the job, but only arguing that the White Paper dealing with the ombudsman might well have considered the application of this principle to Northern Ireland. Because it is—
Mr. Leslie Hale: My hon. Friend should not call him an "ombudsman". He is now that curious and limited entity, the Parliamentary Commissioner.
Mr. Rose: I think that everybody is aware of what is meant by the term "ombudsman", but perhaps Parliamentary Commissioner is a happier term in the English context. It is worth quoting what the Belfast Telegraph said on 20th October—
Captain Orr: On a point of order. I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Member. The discussion of whether or not future legislation about an ombudsman should apply to Northern Ireland is very interesting, but will we be able to continue the discussion and be in order?
Mr. Speaker: I hope that the hon. Member will not follow it too far, because we have, apart from the White Paper, no knowledge of what the ombudsman will be. As far as I know, the ombudsman will not be able to interfere with legislation.
Mr. Rose: I am not sure about that ruling. There is a certain amount of ambiguity, but, to be on the safe side, I will not pursue the question of the ombudsman. I will return to the question of this convention.
I am saddled with this convention, which prevents my raising a number of topics which are relevant to the Northern Ireland situation, but hon. Members opposite representing Northern Irish constituencies are not prevented from dealing with matters of relevance only to Manchester—for instance, the Manchester Corporation Bill. The hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Kilfedder) knows to what I am referring.
Mr. James A. Kilfedder: The hon. Member says that he is often referred to as an ombudsman by some people in Northern Ireland. Would he consider standing as Socialist candidate in my constituency at the next election? I shall be glad to welcome him. If he is then elected—which I doubt, in view of the good sense of the people of West Belfast—he could speak on these matters.
Mr. Rose: It is kind of the hon. Member for Belfast, West to extend that invitation. I enjoyed my last visit to Belfast, and I believe that I will find the next one just as pleasant, but I think that my constituents would be very loath to let me go.
The point which I am making is that in this debate we see this convention at work
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—this so-called parity, the idea that Stormont should legislate along the lines of legislation in this country. I should like to quote what the leader of the Northern Ireland Labour Party said in a statement to the Press on 20th October:
"Parity only means parity when the Tories govern Britain."
Hon. Members opposite cannot have their cake and eat it. If they want parity, they should adopt legislation in Stormont following that which is adopted by the Labour Government in this country. This means that they should either forgo their right to interfere in affairs on this side of the Irish Sea, or accept legislation like that which would provide for a Parliamentary Commissioner. If ever any place needed this officer, it is Northern Ireland.
I believe that the economic problems, the political problems, the problems of the two communities in Northern Ireland are immense. I know that they are very delicate. I believe that no good will will result from wild slogans or from raising the temperature through hostilities, as some—probably on both sides—have tried to do. But one cannot ignore injustice or the economic neglect of the area. One cannot ignore the curious two faces of the Unionist organisation which we see here and on the other side of the Irish Sea, or its negative concern merely to perpetuate its own power in Northern Ireland.
I hope that my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary will never again give succour and support to the Unionists as he did when he was the guest of the Unionist Government at Stormont. I know that one must accept the hospitality of one's hosts and that any harsh words then would be out of order, but many of his words were interpreted—or misinterpreted—by people in Northern Ireland as giving political support to the existing set-up in Northern Ireland.
I hope that the Government will pay real attention to the economic needs of the area and that, tactfully and if necessary in private, pressure will be brought to bear to try to get a bettering of relations between the two communities in the interests of all Irishmen, so that there will not be "segregation park" as I saw a housing estate in Dungannon is called. The charm of Ireland and its people is bewitching, its politics are bewildering, but it is time that we bothered to do

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something about Northern Ireland, particularly economically. I believe that, in the long run, only the people of Northern Ireland themselves can decide their political future.
Meanwhile, there are the immediate problems of getting industry to the area, and of lessening social tensions. I believe that these are very much our concern. Therefore, it is a source of great pleasure to me fiat the Government have taken time on the first day after the Recess to discuss this very important matter. I believe that that in itself is an indication of the good faith of this Government in wanting to deal with the problems of Northern Ireland.
Sir Knox Cunningham: Before he sits down, would the hon. Member agree with me that both he and I are elected to this honourable House on exactly the same franchise, that of "one man, one vote"?
Mr. Rose: Would the hon. and learned Member not agree with me that he and I are in a very different position when it comes to his interfering in affairs in my constituency and my interfering in affairs in his?
7.6 p.m.
Captain L. P. S. Orr: Mr. Speaker, since you have resumed the Chair in your proper capacity as Speaker of the House of Commons, may I, on behalf of all my friends from Northern Ireland, say how pleased we are that the first debate over which you should preside should be one on Northern Ireland? We wish you every possible good fortune and a long spell of office in the high position to which you have been called.
I have attended debates on Northern Ireland's economic affairs in the House for nearly 16 years and I do not recollect one which was so disappointing and distressing to the people whom we have the honour to represent. This is so not because of the quality of the speeches made so far—they have been of high quality—nor because of any lack of courtesy on the part of the Home Secretary or the Joint Under-Secretary of State but because of the content of what they have to tell us.
Before I turn to these matters, I want to deal with two things which are, to some extent, extraneous to the debate. The first is to sympathise with the hon.
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Member for Acton (Mr. Floud) and to admire his ingenuity in seeking to raise the whole question of religious discrimination under local government in Northern Ireland. In your absence, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Deputy Speaker quite rightly ruled that, on an Adjournment debate in this House, one must stick to matters which are within Ministerial responsibility—and this most certainly is not.
The hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Rose) was even more ingenious in seeking to introduce the same subject under another heading, and one could not but admire him. Both hon. Gentlemen were, however, completely outshone by the hon. and learned Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hector Hughes) who, in a Northern Ireland debate, sought to raise matters concerning the shipbuilding industry in his constituency.
It reminded me of a famous Irishman called Tim Healy, who managed to make a speech in this House in a debate on East Africa and deal with the evils of landlordism in Ireland at the same time. He managed to go right through the debate keeping perfectly in order and referring to a particular colony in East Africa. Just before he sat down he said, "In order that my speech may be clearly understood, may I for 'East Africa' substitute 'Ireland' throughout?"
Before I come to the serious matters of the debate, I will deal with two other extraneous matters which have been raised. The first is the statement by the hon. Member for Blackley that the Minister of Development in Northern Ireland had "smashed all the china in the shop" by a speech which he made attacking the National Plan. The relationship between the two Governments is a difficult constitutional relationship. Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom where we have a subordinate Government and Parliament. There is no precedent for this anywhere else, except perhaps the precedent of local authorities. A duty falls, therefore, upon the Government of Northern Ireland to co-operate and work within the framework of national policy as initiated by the Government at Westminster and approved by this House of Commons.
A duty also falls upon Her Majesty's Government to treat Northern Ireland and its Ministers, Government and Parliament as fairly as they would treat any

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other part of the United Kingdom. This is the convention. In order not to upset that convention and in order to make it work reasonably harmoniously, when it occurs that the Ministers in each case are of a different political outlook, on the whole they should speak reasonably politely to each other. This does not mean surely, does it, either that right hon. Gentlemen here should suddenly abandon their political views or that Ministers in Northern Ireland should suddenly change their whole political outlook? One cannot expect that.
The only relevance of all this to this debate woud be if it were suggested, or if it were in the hon. Member's mind, that this speech in Northern Ireland could possibly be interpreted to mean that the Northern Ireland Government were refusing to co-operate within the framework of national policy. That was never suggested by anyone. It was not even suggested in the debate at Stormont.
But what has perhaps been suggested here, at any rate by innuendo, is that because of an expression of political opinion upon national policies by a member of the Government or the Parliament of Northern Ireland, Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom, if they happened to be of a different political complexion, would begin to treat the people of Northern Ireland and its economy differently. That would be a monstrous political innovation. I hope that when he replies to the debate the Joint Under-Secretary of State, whom we in Northern Ireland all admire, will make it plain that Her Majesty's Government intend to treat all parts of the United Kingdom, all regions, equally, whatever may be the political outlook and the expressed views of the people who there reside.
May I come to the second extraneous matter, which has, quite rightly, been ruled out of order—religious discrimination. I do not intend to reply to what was said. I would simply repeat what I have said twice before this Session to the hon. Member for Blackley and other hon. Members involved—that if they know of any case of religious discrimination in Northern Ireland, they should let me know. The hon. Member promised to let me have a file on the subject, but I
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have not had a single line from him. Since he accused me of rudeness—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. and gallant Member for Down, South (Captain Orr) has rightly said that the Chair was correct in ruling this question out of order. He must turn away from it now.
Captain Orr: I happily bow to your Ruling, Mr. Speaker.
There is one other matter in the hon. Member's speech to which I shall refer which is in a way extraneous to the debate but is not out of order. He queried whether it was right for Members of this House who come from Northern Ireland to take part in debating everything which comes before this House. In other words, he seemed to be suggesting that perhaps it was wrong for hon. Members from Northern Ireland to interfere in matters which were, let us say, purely English matters. But exactly the same argument would apply to hon. Members from Scotland or from Wales.
Mr. Rose rose—
Captain Orr: I will not give way to the hon. Member. He has accused me of being rude to him on the last occasion. I have always given way to him in the past, but I do not intend to do so now.
Mr. Rose: On a point of order. In order to correct a wrong assumption, may I point out that I did not mention any hon. Member by name and did not accuse the hon. and gallant Member for Down, South (Captain Orr) of rudeness. In fact, he was very polite on that occasion.
Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of order but a point of explanation.
Captain Orr: If the hon. Member is saying that he did not accuse me of rudeness, that is a different matter. He said that he had been treated with great rudeness in the last debate, and as I was his principal interrupter in the last debate I naturally concluded that he thought that I had been rude. If he says that he does not think that I was rude, I shall be delighted to give way to him.
Mr. Rose: Surely the difference between the position of the Scottish and of the Northern Ireland Member is that when a matter of Scottish interest comes

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before the House I have a right to comment on it, but when a matter of Northern Ireland interest comes before the House, in many cases I do not comment on it. On the other hand, the hon. and gallant Member always has the right to comment on matters within, say, the province of Manchester.
Captain Orr: I accept that argument up to a point. It was clearly understood in the debates on the Government of Ireland Act, 1920. This is the reason why the constituency of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Antrim, South (Sir Knox Cunningham) is twice the size of the hon. Member's constituency at Blackley. This is why the Act of 1920 limited the number of Members from Northern Ireland, because they could not start limiting their powers and functions.
The people of Northern Ireland are taxpayers. The Budget produced at the Dispatch Box in this House applies to all my constituents. Until recently, for example, it might have been thought wrong for a Member from Northern Ireland to express any view about, let us say, the affairs of London Transport. But London Transport is now to be subsidised in order to keep down the fares of London commuters. My constituents in County Down will have to pay a portion, it may be only a small portion, of that subsidy. Why on earth should they have no say in it? The hon. Member is on a bad constitutional argument and I do not think that it is worth spending too much time on it.
Let me turn to the main subject of the debate, which is the economic welfare of Northern Ireland and the actions of Her Majesty's Government towards Northern Ireland. That is what we are debating—not internal affairs in Northern Ireland which hon. Members have raised. The hon. Member for Blackley spent some part of his speech suggesting that the North-West of Ulster needed more attention. I sympathise with that. It is true. For a great variety of reasons, the northwest and the extreme south of Ulster need more attention. It is a very difficult problem. But the hon. Member's words sounded very hollow indeed when the only action which his Government have taken with respect to the north-west of Ulster is the announcement which they made today that they will close the antisubmarine base.
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I thought that my hon. Friend the Member for Londonderry (Mr. Chichester-Clark) was extraordinarily moderate in his reaction, presumably because of his hope that at this, the eleventhand-a-half-hour, he can persuade Her Majesty's Government to change their decision in the interests of his constituency. I do not share his hopes. I do not believe that Her Majesty's Government will change their view about this. Indeed, they never change their mind when they are wrong. Therefore, I do not believe that they will change it now.
The decision to close this base is scandalous, inhuman and cynical. I make no complaint about the three Ministers who are at this moment sitting on the Front Bench opposite because we know that they have been our friends throughout. I complain about the way in which they have been treated by Her Majesty's Government. This decision has been made despite representations which they have made on grounds of regional development and it is perfectly clear that the Cabinet, having paid lip-service to the idea of regional development for so long, have now proved, by their action, what my hon. Friend the Member for Londonderry described as a hollow sham.
It makes complete nonsense of everything the Government have said about regional development and I appeal to them to realise that we are dealing not with a sort of game of chess when we consider the future of the anti-submarine base. We are not dealing with a question of whether a knight should be placed here or there on a board but with the lives of men and women and with the economic health of a whole area. We are not dealing with the 480, or whatever the number is, people directly involved but with their families as well, including the people who trade with them and with the life of the area. It is not at all the same thing as the hon. Member for Acton mentioned, for we are not considering an area where, if people are put out of work, they are easily found other employment. The hon. Member for Acton referred to having sympathy for the "disturbance", but even he must realise that to put men out of work permanently is not a disturbance but a calamity and a catastrophe.
When the Joint Under-Secretary replies to the debate I hope he will say that there is even now a possibility of having

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this decision reviewed. I hold out little hope of him saying that, and I do not expect to hear very mach from him. Despite the fact that we in Northern Ireland like him personally, the decision of the Government in this matter would, if it were carried through, be met with deep anger, dismay and resentment there. The people of Northern Ireland will be behind us in this House of Commons when we say that the sooner we are rid of this Government the better, before they can do us more injury.
The speech of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary was, as always, courteous, understanding and informative. With the deepest respect to him, however, there was no grain of comfort whatever for Northern Ireland as a whole in his remarks. Consider Short Brothers. The right hon. and learned Gentleman really only said that the consultants were still consulting and that he could not say more in advance of their report. He was asked whether or not Short's would remain basically plane-makers. We have not had an answer to that question and I do not know whether the Joint Under-Secretary will deal with the matter.
My hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster), who takes so much care and trouble and expends so much energy over the future of this industry, has expressed deep disquiet about it. Has the Joint Under-Secretary any inkling of what is in the minds of the consultants? Why has it not been possible, in view of today's debate—and the fact that we would be having this debate has been known for a long time—for the Government to have produced at least some sort of interim report from the consultants? It leaves us with the deepest suspicion that what the consultants may have said to the Government is, "We cannot find anything yet. For goodness sake, do not make any statement. We will come to you if and when we find something". I hope that the Joint Under-Secretary will deal with this issue because if what I have suggested is generally thought to be the position, Short's will suffer catastrophically because of it.
It is important for the Government to say something positive about the future of this great industry—and they must
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say it tonight. We are dealing with the lives of thousands of people, people who cannot easily secure other employment. I have no evidence to suggest that the news about the future of Short's will be good, but I hope that the Joint Under-Secretary will say something to dispel that fear. After what has happened in connection with "Sea Eagle," I have no confidence in the Government's ability to solve anything.
As the Home Secretary rightly acknowledged, agriculture is one of our basic industries. Indeed, in my view it is the most important industry in Northern Ireland. My hon. Friend the Member for Armagh (Mr. Maginnis) made some useful and valuable suggestions. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Antrim, South (Sir Knox Cunningham) suggested that the rise in the remoteness grant was inadequate. "Inadequate" is too weak an adjective. After the able speech made in the last debate by my noble Friend the Member for Fermanagh and South Tyrone (The Marquess of Hamilton), we had expected a substantial rise in the remoteness grant, certainly to a more realistic figure.
It is true, as the Home Secretary argued, that we cannot expect to be put in the most favourable place on the mainland. We cannot expect the full amount of the deficiency because of transport difficulties and so on. We have not at any stage asked for £5 million or £6 million—but we did not expect to be put off with a rise of only £500,000.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Antrim, South suggested that the figure should be nearer £2½ million to £3 million, and I agree. This is what the industry in Northern Ireland had a right to expect. I have no knowledge of the view which the Northern Ireland Ministry of Agriculture has put on this matter, but I am certain that they will not be satisfied with the figure that has been given.
The basic trouble with Northern Ireland's agriculture is that we suffer from our remoteness from the market. It is all very well for Ministers to produce White Papers giving base metal, copper, ha'penny handshakes to small farmers who go out of the business, but those Ministers do not realise that something must be done to offset the difficulties

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caused by our remoteness from the market.
I do not want to go over what my hon. Friend the Member for Londonderry said on the subject of Anglo-Eire trade, but I hope that the Joint Under-Secretary will reply to the points he raised. I, too, assure We Joint Under-Secretary that this matter is causing great anxiety to the agricultural community in Northern Ireland and I urge him to remember that that community is more vulnerable in this context than any other part of the United Kingdom. I cannot see Northern Ireland as a whole willingly allowing its industry to benefit from a reduction of tariffs if it means a substantial disability being placed on its agriculture.
After this debate, after the lack of anything positive from the Government, after the desperate anxiety which we still feel—and feel even more than we did before—about the future of our aircraft industry, after the savage blow, and my hon. Friend was right in describing it in such terms, over "Sea Eagle", Northern Ireland will tomorrow feel wounded and badly hurt by Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom.
Anyone who reads fairly the last debate we had on Northern Ireland will agree that Northern Ireland Members have tried to approach their problems in a non-partisan sense and without too much party spirit. We have done our best but, honestly, in the light of what has been said today, we have been ill-requited by Her Majesty's Government, and we feel bitter and distressed about it. I myself have no confidence in Her Majesty's Government's ability to solve our problems in Northern Ireland, and I am sure that everyone there will support me when I say that the sooner the Government go the better.
7.30 p.m.
Mr. Eric Ogden: There is some risk in any English Member intervening—and I use that word advisedly—in the affairs of Ulster, Wales or Scotland, but unless our horizons are to be unduly restricted it is a risk we must take. Earlier in the debate I asked a question of my hon. Friend the Minister of Defence for the Royal Navy about Northern Ireland. It was such a reasonable and useful question that the hon. Member for Londonderry (Mr. Chichester-
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Clark) thought that it was "planted." He has, I am grateful to say, since accepted that it was merely the Merchant Navy coming to the help of the Royal Navy.
I refer again to that statement because it should be said not once but twice, even in one day. It was that the Secretary of State for Defence for the Navy was well aware of the seriousness of the decision he had to make; that he was well aware of the ammunition he was providing for his critics in this place at this time; well aware of the use that would be made of it in Northern Ireland and elsewhere, not only tomorrow but in the weeks and months to come. My hon. Friend could have kept silent. There was no need for him to have made that statement this afternoon, and while we accept that it was a painful and difficult decision we can all agree that he did his duty—
Mr. Chichester-Clark: While the hon. Member says that, will he also say that the whole issue on H.M.S. "Sea Eagle" has been played throughout—and I am sure that the Under-Secretary will agree that it has been played throughout—totally non-politically? There has been only one concern on this side, and that concern has been to see that nothing was done to disrupt the economic structure in Londonderry and that people were not put out of employment. The whole case has been fought in that manner, and there has been no politics in it.
Mr. Ogden: I would ask the hon. Member to accept that the statement was put forward in that way—having in mind the economic structure of Londonderry and the strength and security of the Realm in and through the Royal Navy. I have not had the pleasure of visiting Londonderry, but I know that at one time Derry ships and Derry men used to come out to see me—to the ships of the Merchant Navy: Liverpool, Scots, Welsh and English men and ships. They came to us, and stayed with us, and escorted us safely through the trials and troubles of the North Atlantic at that time.
I would ask the Minister of Defence for the Royal Navy two points. When he discusses the economies to be made, the savings in skilled labour, and the operational efficiency in peacetime, and when he looks at the base as it is in Derry—and I understand that it extends to 10 or 15 acres—will he say whether the

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whole area is to be made available for redevelopment for another purpose? Is it not possible that part of the installation should be kept as a nucleus and a reserve for future operational use, if we ever have to use it, and particularly such types of installation as the quays, the piers and so on, not only at this point, but halfway up the river? If he can also let us have information and decisions as soon as possible, just as he has done in this other case this afternoon, it will be appreciated, whatever we may think of the actual decisions he makes.
My second point relates to the political siutation in Ulster. My right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary never referred to this aspect at all, and I take it that this was because of the convention that we do not intervene or interfere in Northern Ireland affairs. If that is so, may I respectfully suggest that we have a new convention, and leave it at that? We have political responsibilities, so we are told, and I think that it is time that this was decided one way or the other. Whether or not we are politically responsible in the long run, we certainly have a moral right.
The hon. Member for Londonderry referred, before being ruled out of order, to the political situation in Northern Ireland. He managed to assert that discrimination in education, housing and employment was due to shortage. I do not know whether he meant that, but I certainly think that if there is this shortage in such basic services it provides the best case of all for making sure that there is absolutely no discrimination. It should be regarded as a good reason for fair shares.
My hon. Friend the Member for Acton (Mr. Floud) was earlier ruled out of order. I shall respect the Ruling of the Chair, although I do not see how he could be ruled out of order on a Motion, That this House do now adjourn.
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member must not now question that Ruling of the Chair. I would ask him to accept not only the Ruling but the spirit of the Ruling.
Mr. Ogden: I did say that I would do so. It seemed a little strange at the time, but no doubt Sir Samuel will, as he has done before on many occasions,
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privately explain the workings of this place to one more newly come to it than he.
I refer my right hon. and learned Friend to the OFFICIAL REPORT of 12th May, 1965, when my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Maxwell), referring to the Speaker's Conference on Electoral Law, asked:
"Is Northern Ireland excluded from these discussions, Mr. Speaker? If so, why?"
The late Mr. Speaker replied:
"They are not discussions. This is a conference which will consider the matter within its terms of reference. I imagine that this comprises the whole area to which the existing electoral laws of the country apply."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 12th May, 1965; Vol. 712, c. 522.]
Perhaps the Home Secretary or the Under-Secretary will give us some idea of the proposals they may have in mind to ensure that the electoral law in Northern Ireland is as fair as it is in the rest of country.
Finally, I make a basic point. There are as many friends of Ulster on this side of the House as there are on that. I ask you to accept this in good faith[Interruption.]—you may say that—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member does understand this point of order, which is that he must not address hon. Members but the Chair.
Mr. Ogden: The one fundamental thing in this debate is that we should not be accused of always making party political points, but because we are Members of Parliament of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland our concern for one part must be as great as that for any other part. If we receive information, whether it be the Ulster Commentary or information from other parts, that gives us cause for concern, we should try to express that concern in this place. That is all that we have tried to do. I do not want to see 12 Ulster Members of Parliament sent back there, though I would certainly seek to replace them by Members of my own political party. I would ask those hon. Members opposite to accept our remarks in all good faith, and when we speak on this position to take our words at their face value until it is proved otherwise, because Ulster needs us just as much as we and the whole of the United Kingdom need Ulster.
7.40 p.m.
Mr. George Forrest: The constituency I have the honour to represent for the last nine years is made up mainly of small farmers.
Our small farms are mostly holdings of between 20 and 50 acres. The problem of the small farmer has been discussed at great length today, and I was very disappointed when the right hon. Gentleman said that he had decided to give an increase of only £500,000 to the farmers of Northern Ireland.
I know the situation on the small farms of Northern Ireland, because I am the son of a small farmer who has now a holding of almost 100 acres, which in Northern Ireland is a small farm. They have made great progress during the past 10 or 12 years, but this year has been the worst the small farmer has had. He has bought in his store cattle, some of them from the south of Ireland, at £9 or £10 per cwt., and now he is cashing them off at £7 or £7 5s. at the maximum. Surely something more could be done and must be done if the small farmer is going to survive. I appeal with a tear in my eye for an increase in the grant. Do not let us talk of £500,000 added to £1,250,000. Let us talk of three times what we have been getting and so put Northern Ireland on its feet where it is entitled to be.
7.42 p.m.
Mr. Rafton Pounder: I will detain the House only for a second or two, and my speech is really in the form of a couple of questions. Our debate has been overshadowed by the deplorable and cynical announcement about the future of H.M.S. "Sea Eagle". It is deplorable from a defence viewpoint because it adds further concentration of our defences on the southern coast of England, and cynical because it means the complete back-tracking of the assurances which have been repeatedly given of the Government's interest in the development of Northern Ireland. We have heard that there will be a saving of £500,000, in this closure, which is one-fortieth of 1 per cent. of the defence budget. As has been said by my hon. Friend for Londonderry (Mr. Chichester-Clark), to achieve that, 500 men are to be thrown out of work. For every person engaged in manufacturing or semi-manufacturing industry, it is said that there are five
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more people dependent in some measure upon him, and the spending power involved thereby is very considerable. I am quite convinced that, before the Session is very much older, we will hear a great deal more on the subject of H.M.S. "Sea Eagle".
The Minister of Defence for the Royal Navy made reference this afternoon to finding alternative employment, but what is the alternative employment? It would appear to have been shelved. We are told by the Home Secretary that unemployment remains high compared with the rest of the United Kingdom. It is bound to remain high if the Government is going to close down essential workshops and industries of this nature.
In col. 338 of HANSARD of 4th August, in answer to a Question of mine on "Sea Eagle", it was stated that there were 254 civilians employed. It is no good arguing whether they are established or unestablished. The word used was "civilians", and the total figure was 254. That figure has been shown to be palpably incorrect. It is "Sea Eagle" today. Is it to be Short Bros. and Harland tomorrow? Is the Home Secretary prepared to give a categorical assurance that employment at Short Bros. and Harland will be secure at its existing level until 1970? Not a single government contract has been received by Short Bros. and Harland, for that matter, or by Harland and Wolff since 15th October of last year, and my hon. and gallant Friend for Down, South (Captain Orr) was more than charitable when he talked about the need for the consultants to be given time to make up their minds. Perhaps they are holding back, hoping that something will turn up. It may, however, be that, as we are on the threshold of the Stormont General Election, the Government are reluctant to say anything to prejudice the chances of their party in Northern Ireland.
If I may again take a sentence from the remarks of the Home Secretary, he said that additional aircraft, if available, will be sent to Short Bros. and Harland to mitigate the effects of the rundown which will otherwise take place. Those words are particularly depressing, and I hope that the Under-Secretary will give us some encouragement when he replies to the debate.
7.46 p.m.
Mr. G. B. H. Currie: I want to intervene very briefly in the debate, and I must give my personal apology to the House for not being here at the opening of it. Like another of my colleagues, I was fogbound on my way to London.
I have only a very few matters I wish to mention specifically, and I do not want to repeat those topics already discussed in the course of the debate which I have had the good fortune to hear. If I do not repeat them, it does not mean that I do not give full support to everything that has been said about the proposed closing down of "Sea Eagle" and about the failure to find some new form of employment for the very many people who work in Short Bros. and Harland, some of whom live in my constituency. It does not mean that I do not give full support to those hon. Members who have asked the Government to take another look at the question of deficiency payments.
I have always understood that the remoteness payment was introduced partly to offset the cost of Ulster producers and farmers getting their goods to British markets. At the present time there is a very serious threat hanging over the producers of Northern Ireland. In London, we have what is known as the Euston Conference which fixes freight rates, both passenger and goods, across the Irish Sea. The result is that when a new competitor on the sea journey sets up as a carrier of freight or passengers he is successful for a time in competition with British Railways, but after he has demonstrated how successful he can be he is offered a handsome price to get out and his undertaking is taken over. In consequence, across the Irish Sea at the present time there is a virtual monopoly in shipping.
A proposal has been announced in the Press which is causing alarm and despondency to many of my industrial constituents. It is that all these freight rates and passenger fares should be increased in the very near future. That would appear to me to be a matter which the First Secretary might think appropriate to refer to the Prices and Incomes body which has been set up, because it is something which will have a profound effect on costs in Northern Ireland and something which could make us much less competitive in the world. It must not
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be forgotten that we have to import raw materials from across the Irish Sea, process them and then ship them out as finished products to the markets. I ask the Minister who is to reply to this debate to say something about this matter.
We from Northern Ireland must go out into the world to sell our goods. It is very important that there should be good market research. It is very important that we should find what are the articles which will sell to maintain existing employment and to build up fresh capacity for employment. Programming of that sort is essential. It is, therefore, curious that we are the only part of the United Kingdom without its own Passport Office, without an office able to issue passports. Belfast has no capacity to issue a passport. A person wishing to have a passport has to make application in Belfast and then send the form to Liverpool. This in many cases involves delay in the acquiring of a passport for the purposes of travel abroad. Business contracts can be lost in this way. Necessity for going to see a foreign buyer might arise quickly. I ask that we should have an officer in Belfast capable of issuing these important documents.
7.52 p.m.
Mr. James A. Kilfedder: I shall detain the House for only a few moments. I wish to refer to a matter which affects my constituency and the firm of Short Bros. and Harland, in which a large number of people in my constituency work.
We have heard a great deal from my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) about the aircraft industry in Belfast. I wish to speak about the human aspect of this matter. Looking through reports of previous debates on Ulster, I see that when the present Minister of Power was a member of the Shadow Cabinet he constantly criticised the Conservative Government for not giving enough orders to Short Bros. He also criticised any attempt which might have been made to make use of the establishment for any other purpose. I remember reading a remark in which he said that it would be a shame if that tremendous aircraft factory with its great hangars should be turned to another purpose and therefore wasted. He ridiculed the Conservative Government for not going

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further than to assure that there would be work for a number which would not fall below 6,000 in the 1960s.
Now we have a Labour Administration and unfortunately for people who work in Short Bros, and Harland, they are under the threat of redundancy. We have heard nothing from the consultants who were appointed last February. I fear the very worst. In a very short time, although this may be delayed as long as possible, I fear that we shall find That Short Bros. will cease to be the great firm it is now and that it will be reduced to a skeleton. Then these people with their great skill will seek other work, if they can get it, in Northern Ireland, but more likely by emigrating to England, or further afield. I feel deeply for these people under threat of unemployment, particularly for those employed in the anti-submarine base in Londonderry, people who are middle-aged and who find extreme difficulty in getting other employment. This is what the Labour Government have done for the people of Northern Ireland.
Then there is the proposal in regard to the Territorial Army. As a former private in the Territorial Army rising to the dizzy rank of corporal, I have a great feeling for the Territorial Army. We have a marvellous place in Northern Ireland for the recruitment for the Army and many people from Ulster are serving in the British Armed Forces. It would be disastrous not only to the British Services but also to Northern Ireland if there were drastic reductions in the Territorial Army in Northern Ireland.
I hope that the Joint Under-Secretary, when he replies to the debate, will deal with these matters. They deeply affect Northern Ireland and the families of people employed on the "Sea Eagle" project, in Short Bros. and other concerns. I should like him to give an assurance that he will try to persuade the Cabinet to look again at the question of the closure of the "Sea Eagle" base. I should like him to give an assurance that those employed in Short Bros. and Harland, the design staff and all the others—very skilled people whom we cannot afford to lose—will have their jobs secured at the figures which the Conservative Government up to last year assured us would be maintained at not less than 7,000 up to 1970.
7.56 p.m.
Mr. Henry Clark: The question of the closure of the "Sea Eagle" project affects me only second in severity to Londonderry for I am a Derry man. I see clearly that if this closes there will be a rundown at the R.A.F. station at Ballykelly and not long afterwards, I fear, in the Sea-Air Rescue Service in my constituency. This is typical of the pattern which we may expect.
The Minister spoke about the strong emotional attachment between Derry and the Navy. That emotion is strong and worthwhile, but it is also the question of hard cash that will hurt in the homes of Londonderry in which men are faced with the prospect of being put out of work. Why the three-year rundown period? If the economy is so devastating we had better start at once, or is the Labour Party softening the blow?
We have heard of increased technical difficulties about training submarines from Plymouth. I suggest that when one starts doing sums in half-submarines and half-millions one often makes the answer just what one wants. I suggest that there are far more naval officers with cottages within 50 miles of Plymouth than there are with homes 50 miles from Derry. They are not so very different from people in industry who want to move their businesses into pleasant, balmy Southern England. Although Derry is a long way from Plymouth, it is a good deal nearer the well-known and long-established naval harbours on the Clyde and further North. We have been reminded by the hon. and learned Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hector Hughes) that it is quite near to Aberdeen.
Surely the real economy would be to take the primary training in anti-submarine defence away from the Channel where there are technical difficulties and move it over to Derry and thus increase the naval establishment to the considerable benefit of Northern Ireland or the Clyde. I believe the men behind this plan, who presumably have acted in good faith in advising the Admiralty, have been doing a certain amount of wishful thinking and making the sums in half

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submarines and half millions come out to answers that they want. Whether it is a coincidence or not, it has been stated that the increase in the remoteness grant is half a million pounds. I am not suggesting that that half a million was announced only to save the neck of the Joint Under-Secretary for the Home Department when he went into the lions' den at Balmoral. He has a new name in Northern Ireland—"the Welsh wizard". This was something which we never achieved. But none of us had £½ million to give away. We are thankful for £½ million. We will make excellent use of it. However, the Government should not pretend that by raising the remoteness grant by £½ million they are beginning to solve the problems of Northern Ireland agriculture. We do not look a gift horse in the mouth in Northern Ireland. We have far too much common sense for that. However we want somebody really to look at the roots of the problem.
The nub of the problem of Northern Ireland agriculture is that the terms of trade have turned against us. We import about two-thirds of our feedingstuffs, whereas the rest of the United Kingdom is nearly self-sufficient. For a long time, by importing direct, we got our feedingstuffs at the same price as that paid by the majority of other areas of the United Kingdom if not even cheaper. Although our prices were lower for products sold from our farms, there was still a reasonable margin between the cost of the feedingstuffs and the price at which a pig was sold. That position has changed. We are now paying as much for our feedingstuffs as the rest of the United Kingdom, if not more, but we are getting a lower price for our product because of transport costs.
The movements in terms of the actual price of feedingstuffs are small, but the effect of small increases in the price of feedingstuffs on the farmer's margin can almost halve his income. It is this change in the terms of trade which is bringing Northern Ireland farmers up against hard, cold economic facts and the prospect of bankruptcy. If there has been any benefit from the credit squeeze and the high Bank Rate, it is that it has made Northern Ireland farmers see more clearly than ever before that they are
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simply not getting a decent return for their labour and their invested capital.
Unless the problem of the cost of feedingstuffs in Northern Ireland, which we should import just as cheaply into Northern Ireland ports, if not cheaper, is looked into very carefully indeed by the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, we cannot accept that the Ministry is doing its best for Northern Ireland agriculture. This is a question of the margin of feedingstuffs prices catching up with the price at which we can sell our goods. Until this basic fact of agriculture is clearly understood and something is done about it, £½ million here or there will not solve the problems of the small farmer, nor indeed those of the large farmer, in Northern Ireland.
8.3 p.m.
Mr. Peter Thorneycroft: This debate has been powerfully argued and discussed, at any rate from this side of the House and, on occasions, from the other. So much so that I do not think it is necessary for me to speak at great length in summarising all the arguments which have been so well put already. Hon. Members from Belfast have dealt in particular with the problems of Short Brothers. I shall have something additional to say upon that topic. We listened with considerable sympathy to the hon. Member for Acton (Mr. Floud), because the hon. Gentleman experienced that difficulty which we all sometimes experience of keeping within order. In this debate we have all been disciplined without discrimination, whatever happens in Northern Ireland. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Ulster (Mr. Forrest), whom we are so glad to see back with us and fully restored in health, and my hon. Friends the Members for Armagh (Mr. Maginnis) and Antrim, North (Mr. Henry Clark) have dealt with the topic of agriculture. I do not know whether my hon. Friends possess the charm of the Joint Under-Secretary, but I warn the hon. Gentleman that I believe that he will come under considerable pressure on the remoteness grant before he is finished. I very much doubt whether the farmers of Northern Ireland will regard £½ million as a ceiling.
The hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Rose) argued that hon. Members representing Northern Ireland seats should not have the right to talk

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about very much in the House of Commons except Northern Ireland. We have heard some rather loose talk of that kind from other quarters on the Government side from time to time. I hope that the Joint Under-Secretary will make it absolutely clear that that kind of nonsense does not form any part of the Government's thinking, that every Member of the House of Commons is equal with every other Member of the House of Commons, and that all of us will speak on all subjects, subject always to keeping within the bounds of order.
The debate started on a somewhat sombre note with the Minister of Defence for the Royal Navy announcing the closure of the Joint Submarine School. This is a serious decision to which we should direct our attention. I hope that the Joint Under-Secretary will have something to say about it. When the Home Secretary said that he had no new striking decision to announce, a sigh of relief went round these benches. One striking decision was enough for today. We did not want to have any further ones after that.
The Home Secretary, as is always the case, addressed himself to the problems of Northern Ireland with good sense and moderation, without making too much of a parry issue of these matters. What he was really saying was that over the years a considerable amount had been done to ameliorate Northern Ireland's problems. All of us on these benches are agreed that a considerable amount has been done. The Home Secretary mentioned the advance factories which have been built—I think 19 of them, 15 of them being occupied—and the steady downward trend in the figure of unemployment.
All of us, wherever we sit in the House, ought to lay stress on these matters, because it does not serve the cause which I hope we all have at heart—the prosperity of Northern Ireland—to exaggerate its difficulties and its problems. People do not go to a country which everybody is running down and of which everybody is saying, "It has such difficulties that it will never recover". This is not the right approach. Whatever Northern Ireland's difficulties, we ought to count the blessings which are there to count and count the assets which it possesses, which I think the Joint
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Under-Secretary will agree are very considerable assets—great skills, rich agriculture, and a determination of character in its people which has produced incidentally, among other things, some of the finest soldiers who have ever served the British people.
At any rate, the trend in the unemployment figures has been downward, falling from about 7·5 per cent. to 6·6 per cent. in 1964 and it is now down to about 5·5 per cent. This is high by United Kingdom standards, admittedly, but it is an encouraging trend. What we want to ensure is that this trend continues. We do not want actions to be taken which will interrupt this trend. We think that the policies which have been pursued—heaven knows, no policies are perfect—have at any rate got Northern Ireland's economy moving in the right direction. The last thing we would wish to see would be something which would suddenly halt or interrupt this or put it into reverse.
How is that to be achieved? In part, it will be achieved by what happens to the individual industries. The most important is agriculture, because, whatever we do with the other industries, agriculture will always remain an important part of the whole economy of Northern Ireland. I do not think it is necessary for me to tell the Joint Under-Secretary that the farmers of Northern Ireland, although they greeted him with the kindliness which is characteristic of that part of the world, were not altogether happy about the Price Review in February. I put it in that moderate way because I think that these things couched in moderate terms are always much more effective. The farmers of Northern Ireland expect much better things from the Government. So do we. I hope that the Joint Under-Secretary will bring these sentiments home to his colleagues in the Cabinet and explain to him that he cannot conceivably produce a Price Review like that twice and still be greeted with such kindliness in Northern Ireland. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will weigh these words carefully. Agriculture is certainly important and is, indeed, basic to the economy of Northern Ireland.
There are, of course, other aspects of the Northern Irish industrial scene. The dry dock, for example, is a great venture. It is something of a gamble, as all great

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ventures are. Do not let us imagine that just by sinking huge sums of capital the results necessarily come out exactly as we would wish. All of us in all parts of the House have had experiences of this character. The venture was entered into only after a great deal of heart-searching by Harland and Wolff. Careful thought was given to this, and for many years industrial opinion as a whole was against the establishment of a dock. Nevertheless, with the changing circumstances and the prospects of shipbuilding and the rest it was thought that this was the right thing to do. I am sure that it is the wish and hope of all of us in the House that this should go forward and should be successful.
The most anxious thought must be given to the future of Short Brothers and Harland itself. I think that it was the hon. Member for Acton who said that I was not the one to talk about cancellations and that I had cancelled various projects in my time. Indeed I have, but I cannot hold a candle to Her Majesty's Government in this respect. I am a poor beginner in all this. They took all three of the major projects of the aircraft industry and cancelled the lot, and they did their very best to cancel the fourth, the Concord, as well. They were beaten on that only because we had signed the contract with the French. It was the only thing that stopped them. They managed to scrap the three major aircraft projects. They were very big projects, and the repercussions went right through the whole aircraft industry from top to bottom.
In their pamphlets before the election hon. and right hon. Members opposite emphasised the sympathy with which they would look at the aircraft projects. No doubt they do sympathise, as the Walrus and the Carpenter did with the oysters, but they ate them up—those of the largest size. They swallowed them and I am afraid that nothing that they do now is likely to resuscitate them in any large degree or ameliorate the damage which the Government have caused.
The HS681 has gone. All these orders have been placed in the United States. The management of Short's have been over to America and have won contracts on the Phantom wing and the rest. This is very good. This shows that they are,
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as the Joint Under-Secretary of State and the Home Secretary know, a firm of great energy and drive and considerable skill and capacity, but they have not been given anything yet by the Government. They have been given a committee. I am horrified at the facility with which Ministers leap up to say, "You may have a committee", They say, "'Sea Eagle' is cancelled but it is quite all right. You can have a committee, like Short's." This is pretty cold comfort for anybody in Londonderry. This Committee has been sitting for a long time and I would say that if the Committee had any flicker of hope something would have cropped up in a debate on Northern Ireland—unless the Home Secretary, a man of great kindliness, has left it to the Joint Under-Secretary to announce the good news. This would be novel and I doubt whether the hon. Gentleman will hold out much hope about the prospects.
What are the Government going to do? What work is to go to Short's The Joint Under-Secretary must have thought about this a great deal. If the firm is not to make aircraft, we must look at diversification, but this is no great brilliant idea suddenly produced by Her Majesty's Government in 1965. Short's have been looking at diversification for years. They have been seeking other ways, and indeed have found a few ways of diversifying their activities. Now a Committee has been looking at the matter. The Under-Secretary must have been discussing these matters inside the Home Office and it is time that someone said what sort of work is to replace the enormous contracts which have been cancelled. Short's are struggling on with great courage and drive, getting orders here and there, mostly on the aircraft side, but if the Under-Secretary has some other ideas it is time that he produced them to the House of Commons or some indication was given of the prospects that lie in front of this firm.
To move from the firm itself and the industry itself to Government activity—and Short's is somewhere between the two—we come to the placing in Northern Ireland of activities which are directly within the Government's control. A typical example of this was the Joint Anti-Submarine School at Londonderry. We know of the pressure to close it. I knew of it and I would not approve of it. When I was in office I would not have it,

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because I found that the operational case was utterly unconvincing. I think that the Home Office has been awfully weak with the Ministry of Defence. The Admiralty can make a jolly good case for keeping all the admirals within a half-mile of Nelson's Column. Indeed most of them are at present, but that does not mean that operationally it is a proper thing to do.
When they said, "We must move everything to the south of England", I would take an awful lot of convincing before I swallowed that story. There is always this pressure. All the time industry wants to be in the south of England because there is a big market there. Men like to go there. The wives like to go there. As has been said, everybody seems to have a cottage somewhere in Sussex. It is much easier to get everyone to go there. Consequently they put up a wonderful case for moving the Joint Anti-Submarine School to Plymouth at little or no cost. The Treasury has not woken up to what it will cost. The move will be approved and those concerned will come along with the bill for the extra expense later. That is the way these things happen. I have had experience of this.
This is a most unfortunate move. I believe it to be operationally quite wrong. A bigger picture is involved here, with its effects both on Northern Ireland and Scotland. When I was at the Ministry of Defence I was increasingly impressed with the folly of concentrating all training in the south of England. It is a mad thing to do. When one looks at the problems with which Ministers are faced at present, it is mad to concentrate everybody's training, not only in the Navy but in the Army and Air Force as well, in the south of England. The moment this is mentioned there is a howl from the generals, the air marshals and the admirals, but it is time that the Government got them out. It is time that we had a look at this. It is time we considered whether we can afford this concentration of military activity in one narrow third of the country along the South Coast. My hon. Friend the Member for Antrim, North is quite right. When the Minister of Defence for the Royal Navy said that these people must join the other training establishments in the south of England, the answer is the opposite to the one which the hon. Gentleman drew. The answer is, "Get the other training
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establishments out. Get them out to Scotland or Northern Ireland."
There are other things which one looks at besides expense. One looks at the operational case. I was very glad that the Minister of Defence for the Royal Navy came to the Box and at least admitted that the operational case was 100 per cent. for keeping the school in Londonderry. It is the only place where one can find the deep water and the absence of shipping without which one cannot have an anti-submarine school. No one can have an anti-submarine school at Cowes. That sort of thing is not what war is about. I am very sorry at the way this decision has gone. If only I could have briefed the Home Secretary a little more powerfully beforehand, we could, I think, have got a better result even out of this Cabinet.
The case has not been put, and my advice, together with that of my hon. Friends, is that the Home Secretary should have the matter reopened. This particular case is one of the oldest rackets in the Ministry of Defence. People have been trying to do it for years, and now, because there is no one in charge much in the Ministry of Defence and all these Ministers can go off, each doing his little bit, the thing has been done. It is a pity that the Home Secretary has allowed things to drift. With real drive, even now he could get the decision reversed. The case is absolutely 100 per cent. for reversing it, both the case in regional polïtics, which the First Secretary of State is concerned about, and the military case. They are united in one direction. I hope that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will do his best. We shall be very disappointed if he fails.
We have talked of the prospects of various industries, from aircraft to agriculture. We have talked of the "Sea Eagle" and various other matters in this debate. As so often happens, one can sometimes talk a lot about detail and forget the broad picture. My hon. Friend the Member for Londonderry made a most important observation when he drew attention to the discussions about the relation between Northern Ireland and Eire, the Irish Republic. I am not saying that we ought today to be told in detail what the outcome is to be of what is sought for in these matters. I share my hon. Friend's view that everybody welcomed the talks

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between the Prime Ministers of Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic. Years ago, perhaps, one would not have been able even to welcome such talks, but one can welcome these things now, recognising that the ties between Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom go much deeper and are much more matters of the heart than of the details of tariff arrangements between two localities of that kind. But, nevertheless, tariff arrangements matter. They are important and very complicated, and they are rather special, as all things are rather special in the Irish scene.
I hope very much that the Joint Under-Secretary of State will say something of the ideas which the Government have in mind. The Government's own action in putting on a 15 per cent. surcharge did a good deal of damage to trading relations generally with a great number of countries, among them Southern Ireland, of course. Now they are talking of having some kind of free trade arrangement in which, no doubt, a number of industrial manufactured goods would flow free of tariff into Southern Ireland, but, equally, something would have to come out beneficial to Southern Ireland. What is it to be? Presumably, it must be something to do with agriculture, but what?
When we were discussing similar matters in connection with the Common Market negotiations, periodical reports were made to the House of Commons. The Minister concerned would come down and give a progress report on how matters were going and a general discussion could occasionally take place. I do not put this question in the same order of importance, but, at the same time, I think that it is something we ought to hear a little about before we get too far down the road. On balance, I think that it is something which the whole House would probably approve. But let us hear a little. Lift a corner of the curtain. Let us know something of how things are going. I am sure that the Under-Secretary of State is very well informed about them.
I sum up in this way. The trend in Northern Ireland, with all its problems, has been a good one. It has been moving in the right direction. Even its unemployment is a hidden asset in the sense
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that it is a reserve of strength which can be used with skill and good will on all sides in the bringing of new industry there for new production. Our earnest wish—I do not say this out of bitter party criticism—is that the Government should stop doing things, such as "Sea Eagle" decision, which damage the Irish economy. Let the Home Secretary and his colleagues fight for Northern Ireland's interests a little more strongly in the Cabinet. The Home Office here is in the right and the Ministry of Defence is in the wrong. I speak with some knowledge of this matter. So let Ministers fight for Northern Ireland in these questions and, above all, do everything they can, as we all would want to do, to bring new industry and new prosperity to a very worth-while part of the United Kingdom.
8.25 p.m.
The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. George Thomas): Mr. Deputy Speaker, I hope that you will forgive me if my first word is to express delight at seeing you occupying the Chair. You have been a distinguished colleague of mine in the Principality of Wales for a long time. You have come from a part of the Principality where people know how to save a penny or two. You have been Recorder of the capital city of Wales, and I recall that the last time I appeared before you was to give evidence when you were the presiding judge.
Mr. Chichester-Clark: Oh.
Mr. Thomas: I was a witness. I was on the side of the angels. At least, in the decision of the learned Recorder I was, because the evidence which I gave, though it might not have been decisive, was, apparently, accepted. I wish you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, a long and happy period in the distinguished office to which you have been called.
I join with the right hon. Member for Monmouth (Mr. Thorneycroft) in extending my felicitous greeting to the hon. Member for Mid-Ulster (Mr. Forrest). We were all deeply grieved at his serious illness, and I am very glad to see that not only has he made great strides but that he is able to come back and take his normal part in debates in the House.
The hon. Member for Londonderry (Mr. Chichester-Clark), who opened the

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debate, has, in the mysterious happenings within the party opposite, been translated to higher places in recent days. I congratulate him on this—I thought that I would get all the nice things said at the beginning—
Mr. Quintin Hogg: The hon. Gentleman will need them all.
Mr. Thomas: Yes, I know, but there are some nice things for the end, too.
Ever since he came to the House, the hon. Member for Londonderry has played a leading part in all debates on Irish affairs. He was kind enough to refer to a visit which I was privileged to make to Northern Ireland during the Recess. Both my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary and I have now visited Northern Ireland, and I should like the Irish people to know how deeply I appreciated their courtesy and their kindness, and how relieved I was when the farmers' meeting came to an end. It is true that they subjected me for one long hour to questions on agriculture. It is also true that, like farmers everywhere, they were worried about the pay of Members of Parliament. It is marvellous how many people that worries. It worried the farmers over there, but I was pleased to tell them that we do not have an annual price review.
I felt that my visit to Northern Ireland was for me a considerable education. Of course, there are difficulties when there is a subordinate Parliament. It is of the utmost importance that we should establish right relationships between the subordinate Parliament and what I might describe as the Imperial Parliament. When we have Governments of different political colours in the subordinate Parliament and the Imperial Parliament it is all the more necessary for all to tread carefully to ensure that conventions established over long years are not trampled upon.
My right hon. and learned Friend and Her Majesty's Government as a whole have established good relationships with the Government of Northern Ireland. I hope that I am not hurting them over there when I say it, but, naturally, we have had to be in close touch with them over decisions that affect the very life of the colony. [Interruption.] I beg pardon. Dear, dear. I wish that had not been heard.
Sir Knox Cunningham: Withdraw.
Mr. Thomas: I will withdraw and apologise. Strange things happen to me at this Box.
The question has been raised tonight of the voting rights of hon. Gentlemen who come from Northern Ireland. We have always been proud in this House that we have no first or second class Members, that we are all here with equal rights. We have always maintained, and none more than myself, "No taxation without representation". I therefore leave that matter there.
The great issue with which we have been concerned today is the economic future of Northern Ireland. I say at once that I understand the deep feelings of hon. Members who are disturbed by the thought of unemployment. I grew up in the Rhondda Valley. I am the son of a miner, and I know what long-term unemployment can do to the best of people. I have seen its evil influence at work. So I never mind how strongly a man speaks when he is fighting for those whom he represents and feels that their economic future is in question. Nobody has fought harder than the hon. Member for Londonderry, though I know that others have taken their part. I want to deal with the issues that have been raised.
Inevitably, I suppose, the debate has taken a party pattern. Hon. Gentlemen opposite have been complaining about the Labour Government. I happen to be a daily reader of the Belfast Telegraph. I get a copy free. The Belfast Telegraph has conveyed to me something said by, for instance, the hon. and gallant Member for Down, South (Captain Orr)—or is it South Down?
Captain Orr: As the hon. Gentleman wishes.
Mr. Thomas: That is Irish! The hon. and gallant Gentleman said that he usually speaks in a non-political vein in debates here. But he does not speak in a nonpolitical vein when he is in the country. I have been reading his speeches. I wonder whether it is the same fellow who speaks over here.
Let us look at the true picture of what is being done by Her Majesty's Government today to help Northern Ireland. One would think from the tone of some of the speeches that we sat in a corner asking ourselves what we could do next

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to hurt them. It was the tone of his speech. It was not the tone of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman. I much enjoyed the right hon. Gentleman's speech. He has a great gift as a debater, if I may say so. Of course, compliments are never resented. The right hon. Gentleman took, I thought, a most reasonable line in his approach.
I think that the House ought to remember, and the Northern Irish people ought to remember, that in the Finance Bill of this year, introduced at a time of very great difficulty for all of the United Kingdom, the Government took the step of increasing from £40 million to £70 million the limit of advances from the Consolidated Fund of our Exchequer to the Northern Irish Exchequer, nearly doubling the advances which Northern Ireland can draw from the Exchequer here. Why was it done? It was done in order to strengthen their efforts to rebuild the economy.
I could not agree more with what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Monmouth said about the danger of creating the wrong atmosphere. After all, it is a great thing—I know that it is an awful thing to have 5·5 per cent. unemployed—but it is a great thing for Ulster that it has 94·5 per cent. fully employed. There is another side of the picture worth remembering.
Mr. Stratton Mills: The hon. Gentleman has mentioned an increase of from £40 million to £70 million under the Consolidated Fund. Is he implying that it is in fact proportionately more than is received by other development type areas throughout Britain?
Mr. Thomas: We are talking about Northern Ireland. We have had a sustained picture tonight as though no help at all is being given by the Government to Northern Ireland, and I am making the point, and I believe I am entitled to do it, that we ought to have credit from Northern Ireland—and I hope my words will reach the Irish people there—that the Labour Government have nearly doubled the advances which the Northern Ireland Government can draw from the Exchequer.
Mr. Stratton Mills: Answer the question.
Mr. Thomas: Well, the hon. Gentleman has not learned the first rule, that once he asks a question it ceases to be his: it belongs to the speaker, and it is up to the speaker how he answers it. It is the first rule one learns on entering politics.
Mr. Stratton Mills rose—
Mr. Thomas: A point of order? It is not a point of order, and I am still speaking. But I have listened with great interest to what has been said. I know the hon. Gentleman did not make a speech. So, all right, I will give way to him.
Mr. Stratton Mills: I am merely underlining the point. Is the hon. Gentleman not aware—I know he does not mean these things, he never does—that he has read out of his brief a completely bad point? The point he was making was that the level of public expenditure is being raised in Northern Ireland proportionately with the level of public expenditure in the development areas in the rest of Britain, but he is producing it as though it is a special inducement, a special assistance, given by the Labour Government to Northern Ireland. That it is not.
Mr. Thomas: I know the hon. Gentleman is a lawyer—or I think he is. That was a lawyer's point, and I do not go for it in a big way, because the plain truth is that he can split hairs as much as he likes—[An HON. MEMBER: "There is the Home Secretary."]—there are lawyers and lawyers—and lawyers. I have a great advantage now: there is a schoolmaster in the Chair, though not at the moment. But the hon. Gentleman is splitting hairs, and it is no good. I want to leave his point and get on to others. That is only the beginning. It is a very good point. It is hard cash for Northern Ireland. The complaint apparently is that we are also helping the North-East, that we are helping Scotland, and that we are helping other areas in Wales. Is the complaint that Northern Ireland is not alone in the help that has been provided? Is there any reason why Northern Ireland should not appreciate what has been done at a time of stringency, simply because the Labour Government have increased the opportunities for development areas in other parts of the country? The hon. Gentleman is not as good as he usually is.

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But that is not the end of the story. Under this Government the estimated expenditure on providing premises for industrial development in Northern Ireland in 1965–66 is £13·5 million. In 1964–65, on the estimates that were left to us, it was £8·2 million, which means a 60 per cent. increase this year in providing premises for industrial purposes in Northern Ireland. Surely hon. Gentlemen opposite realise that the Labour Government are keeping faith over the whole broad field of the economy in Northern Ireland?
Hon. Gentlemen opposite have given me the opportunity to refer to other aspects of the matter. The right hon. Member for Monmouth referred to advance factories. Already there are 19 such factories—which is very good—nine more are in the course of construction, and a further 12 are being planned. Is not it idle, therefore, for hon. Gentlemen opposite to stand up in the House and ask, "What are you doing to help Northern Ireland?". The hon. Gentleman asked the question, and I am answering it. I am lucky in that I have the last word, though one can never be certain about that in an Irish debate.
I turn now to the question of Londonderry. No one wishes more than Her Majesty's Government do that the sheer reality of the situation had not forced this unpleasant decision on them. I can only say to the hon. Member who has the responsibility for speaking for Londonderry in this House, and who has never failed to speak out for his constituency, that he is pushing at an open door when he asks us to use all our efforts and our energies to see that some alternative employment is provided.
I can tell the hon. Gentleman and the people of Londonderry that we have been searching, through Government establishments, to find ways in which we can help the people in that part of the land. We are mindful of the fact that it has special problems because it is more remote than Belfast. It has a proud and long record of service to the Royal Navy, and we will not easily give up our endeavours to provide alternative employment. I cannot tell the House now what alternative employment can be found within the next three years, but,
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happily, we have three years before "Sea Eagle" is completely transferred to Plymouth.
I now turn to the question of Short Brothers. We have heard many party points tonight. The hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster)—wise men come from the East, but the hon. Member did not sound like that tonight—seemed to me to be saying that whatever offer we made he, with a sort of bingo mentality, wanted us to double.
Mr. Graham Page: That is not bingo.
Mr. Thomas: The hon. Member knows more about bingo than I do, and I accept his correction. The hon. Member for Belfast, East should remember that the history of Short's did not begin on 15th October last year. The anxieties about Short's did not begin last autumn. The right hon. Member for Monmouth carried responsibility in the last Government, and he knows the awful anxieties that there have been all along in this matter. We have had talk about the design staff. The right hon. Member for Preston, North (Mr. J. Amery), when Minister of Aviation, made a statement on 5th March, 1963, in which he had to say:
"I realise this is a very, very serious blow above all to the design staff of Short Brothers and Harland, and it may well have serious consequences for them."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 5th March, 1963; Vol. 673, c. 212.]
With the responsibility of Government, they had to take, and did take, difficult decisions concerning this great firm.
It is well to remind the House that Harland and Wolff, to whom reference has been made tonight, employed 20,000 people before 1961. Between 1961 and 1963 that figure fell by nearly 10,000. To be sure, it has risen by 1,000 since, and I know that the whole House will join with the hon. Member—it might have been the hon. Member for Belfast, East—who paid tribute to the way in which Harland and Wolff were able to obtain further good contracts. Since generosity is a characteristic of a good politician, the hon. Member ought to have gone on to say, "and we know that Harland and Wolff could not have done this without the help of the Board of Trade here." Close co-operation has been going on between us—
Mr. McMaster rose—
Mr. Thomas: One moment! The hon. Member spoke for a long time—or it seemed like a long time.
Mr. Thorneycroft: Generosity!
Mr. Thomas: I know, but we are supposed to speak the truth in generosity. The hon. Member knows, or ought to know, that Her Majesty's Government here in London have been working in the closest harmony with the Government at Stormont, to help them in the question of these contracts.
Mr. McMaster: The Minister prefaced his remarks by saying that we wanted to double any offer he made. I would be quite happy if he would guarantee that the work force at Short's would be maintained at 7,000, its existing number. I do not ask for it to be doubled; I just want it maintained.
Mr. Thomas: I am a junior Minister. It is not for me to give guarantees of any sort. But to the hon. Member, who knows, as everybody here does, what are the difficulties and the dangers, I say that I hope that orders will be available. I do not want to say any more, for the reasons to which the hon. Member referred. I can only add to what my right hon. Friend said about the consultants' report. Clearly, they have gone a long way in their consideration of this problem. It will soon be possible for Her Majesty's Government to see their recommendations about diversification of the activities within Short's.
The Irish people are like the Welsh people in this, and they have proved it. They are very adaptable in their gifts. We discovered it in South Wales, where we had been a one-industry source of employment for generations. We have discovered that the miners are amongst the most adaptable people in the world. I know that this gift is shared in Northern Ireland—no doubt, in Southern Ireland, too, and wherever the Celts are. These gifts of adaptability are shared by many people and they are certainly found in Northern Ireland.
I hope and pray that when the consultants' report is in the hands of the Government, we shall be able to find ways of maintaining the employment of the people.
Captain Orr: Can the hon. Gentleman give any indication of when we may expect this consultants' report?
Mr. Thomas: No. My advice is that they are well advanced with their report. It was May of this year, I think, when my right hon. Friend the First Secretary of State announced that they would start.
Captain Orr: February.
Mr. Thomas: Very well. They are well advanced and I earnestly hope that it will not be long before we have the report, because if I lived over there I would be waiting anxiously for it. There are few greater curses that any community can know than the curse of unemployment. Obviously, this side of the House has a thing about unemployment. We have grown up with the horror of it. I know that some hon. Members opposite, too, know at first hand the misery of it, but I assure the hon. and gallant Member for Down, South (Captain Orr) that we will treat the report with urgency when it is received.
I have been asked questions about the discussions that are under way with the Eire Government on the question of free trade. It was suggested by one hon. Member that we should have reported as we went along. Public statements have been made in the form of communiqués. Quite clearly, I am not in a position to announce the stage of negotiations, but I can say that we work in the closest harmony with the Northern Ireland Government. I hope that right hon. and hon. Members will take it from me that there is consultation and that there is no purpose in my going further in this statement tonight other than to say that the Northern Ireland Government are aware of the stage of the negotiations, because we realise that they have a direct concern and interest in whatever decision is reached.
Mr. Chichester-Clark: I appreciate what the hon. Gentleman is saying about consultation with the Northern Ireland Government, and I am sure that that is right. Will he reconsider this and think about it a bit more? There may be many others in Britain besides those in Ulster itself who might be vitally affected, especially in agriculture, by this agreement. Would he not undertake to see

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whether a communiqué of some sort might be issued later?
Mr. Thomas: I will undertake to see that my right hon. and learned Friend, who is listening to the debate, and the Government at least consider what the hon. Member has said. I have said before that I am in no position to commit Her Majesty's Government on this, but I can tell him that his friends at Stormont are in close touch with Her Majesty's Government.
I realise that many hon. Members got into trouble with your predecessors in the Chair, Mr. Deputy Speaker, over the question of discrimination and, clearly, the last thing which I want to do is to clash with the Chair, especially on your first time there. I should hate to be the first hon. Member you have to call up. I will, therefore, confine myself to saying that we have followed faithfully the conventions which were observed by the Labour Government of 1945 to 1951 as by the other Governments which have come in between.
We have today had a major debate on Northern Ireland and, on both sides of the House, we wish her well. One of my hon. Friends said that there are as many friends of Ulster on this side of the House as on that. One of the things which struck me forcibly when I was in Ulster this year was the change of mood of the people. I believe that there is a greater spirit of toleration and understanding abroad and that everyone who loves Northern Ireland will rejoice to see this. I realise that they are a proud people. I realised that when I spoke with the farmers.
I have not dealt in great detail with the agricultural point tonight, but perhaps I ought to say a word on the subject of remoteness. I am surprised that a 40 per cent. increase over what the other side of the House gave for a remoteness grant just a year ago is treated as chicken-feed, as if it were nothing. When I was reading the newspaper from Northern Ireland, I saw that the bigger figure which they expected is the figure which will be given. Of course, that is intelligent anticipation. I read it in their Press and
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immediately someone said that that would not be enough.
I knew what the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mr. Kilfedder) would say—
Sir Knox Cunningham: He is a wise man.
Mr. Thomas: The wise men come to the West; they leave the East.
That remoteness grant is a measure of help, but it is not the only measure of help to agriculture in Northern Ireland. There are the small farmer scheme, by which 74,000 people will seek to be helped, and the farm improvement schemes. Hon. Gentlemen should remember that, in the past ten years—I will not refer to thirteen years—10,000 farmers left agriculture in Northern Ireland. That is 1,000 a year. They left without any help at all in looking for alternative employment. My right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture has held out new hopes for some of these farmers on non-viable farms who are in great numbers in Northern Ireland. A brave and bold degree of help is being given to agriculture there. Of course, there are always cries for more, but it does not lie in the mouths of hon. Members opposite, with their record on agriculture in Northern Ireland, to complain of the help which the present Government are endeavouring to give.
Mr. Maginnis: Does not the hon. Member realise that at least part of the £500,000 which has been given in additional remoteness grant has been lost through the loss of our premium on bacon?
Mr. Thomas: The House would not be pleased if I went into the whole farm price review tonight. I know that the hon. Member would not expect me to go into that detail. I content myself, therefore, with saying that we are resolved to do all that we can to strengthen the economy of Northern Ireland. It has played a great part in the history of our people and I believe that an even greater future awaits it.
Mr. George Rogers (Lord Commissioner to the Treasury): I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  MATRIMONIAL CAUSES BILL [Lords]
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  9.3 p.m.
  Mr. Graham Page: I had hoped that we should have had an introduction to this Consolidation Bill, because it raises a number of important points. Perhaps I may deal with them as briefly as possible, as I do not wish to delay the House for any length of time.
  I feel that the Bill is premature as a Consolidation Bill. In the consideration of the enactments to be consolidated, it appeared that there were certain anomalies in the existing law which were too substantial for amendment under consolidation procedure, and I should like the House to consider whether this is the right time for consolidation of the law relating to matrimonial causes or whether this consolidation ought to have been preceded by a law reform Bill. That is the only argument which I can deploy on the Second Reading of a Consolidation Bill—that it is consolidation at the wrong time, and that the law which is the subject of the Bill ought not at this time to be consolidated.
  This Bill seeks to consolidate with the Matrimonial Causes Act, 1950—the last consolidating Act on this subject—five Acts passed since 1950 and one or two Sections of other Acts all relating to matrimonial causes, maintenance, declarations of legitimacy and British nationality. It is a Bill to consolidate those enactments, with corrections and improvements. Having the magic words "with corrections and improvements" in the title, the House is precluded, as a House and in Committee, from discussing any law contained in the Bill on its merits.
  The reason for limiting the powers of the House is that on a Consolidation Bill the contents of the Bill must be presumed to be the existing law on the subject. We must assume that there is in the Bill no new law to be discussed. Indeed, we cannot propose any new law as an amendment to the Bill. If, however,
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  in the course of consolidation, it has been found sensible or desirable that the law should be altered, then it must be done in a normal Bill subject to the normal procedure of the House and not subject to the consolidation procedure—and the House must not be deprived of its right, by the draftsmen of a Consolidation Bill slipping new law into a Consolidation Bill. The House is protected against that by the examination of the Bill by a Joint Committee before it reaches the House for its Second Reading and by the Certificate of Mr. Sneaker.
  I regret if I appear to be lecturing the House on the procedure of consolidation, but I do so in order to come to the vitally important point arising from the preliminary procedure on this Measure. As I understand it, the line is drawn between the creation of new law and the tidying up of the form in which the old law is expressed by the Consolidation of Enactments (Procedure) Act, 1949.
  In regard to the Bill before us, the Lord Chancellor's Memorandum which preceded the presentation of this Consolidation Measure stated, as usual, the corrections and minor improvements in the law which it seemed desirable should be brought into this Bill to facilitate the consolidation. The Joint Committee had then to approve or disapprove those corrections and minor improvements before the Bill came before us for its Second Reading.
  In the 1949 Act what is meant by "corrections and minor improvements" is set out. It states that they must be confined to resolving ambiguities, removing doubts, bringing obsolete provisions into conformity with modern practice and removing unnecessary provisions or anomalies which are not of substantial importance. In the Lord Chancellor's Memorandum upon this Bill, some proposed amendments to the law appeared to be not so confined. They were not just anomalies but were anomalies which were of substantial importance and, as such, they were rejected by the Joint Committee.
  Under those conditions I suggest that the proper course to adopt would have been to have put before the House a law reform Bill on those anomalies which had been shown by the Joint Committee's decision to be anomalies of substantial importance, and not to have brought

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  forward this Consolidation Bill until the House had had an opportunity of considering those anomalies on their merits.
  It would be out of order for me to discuss those particular cases, those anomalies included in proposals 5, 6 and 18 of the Lord Chancellor's Memorandum, but the very fact that the Joint Committee found them to be anomalies of substantial importance, and was, therefore, unable to make the amendments in this Consolidation Bill, shows that they were matters which it would be desirable—I should have thought almost imperative—to bring before the House now in the normal form of legislation, by means of a reform Bill, and to delay the consolidation of the law on this subject until those anomalies have been disposed of in the normal process of legislation through the House.
  It seems to me that if we proceed with this consolidation it will defeat the whole purpose of consolidation, because if those are important anomalies in the law which ought to be corrected, no sooner shall we have consolidated the law than we shall have to defeat the objectives of consolidation by amending the Consolidation Bill. It is a bad precedent that when anomalies appear in the process which leads to the Bill's Second Reading in this House, the Government then proceed with the Bill without delaying that process for a time while the law is properly amended by the normal form of procedure in this House.
  9.10 p.m.
  The Solicitor-General (Sir Dingle Foot): The speech of the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page), though extremely persuasive, if I may say so, would defeat the whole purpose of the consolidation procedure. We have a Committee, appointed by both Houses, which considers with very great care whether a Measure is, in fact, a Consolidation Measure. It rejects anything that appears to be an innovation in the existing law. Then the Measure comes back to both Houses as a Consolidation Measure, to the great convenience of the courts and the legal profession.
  What the hon. Gentleman is saying is that if the Joint Committee in its wisdom finds that something goes outside the ambit of the existing law, we cannot consolidate until we have had a Measure
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  of law reform. This would, I think, defeat the whole purpose of the Consolidation of Enactments (Procedure) Act, 1949, and I would invite the attention of the House to what the Joint Committee recommended in this case.
  It is perfectly true that the Joint Committee disapproved the fifth, sixth and eighteenth proposals in the Lord Chancellor's Memorandum, but it went on to say:
  "The Committee are of the opinion that the Bill consolidates the existing law with such corrections and improvements as can properly be authorised under the Consolidation of Enactments (Procedure) Act, 1949, and they consider that there is no point to which the attention of Parliment ought to be drawn."
  I invite the House to act on that recommendation.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time.
  Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. George Rogers.]
  Committee Tomorrow.

  SUPERANNUATION BILL [Lords]
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  9.14 p.m.
  Mr. Graham Page: I can be a lot kinder to this Bill than to the Matrimonial Causes Bill. This is a Bill taking into account a multitude of different Acts from 1834 to 1965, and any of us who had any dealings earlier in the Session with the latest superannuation Measure know what a jungle it was to understand it—searching through the many earlier Superannuation Acts for references. We therefore welcome this consolidation Bill. Nevertheless, perhaps one should put on record just one or two things concerning it—the good points and the doubtful point.
  The first good point is that, unlike the Matrimonial Causes Bill with which we have just dealt, this Bill waited for an Act amending a number of anomalies in the law before consolidation. That was clearly stated before the Joint Committee.
  Secondly, it adopts what I would submit is the very proper practice of putting the

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  transitional positions into a schedule instead of keeping the Act alive for some special reasons or purposes. In a Consolidation Bill with which we dealt earlier in the Session, a number of almost spent or obsolescent Acts were kept alive just for a special purpose. In the present case the parts of them to which one still needs to refer are kept alive by putting them in a schedule to the Bill and repealing the Acts themselves; so that the Bill really is a Consolidation Bill and the only document to which one has to refer when dealing with superannuation.
  The third good point, I would have thought, is that the Statutes which can no longer have any effect are repealed. The spent Statutes are removed from the Statute Book.
  However, there is one doubtful point about the Bill in that it embodies certain Statutory Orders. We dealt at length on the National Insurance Consolidation Bill with the question whether it was the right thing in Consolidation Bills to include Statutory Orders. Fortunately, in the case of the Superannuation Bill the position is very different from that under the National Insurance Bill. In the present case, the two orders which are embodied in the Bill are merely embodied in the form of dates. As I understand the position, the Orders were Orders which fixed a date for the end of the 1939 emergency. In doing so, the Orders themselves were spent by fixing the date. That was all that was required, and the Order was finished. The dates are now introduced into Clauses 30 and 31 of the Bill and, therefore, no bad precedent has been set by re-enacting Statutory Instruments in a Consolidation Bill. I strongly objected to it in a previous Bill, but in the present case it is nothing like that. I wanted to say that in order to protect myself should I wish to raise the point in future that I raised on the National Insurance Bill. On the Superannuation Bill, it is quite different.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time.
  Bill committed to a Committee of the whole House.—[Mr. George Rogers.]
  Committee Tomorrow.

  EDUCATION (POST-GRADUATE AWARDS OVERSEAS)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. George Rogers.]
  9.18 p.m.
  Mr. Quintin Hogg: This is a constituency case at bottom, which explains why I am making my speech from below the Gangway instead of at the Dispatch Box. It is a constituency case with a happy ending of which the Minister's office was good enough and courteous enough to inform me within the last 24 hours. I hope that he will not think it discourteous of me if I say that the happy ending is not, so far as I know, any credit to the Government, since the happy ending is due entirely to the generosity of a private foundation. I could have wished that instead of that particular happy ending the Government had seen fit to correct the anomaly of which I complain.
  It raises a question of some general importance upon a matter of considerable public interest. The House as a whole has always recognised the importance of business management studies in the present economic and educational situation. If I may speak for a moment as the vice-president of a technical college which has pioneered studies of this kind, I should also say that there is no field in which the provision of an adequate teaching staff is more urgent or more important than in these studies.
  Towards the end of April this year I was approached by a Mr. Heptonstall, a constituent of mine, who was at that time a student at Cranfield Aeronautical College, a post-graduate college of some distinction. He had been selected for a M.B.A. course in business management studies at Harvard University. The House will be aware—the whole world is aware—that the Harvard Business School is an institution of worldwide reputation. It has pioneered the whole process of business management studies, and its method of instruction is one which has commanded interest in this field all over the world. Although, of course, I do not wish to depreciate in any way the amount of work which is going on in this country in business management studies, I think

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  there is no institution in the world to which we should send potential teachers of business management in preference to the Harvard Business School.
  It was in the question of teaching business management studies that Mr. Heptonstall was interested, and he was selected as a suitable student for the course at this school. He applied to the D.S.I.R., as it then was, for an overseas research studentship to enable him to pursue those studies. I should have thought he was a very suitable candidate for such a studentship. He was not only recommended by Cranfield College of which he was a memtber, but he had considerable business experience in addition. To his disappointment he was turned down. He was turned down on the basis that his first degree subject was inappropriate. This was most remarkable, since his first degree subject was economics. I should have thought that economics was a basically sound first degree subject for a student of business management who, in addition, had industrial experience.
  He was later informed, when he found this matter sufficiently surprising to make further inquiries, that what had swung the balance against him was that he took politics as well as economics in his first degree subject. The argument presented by the D.S.I.R. was that economics was arts and not science and that this disqualified him from studying business management at Harvard under its aegis. I frankly describe this from any rational point of view as wholly nonsensical. I am sure that I would command the assent of the House in saying that it was precisely to prevent nonsenses of this kind that the Department of Education and Science was formed under the last Government and continued under the present Government. It is a wholly artificial distinction upon which the right to a studentship in business management studies ought not to rest for a moment provided that the content of the course which formed the first degree of the applicant was suitable for the kind of course for which he is applying for an overseas studentship.
  That was at the end of April. I received no reply from the Secretary of State to my letter at the end of April on this subject apart from the kind of courteous
  122
  holding reply which the office sends when it cannot make up its mind within a reasonable time. I did not receive a conclusive reply until 15th June. That I will quote to the House, because I do not wish to do the Secretary of State an injustice. This is what the Secretary of State said:
  "As you know, the Science Research Council …"
  —which of course had taken over the functions of the D.S.I.R.—
  "is primarily concerned with the training at postgraduate level of scientists and engineers, but there are borderline subjects, such as management studies, which come into their field of interest. Where these borderline subjects are concerned we have to look carefully at the background of the student who seeks further training and the end product of that training. In business studies we are anxious to give training in this field to well-qualified scientists and engineers. We consider it is important that more such people become involved in the management field of industry …"
  So far I would agree with the Secretary of State, but I cannot see why other suitable persons apart from scientists and engineers should not participate in management studies.
  The Secretary of State went on to say this:
  "It is, however, outside the Council's terms of reference solely to provide a supply of business management specialists unless they have, to start with, the desired scientific or technological background. Mr. Heptonstall's first degree was in P.P.E."
  which, the House will be aware, is a very well known school of Oxford University and, one would have thought, very suitable as a basis for management studies—
  "and I am satisfied that this rules him out of consideration for an S.R.C. overseas award, since his is clearly an Arts degree. Had he graduated in pure economics he would have studied mainly mathematics and statistics and thus have qualified for consideration by the Council."
  The Secretary of State, who is always helpful, if he can be, added this:
  "I have also looked into this case from the Arts side. Students proposing to attend full-time courses in U.K. universities leading to a higher degree in business administration may apply for one of our state studentships. If the course leads to a post graduate diploma or certificate in business administration, awards may be made at the discretion of the student's local education authority. Normally, however, awards are not available from these sources for the study abroad of business administration."
  The result of this is that Mr. Heptonstall was debarred from getting a State studentship at Harvard because it was abroad,

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  although if he had had a physics degree without any industrial experience whatever he would have been permitted to participate in the scheme for overseas research studentships and partake of the Harvard course in business administration. On the other hand, he would have been entitled to study in this country. This was all the more absurd since in the very same Cranfield course as Mr. Heptonstall was taking part in a fellow student who happened to have a science degree of some kind was given exactly the same award as that for which Mr. Heptonstall applied, although this other student was devoid of industrial experience.
  Surely the Minister of State will agree that this is an absolute absurdity. Because Mr. Heptonstall has a P.P.E. degree, which, after all, is most suitable for business studies, he is debarred from Harvard, though not from courses in the same subject in this country, in spite of having business experience.
  It is impossible to blame the Science Research Council for this. The Secretary of State is responsible for the Council's terms of reference. If the Council's terms of reference are so pedantic that they exclude this kind of award and make this kind of award depend upon a wholly artificial distinction—wholly artificial for this purpose—between arts and science, the Council cannot be blamed.
  However, I do blame the Secretary of State, unless he can tell me more now than he could on 15th June. The Secretary of State seems quite content to allow what I can only describe as an absurd anomaly to continue.
  It is fair to say that Mr. Heptonstall has now gone to Harvard under private auspices with private money and therefore no actual harm has been done. However, I ask the Minister of State frankly to tell the House that there is no reason whatever behind the anomaly to which I have drawn attention and that in future it will be put right. I do not draw attention to this matter in any kind of hostility or from any party motive, but I am sure that if there had been no change of Government the Secretary of State who was then in office would have put it right.
  9.29 p.m.
  The Minister of State, Department of Education and Science (Mr. R. E. Prentice): I am very grateful to the right hon. and learned Member for St. Marylebone (Mr. Hogg) for raising this point. I agree straight away that what he has said reveals a situation which is to some degree anomalous. There are certain aspects of it which I agree will have to be studied. I intend to have them studied. However, I cannot go so far as the right hon. and learned Gentleman did and describe it as an absolute absurdity. I will give the House the reasons for that.
  I am glad that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has said as clearly as he did towards the end of his speech that in so far as something may be wrong here this is not the fault of the Science Research Council. I intend to develop that point and show that the Council acted quite clearly within its proper terms of reference. If fault there is, it is the fault of Ministers, including, if I may be so bold as to say so, previous Ministers who laid down the terms of reference on these matters or allowed them to continue; and as the right hon. and learned Gentleman is an ex-Secretary of State in the Department of Education and Science perhaps he will agree that the responsibility for the development of these policies should rest fairly with himself as well as his successors.
  To get to the facts of this case, I need not spend long in talking about Mr. Heptonstall, except to say that I am glad that he has gone to Harvard and I hope that he will have a successful time there. I think that he will in view of his excellent record in his studies both at Oxford and at Cranfield. He has gone there as a result of a grant made by the Foundation for Management Education. This is part of an arrangement which the Foundation has made with the Business School at Harvard, designed specifically for those who it is hoped will be teachers in business administration in this country in various institutions and particularly, perhaps, in the new centres in the Universities of Manchester and London which have just begun their work. The arrangement, therefore, is one for which we would all want to express our gratitude both to Harvard for its co-operation and to the Foundation for Management

  125
  Education for the finances which it has put into this project.
  The debate, of course, raises the question why there was no grant from public funds for Mr. Heptonstall and, in particular, why a grant might well have been available to him—and probably would have been available—if he had had his first degree in a science subject or even in that field of economics which could be defined as being on the science side of the borderline rather than on the arts side of the borderline. This gives rise to the wider question why at the present time we are treating more generously for purposes of post-graduate awards overseas those whose studies fall into the science field compared with those whose studies fall into the arts field. This is a subject which intend to have studied within the wider study which is now taking place in the Department on future policy concerning awards.
  We have recently been in communication with the universities, with the students' organisations, with the local education authorities, and other bodies asking them to let us have their comments on a whole range of questions concerning the future system of awards to students in this country. There are many aspects of this subject which we consider deserve study and consideration. We are engaged on this and I will see that this point is included in our careful consideration.
  Looking back at what happened to Mr. Heptonstall. I should like to say first that, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman indicated, the Science Research Council is in no sense to blame for this position. The Council has the duty, among other duties, to administer postgraduate awards for scientists. As for post-graduate awards overseas, in a vast majority of cases where the Council makes an overseas award it is implementing the scheme of N.A.T.O. science studentships. Money has been made available by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Council for science studentships to be awarded by N.A.T.O. Governments, sometimes in their own countries, more often in each other's countries and sometimes in countries outside the Alliance altogether. Nearly always if the Science Research Council makes an overseas grant it is using that money—there have been some exceptions to this but not
  126
  very often—and that money is specifically designed for scientific work.
  In this context, science has been interpreted fairly broadly, and I think that, in the N.A.T.O. sense, it is interpreted at least as broadly, if not more so, in this country as it is in the other N.A.T.O. countries. It certainly has included sending people with first degrees in one of the sciences on management courses. In the current year, there are seven British students with N.A.T.O. scholarships studying management in the United States, three of them having been awarded places at the Harvard Business School. The difficulty in relation to Mr. Heptonstall, of course, was the question of definition. I think that this arises generally in defining whether economics is to be one of the arts subjects or one of the science subjects, and it has often cropped up. Some universities offer a bachelor of arts degree in economics while others offer a bachelor of science degree for a very similar syllabus.
  So far as the position here is concerned, the Science Research Council does not look to see whether a degree is called a bachelor of science or a bachelor of arts degree. It looks at the subjects offered along with economics. For instance, for a B.Sc.(Econ.) at the London School of Economics, the student takes the economics discipline together with some special subject. If a student did as I did and chose to take government as his special subject, then he would not be considered by the Science Research Council as a science graduate although his degree would be B.Sc.(Econ.). If, on the other hand, he took statistics as his special subject, then he would probably be on the other side of the borderline. It is very aggravating for the people concerned, but, inevitably, there must be a line drawn by the Science Research Council in defining what it means by science, and it is very difficult to suggest where else it should fall.
  I accept that, so far as there is responsibility for an anomaly here, it lies in the general policy of the Government towards grants. The particular question arises then as to State studentships for arts graduates and why it is that for many years, under various Governments, there have not been generally available postgraduate awards overseas for these

  127
  students. This is what I have promised to have looked at, but I must tell the House that there are important reasons which will militate against making a change.
  One reason is that in the arts field there is no equivalent to the N.A.T.O. scholarships which I mentioned. I have told the House, that, as regards science graduates, virtually all studentships overseas are paid for through the N.A.T.O. scholarships, not drawing generally on the funds available for post-graduate work. There is no parallel to this on the arts side. There are several fellowships provided privately, of course, and some of these are available at the Harvard School of Business Studies. For example, I am informed that there are six places a year for British students under the Frank Knox Fellowships scheme and there are four places a year under the Henry Fellowships scheme. These fellowships apply to all American universities, including the Harvard Business School, and British students have been attending at Harvard under these fellowships. They are not administered by the Department and, therefore, we cannot control them directly.
  If the suggestion is—we shall certainly look at it—that from those public funds which are available for post-graduate studentships generally we should open the way for places overseas, we reach this difficulty. It is much more expensive, particularly if we consider sending students to the United States, with the need for extra cost of living allowances and so on. I am advised that the cost would be about £1,500 a year or possibly more, which is at least three times what we should spend on a post-graduate award in this country.
  Therefore, bearing in mind that funds are limited, it would be very difficult for us to say that we would give support from public funds to the award of a number of American places every year, thereby cutting out of post-graduate work a certain number of other students. This would be a very difficult decision to make on grounds of priority. It is essentially different in the arts field compared with the science field. In the science field, so far as post-graduate awards in research have been concerned, the Science Re-
  128
  search Council has been able to make awards to a large number of those who applied, in some years to almost all who applied; but in the arts field there is a very much higher demand and less than 50 per cent. of those who apply for awards are accepted for them. Again, it makes it more difficult to give some of the successful candidates a more expensive form of award, because it means cutting out some of the others.
  I am sure that the right hon. and learned Gentleman will agree that, if we were to extend this for arts graduates, while it might be possible to look at business studies in isolation, it would raise the question of other studies. There are many kinds of students who would have a claim, such as those who specialise in languages and want a post-graduate course at a foreign university. Then there are Roman Catholic theological students who would like to study in Rome with a grant from public funds. There are many categories who would have a good case to put up for being considered for awards. All I am saying is that, while we will look at this, we shall have to consider the counter arguments very carefully.
  There is a final point that I should like to make. This term the new university centres for business studies—the one in Manchester and the one in London—have begun their work. They have begun so far, necessarily, on a small scale. They are recruiting and adding to their staff. They have started with some of the shorter courses. They will develop more ambitious courses in the next year or two. But they have got off to a good start and with very encouraging support from industry. Industry has raised about £5 million towards the cost of the two schools. I think we should all wish them well.
  At the moment it is true to say that we have nothing at university level to compare with the course at Harvard. I think that all of us who are interested in this would pay tribute to Harvard and to the American tradition which made Harvard possible, the tradition in the American universities and the American business world which helped to make it a success. But in this country we have been slow to adapt to this idea. Now we are moving into the field, I hope—I am sure we all do—that it will succeed and

  129
  that the time will come when Americans will be keen to take a course in our universities and when we no longer think of it as being so important to the career of someone like Mr. Heptonstall that he should go to Harvard. I say that with no ill will to Harvard but simply because we want to see our courses succeed.
  I think that the Science Research Council was in this case bound to act as it did. So far as the Department's policy is concerned, it could be changed but there would be the difficulties that I have mentioned and we must examine the proposal carefully. All the points made by the right hon. and learned Gentleman in speaking about it will be borne in mind in this examination.
  Mr. Hogg: Before the hon. Gentleman resumes his seat, while I am extremely grateful for the sympathetic tone in which he has greeted my complaint in this matter, I would ask him whether he will bear in mind that business studies is a subject in which there will be a dearth of places for a very long time in this country and that in the particular case to which I was drawing his attention the question was the provision of a teacher in business studies who would have been available here for the purpose of increasing the scope for business studies in this country.
  Mr. Prentice: I accept that point. I accept that there is a dearth of places for that kind of course for some years to come. That is why I am glad that the gap here has been filled by an agreement—at least, I do not know whether it has been filled but an attempt has been made to fill it—between Harvard University on the one hand and the Foundation on the other to finance a number of British students going to Harvard, of whom Mr. Heptonstall is one. We are grateful for it. It can well be said that it has filled a need which ought to have been filled by public policy. I do not suppose that the right hon. and learned Gentleman and I need to argue as to who was responsible and when. The fact was that it was not done in the past and perhaps should have been clone. But as to this particular need, to which he rightly draws attention, I think that we should be grateful that this agreement has been made. For the future I hope that this sort of course and many other kinds of courses, which should have been provided long ago in this country, will be provided by the new business schools.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at a quarter to Ten o'clock.

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Preamble
Reassembling after the Summer Recess, the House met at half past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Exeter
The Lord Lovat—Took the Oath.
The Lord Hankey—Took the Oath.

PEDESTRIANS AND TRAFFIC CONTROL
2.35 p.m.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they are aware of the serious difficulties caused to pedestrians, particularly the elderly, by traffic being allowed to filter right or left at busy junctions such as the many arising in the west end of London; and whether investigation has been made into this problem.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF TRANSPORT (LORD LINDGREN): My Lords, the safety of pedestrians is always carefully considered before a decision is made to allow traffic to filter at a junction controlled by traffic signals. But I shall be glad to arrange for an investigation to be made at any particular junctions where the noble Lady has evidence of difficulties.
BARONESS BURTON OF COVENTRY: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that I have never before had such a satisfactory Answer from any Government on this particular matter? May I ask him whether he will be kind enough to look at the matter in so far as Oxford Street is concerned; and is he aware that I shall be delighted to send him details of the actual crossings?
LORD LINDGREN: If the noble Lady will send me those details I will arrange
524
for a special investigation to be made and will report either direct to her or to the House, just as she wishes.

RHODESIA: DIPLOMATIC REPRESENTATION AT LISBON
2.36 p.m.
LORD BROCKWAY: 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 conclusions have been reached regarding the claim of the Rhodesian Government to have a diplomatic representative at Lisbon.]
THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR COMMONWEALTH RELATIONS AND FOR THE COLONIES (LORD BESWICK): My Lords, Her Majesty's Government do not accept the claim of the Rhodesian Government to have established a diplomatic representative in Lisbon. The United Kingdom Government is responsible for Rhodesia's external affairs and for the diplomatic representation of her interests in foreign countries.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, while thanking the Minister for that Answer, may I say that, in view of the present negotiations in Salisbury on wider and graver issues, I do not propose to press this matter further to-day.
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I am much obliged to my noble friend. I hope that the same helpful attitude will be generally adopted within the next two or three days.
LORD COLYTON: My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, should have raised this matter this afternoon, but, as it has been raised, and in view of the Answer given by the Minister, I feel bound to put three supplementary questions. First of all, is the Minister not aware that, by C.R.O. Despatch No. 23 of April 30, 1957, it was laid down that, among other things, the then Federal Government of Rhodesia and Nyasaland would in future be free to appoint diplomatic agents or consular or trade representatives in countries which were willing to receive them? Is he

525
not also aware that the then Commonwealth Secretary, in a message to the then Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia on December 10, 1963, confirmed that it was the intention of Her Majesty's Government that, on the dissolution of the Federation, these and other powers of the Federal Government in this sphere should be entrusted to the Government of Southern Rhodesia? In view of that, may I ask the Minister whether it was not a breach of faith with the Government of Rhodesia for Her Majesty's Government to seek to block the appointment of Mr. Reedman as Rhodesian diplomatic agent in Lisbon?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, there has been no breach of faith, and I am bound to say that I am surprised the noble Lord should suggest that there has been. The agreement and the despatch to which he refers were that there should be negotiation on the status of the diplomatic agents; and that negotiation has not been concluded.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, may I ask whether it would not have been much more helpful if the noble Lord had refrained from putting those questions today, in view of the critical negotiations now going on? Could he not at least have waited until next Thursday, when he would have had an opportunity, in the debate set down for that day, to make the points which he has now mentioned?
LORD COLYTON: My Lords, I had been hoping that the noble Lord, Lord Brockway, would take his Question off the Order Paper, but, as it was put, I felt bound to put those supplementaries. Having regard to the Minister's further reply, I must ask him this further question: is it not a fact that the drafts which have been submitted by Her Majesty's Government consolidating the entrustment of these powers in the Rhodesian Government have not conformed in any way to the undertaking given by Mr. Duncan Sandys in 1963? And, in view of this, may I ask Her Majesty's Government whether they intend to abide by that undertaking?
LORD BESWICK: My Lords, I am sure that the majority of your Lordships' House will agree that no useful purpose can be served in pursuing this question at the present time.

IMMIGRATION FROM NON- COMMONWEALTH COUNTRIES
2.41 p.m.
LORD GIFFORD: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether, in view of their policy on Commonwealth immigration, they have any plans for imposing a specific numerical limit on immigrants from countries other than the Commonwealth.]
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (LORD STONHAM): My Lords, the only category of Commonwealth immigrants whose admission is subject to a numerical limit is those coming for employment. A much lower proportion of alien than of Commonwealth workers seek permanent residence, and we are able to regulate the admission of alien workers without having to impose a numerical limit.
LORD GIFFORD: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his Answer, but, in view of it, may I ask whether he will give the House an assurance that the jobs which are left unfilled by the restrictions on Commonwealth immigrants will not be filled by an increase in the number of non-Commonwealth immigrants? Would he also agree that the real cause of the immigrant problem in this country is the shortage of housing and social services, and that there are absolutely no grounds for discriminating in this way against Commonwealth (which in fact means coloured) immigrants by imposing a numerical ceiling on them and not on non-Commonwealth immigrants?
LORD STONHAM: My Lords, there is no question of discriminating against Commonwealth immigrants of any colour, and the facts do not support the noble Lord's contention. The number of Commonwealth citizens coming in for permanent residence is in the ratio of three to one as compared with foreigners who are accepted here for permanent residence, less than half of whom are people who come in as workers and who, after four years, have had their conditions cancelled.

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The assurance asked for in the first part of the Question is quite unnecessary because the conditions under which alien workers come into this country are quite different. They have to come in with permits approved by the Ministry of Labour and each case is considered on its merits. The great majority of them come in for short periods and not for permanent residence.
LORD BROCKWAY: My Lords, has the noble Lord had his attention drawn to the statement by the employers in the expanding industries of Slough, which are largely export industries and which are dependent upon Commonwealth labour, that they will have to ask for increased alien labour in order to meet the needs of their factories and workshops?
LORD STONHAM: No, my Lords, my attention has not been drawn to that statement. But certainly what my noble friend has said will be considered.

COTTON TEXTILE IMPORTS
2.45 p.m.
LORD ERROLL OF HALE: My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper.
[The Question was as follows:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether they will publish a list of all those countries, together with the relevant trade and commercial agreements or treaties, which will be affected by the proposal to introduce a single global limit for cotton textile imports.]
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, the proposal is to introduce a global limit on cotton imports from all countries except the following: the member countries of FINEFTA (which is EFTA with Finland) and the E.E.C., Australia, Canada, the Republic of Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, the United States and the Sino-Soviet countries. Imports from some of these countries will be subject to other arrangements. The international instru-
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ments mainly relevant to the proposals for a global limit are the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade and the Long-Term Cotton Textile Arrangement made under the GATT.
LORD ERROLL OF HALE: My Lords, while thanking the noble Lord for that comprehensive reply, may I ask two sup-plementaries? First, what about those countries which are not members of GATT, such as Formosa? Secondly, will the noble Lord give an assurance that Her Majesty's Government will not break any agreement or treaties when attempting to implement the new policy?
LORD SHEPHERD: As I understand it, my Lords, all the countries which export significant amounts of cotton textiles to this country will be covered by GATT. The case of those countries that are not so covered will be subject to discussions. I think I should draw the noble Lord's attention to the fact that we are dealing at the moment with proposals. I think the House will bear in mind that as a country we import very much more cotton textiles than any other country. Some 35 per cent, to 40 per cent, of our own consumption of cotton textiles is imported. We have to protect our own industry during this phase of development and reorganisation, but I can assure noble Lords that there will be no unilateral breaking of treaties or agreements. There will be discussions and we hope we shall be able to obtain satisfactory agreements.
LORD REA: My Lords, does not the noble Lord agree that the real trouble is the condition of the cotton industry in this country? Can he assure the House that steps are being taken to move people gradually from the cotton industry into other industries in the United Kingdom?
LORD SHEPHERD: The noble Lord will be aware that there is a considerable improvement within the cotton industry, although there is a great deal yet to be done. We are hopeful that if the present trend continues we shall have an industry that will be able to stand up in any market. But this is the object of this global agreement.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I have to inform the House that there will be a Royal Commission at approximately 4 p.m., to signify Her Majesty's approval to the Commons' choice of a new Speaker.
Also, my noble friend Lord Shackleton will be making a Statement on the closure of the Joint Anti-Submarine School at Londonderry. I think it would be for the convenience of the House if that Statement were made after the Third Reading of the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Bill instead of breaking into that debate twice.

MURDER (ABOLITION OF DEATH PENALTY) BILL
2.48 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Third Reading read.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time. I am sure that noble Lords do not wish me to tread again the controversial ground which underlies this Bill. That ground has been trodden inside this House and outside it for more than a century and a half in various contexts. If it could be said that the situation was once fluid, it has long since been trampled into mud, and I think that by now we may say it has been beaten into hard concrete. It is extremely unlikely that anything that can be said on this subject will be new. It is not likely that any new evidence will to-day be produced; and it is most unlikely of all, I think, that anything that is said will cause a single noble Lord to change his opinion from the one side to the other. I hope, therefore, that in the speeches that are made the old ground will not be traversed again; I certainly do not propose myself to traverse it.
All I want to do is to remind noble Lords of one or two points that may not be present in the minds of those who have not perhaps sat as assiduously through the debates on this Bill as I myself and many of our colleagues have. Noble Lords will recall that the principle of this Bill received an endorse-
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ment by a large majority at Second Reading; but among those who voted for the Bill at that stage, as well as among those who voted against it, there were many who had doubts and hesitations. I should like to remind the House that certain Amendments have been made in the Bill with a view to meeting those doubts. There are two to be named in particular. First, there has been included in the Bill a provision that, before the Secretary of State releases a murderer sentenced to a life sentence, he shall consult the Lord Chief Justice in respect of cases in England, and the Lord Justice General in respect of cases in Scotland, and the trial Judge, if he is still available. That is, I understand, the practice of the present Home Secretary, but it has not always been the practice. If the Bill becomes law, this provision will, for the first time, become statutory. Secondly, a provision has been added that at the time when a life sentence is passed, the court may make a recommendation as to the minimum period which should elapse before the offender is to be released. That recommendation is not binding on the Home Secretary, but clearly it will carry very great weight and it will, I think, give some comfort to those who feel that the danger in abolishing the death penalty is that a life sentence may not really be life but in some cases dangerously short.
I should also like to remind your Lordships that even now, after a century and a half, this is not a final decision. This measure has a prospective life of five years and no more. Unless Parliament determines otherwise, it will lapse automatically at the end of that period. We are not therefore taking a risk to all eternity. If we are taking a risk at all, we are doing so for that short, limited period of five years. My Lords, in supporting this Bill we are promoting a measure, humane in itself, which removes the gross and widely criticised anomalies in the present law and which, judging from the experience of every other country in which a similar step has been taken, does not aggravate the risks run by innocent persons. I cannot doubt that your Lordships will welcome the opportunity to pass into law a Bill about which all this could be said. I beg to move.
Moved, that the Bill be now read 3ª. —(Baroness Wootton of A binger.)
2.53 p.m.
LORD COLYTON: My Lords, I do not intend to detain your Lordships for more than a few minutes, nor do I propose to discuss in any detail the merits or demerits of capital punishment. The question of the uniqueness of the deterrent; the effect of abolition on the position of police and prison officers; the statistics of murders in abolition countries compared with those in capital punishment countries; the so-called moral argument; the terrible sentence and the macabre paraphernalia of the execution; the emotion and the sentimentality; the appalling increase in the figures of crimes of violence in this country and of robbery with firearms, since the introduction of this Bill—all these matters were discussed ad nauseam in our debates on Second Reading and during the Committee stage of the Bill. At the end of the day, however, I doubt whether one single Member of your Lordships' House was influenced in his decision by what he heard. Certainly I remain as firmly convinced as ever that capital punishment is a unique deterrent and that its abolition would lead to an increase of murders, and to most damaging effects on our prison services and the police force, the alarming deterioration of which was publicised yesterday in a Memorandum by the Police Superintendents' Association to the Home Secretary.
All that I wish to do is to make one final plea to your Lordships, even at this late hour, to reject this Bill on the simple ground that it does not command the support of the overwhelming mass of the people in this country. Parliament has no mandate to pass this measure. I doubt whether one Member of another place ever mentioned it in his election address. And I feel sure that, in response to the usual questionnaire on capital punishment which, as all of us who have sat in another place and fought a Parliamentary Election know, is sent out at Election times to all candidates by the League for the Abolition of Capital Punishment, the majority of the present Members of the House of Commons were careful not to commit themselves on this issue. Even now this measure comes to us with the support of only 200 out of 630 Members of the House of Commons on Third Reading.
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I do not believe that a single noble Lord is in any doubt whatever about what is the feeling of the public in Britain towards this Bill. I have spoken to hundreds of men and women up and down the country in these past months since this House gave the Bill a Second Reading. They are overwhelmingly opposed to abolition. Even the minority which favours abolition includes many who are extremely doubtful about the wisdom of putting through this measure at this time, having regard to the great increase in crimes of violence.
Last night two young men, mechanics in a Midlands garage, motored down to London after they had finished their work to seek to present a petition to Parliament calling for a reformation in the law relating to capital punishment. They did so due to the recent increase in assaults upon minors. Apparently they were under the impression that the measure had already become law. Not knowing where to go, they went to the offices of the Daily Mirror, of which they are readers and which of course has taken no position on this issue. The Daily Mirror telephoned to me and asked whether I had any advice to give to these young men. I said I doubted whether the petition—I have it beside me now—was in a form in which it could be presented to your Lordships before this debate, but I undertook to refer to the matter in my speech. This morning I received the petition, together with a letter signed by Mr. James Hadley and Mr. David Cooper, the two young men in question. Incidentally, they are both married and have young children. I do not think I can do better than read the letter to your Lordships, with your Lordships' permission. This is what they say:
"We believe that the death penalty should not be abolished. We believe this because the number of murderous attacks, particularly on young children, is not decreasing while imprisonment is the only deterrent, but is increasing.
"We have been mistaken in thinking that the death penalty had already been abolished, since Her Majesty's judges have indicated in sentencing murderers that there is little likelihood of the death penalty being carried out.
"In only ten days we two have collected some three thousand signatures from people who believe that the death penalty should be retained. This we have done while off duty from our work in a Midlands garage. We have visited various Midlands towns and London in our time off. If there was more

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time we could get thousands and thousands more to sign this petition. Those who have signed the petition so far think as we do, that the law of demanding a life for a life is the only just deterrent to murderers.
"Many believe as we do that the nation has not been given a proper chance to decide this issue. We have not been asked to vote for M.P.s because they are for or against hanging. That very important issue has been buried under other political issues. We feel it would have been better if every voter—particularly every parent whose children may be the victims of murderous attacks—could have voted on this important issue.
"Even at this late hour we ask that there should be a national referendum so that the public can decide for or against the death penalty.
"We regret that our petition, hastily put together, was not in a form which would enable you to present it officially to Parliament. Nevertheless, we hope that you will, if you have the opportunity, tell the House of Lords that many people of all ages, from all walks of life and, surprisingly, many young people, still believe that the death penalty should be retained, particularly for violent murderers."
That, my Lords, is the letter and I am firmly convinced that the views contained in it represent the opinion of the vast bulk of our people, old and young.
We have also, on this occasion, the advantage of the national opinion polls. All three main national opinion polls taken earlier this year show that more than 65 per cent. of the people were opposed to abolition, as against some 20 per cent. who favoured it. It will no doubt be argued that national opinion polls are not necessarily accurate, and that is, of course, true: they only indicate a general trend. But when there is an 11 per cent. lead in the national opinion polls in favour of the Labour Government that hits the headlines, and calculations are immediately made in political circles as to whether this would justify the Prime Minister in going to the country. Such an opinion poll as that is taken very seriously, indeed.
But what about capital punishment? Here the lead is no less than 45 per cent. against abolition. How can Parliament and this House dare to pass this measure and at the same time seek to argue that it is in any way a democratic reflection of the wishes of our people? Certainly, every noble Lord who votes for this Bill must know that he is voting directly against the wishes of the overwhelming majority of
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the electors of this country, as well as against the advice of the police and prison officers. Even in this House, I doubt very much whether the large majority on the Bill's Second Reading reflected the true wishes of all its Members. If this is an unrepresentative Assembly, I suggest, with all respect, that the majority in favour of abolition on July 20 was an unrepresentative majority.
It is often said that this is a matter of conscience and principle, on which Parliament should give a lead. I suggest again that when it is evident, as it is, that the great majority of our people are opposed to this measure, which is bound to affect the lives of every man, woman and child in this country, the proper way to give a lead is for a Party, or an individual Parliamentary candidate, to advocate the measure boldly and frankly at Election time. This has never been done. I do not believe that Parliament has any right to set itself above the wishes of the people in this matter. If this is a good Bill, if the arguments in favour of abolition are sound, then the proper course is to hold up the Bill and submit the whole issue to the electorate at the next Election. Perhaps the candidates in the City of Westminster and Erith by-elections will have the courage to do so.
Meanwhile, I submit to your Lordships that our duty, as supporters of a democratic Parliamentary system, is to reject this Bill on Third Reading, so that its authors and its supporters may have an opportunity to lay it before our people for their decision in due course. In the hope that even at this late hour noble Lords who have supported this measure will reconsider their position, I give notice formally to your Lordships that I intend to divide the House.
3.5 p.m.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF YORK:
My Lords, the record of the previous debates on the matter before the House occupies many pages in Hansard. The arguments for and against retention of the death penalty have been bandied backwards and forwards, and the thrust-and-parry of debate has been keen. If I venture to intervene at this stage in the debate, it is as one who is unashamedly for the abolition of the death penalty. But it is not, I think, as one who does so on sentimental grounds. On the contrary, in casting my vote, as I intend to do to-day, in

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favour of abolition, I do so with a sense of deep concern for the furtherance of justice; for the security of the citizens, be they the police officers or prison officers concerned or the old and defenceless people in our cities; and for the compensation, in so far as any kind of compensation is possible, of those who are related to or dependent on the one who has been murdered.
Your Lordships would not wish me to seek to go over again the arguments drawn from the experience of countries which have, either long ago or more recently, abolished the death penalty. These arguments affect different people in different ways. For myself, I confess that I am considerably moved by the evidence, which would seem to indicate that there has been no increase in crimes hitherto regarded as deserving of capital punishment. I note also with deep interest that in such countries as Norway, Sweden and Denmark, where capital punishment does not exist, the police still go unarmed, as I am sure our own police would wish to continue to be. I cannot ignore the statement of such a witness as the noble Lord, Lord Shawcross, when he said:
"I believe that there is not a shred of evidence, nothing that any respectable lawyer would dream of adducing in the lowest courts in the land, to support the view that the death penalty in the past had any deterrent effect on the rate of murder in this country."
All these things sway my judgment in favour of the ends which this Bill seeks so bring about. But on these things I shall not delay the House this afternoon. Rather, I would beg your Lordships' attention to certain moral issues which I believe must be given the most careful consideration.
As I recall the course of previous debates on this subject, I notice that there has been not infrequent allusion to Scripture. This is not to be wondered at, inasmuch as our English law can claim largely to be based on those writings. One of the arguments of many retentionists is that death as a reward for murder is written into the documents of the Old Testament and is therefore a part of the Divine intention for the conduct of human affairs so long as time shall last.
But it must be pointed out that a good deal of Old Testament legislation is no longer held to be applicable to our society to-day. Let me give but one illustration:
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"If a man be found lying with a woman married to an husband, then they shall both of them die, both the man that lay with the woman, and the woman…."
The most rigid supporter of a strict code of sexual ethics would hardly wish to see that enforced to-day. The conscience of mankind has moved on. Indeed, it may be noted, in passing, that the lex talionis—"an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth"—is not so much a demand for strict vengeance in kind as a safeguard, a kindly safeguard, that if a man takes your eye, you may not take both of his.
I wish to say a word about a phrase, this time occurring twice in the New Testament, which has more than once been quoted in this debate. The noble Lord, Lord Shawcross, in the speech to which I have already referred, said that he would be content to be guided by the advice of St. Paul, that vengeance is the Lord's: He will repay. The noble Lord added, in parenthesis "… if the Bishops will permit such a curious aberration from modern theology". I can only say that if it is an aberration from modern theology, to call in evidence this "advice" of St. Paul, then I would fain be put down with the ancient theologians. For here, surely, is a point of great importance. Men—weak, fallible men like ourselves—have often to be the means of executing judgment. Our officers of law fulfil a function in our national life which is indispensable for its health and wellbeing. But there comes a point—I believe it is the point whence there is no return, the point of the death sentence—where weak and fallible humans must say, "Hands off! This is the sphere where we give place to the Divine wrath. Vengeance belongs to God. He will repay".
Let me not be misunderstood here. I believe in retribution. I believe not only in reformation, but in retribution. Society must say, through its officers of law, that it repudiates certain acts as utterly incompatible with civilised conduct and that it will exact retribution from those who violate its ordered code. But to adopt that which we condemn, and to kill the killer, is not, in my view, the best way of exacting retribution. I suspect that to act thus is to take on ourselves a measure of vengeance which is best left to the Deity. There is about capital punishment a dreadful irrevocability

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which belongs to no other sphere of justice. It is possible to go over the evidence again, as is now being done in the case of Timothy Evans, but one cannot bring a man back from the dead. As the noble and learned Lord, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, said in an earlier debate, with a kind of awful monosyllabic simplicity:
"We can put out the light of life; we cannot light it again."
All of us—every one of us—stand under the judgment of God. I do not think we should ask any of our fellow citizens—Home Secretary, judge or hangman—to participate in a function which rightly does not belong to mortal man.
I believe that if we continue to countenance the infliction of the death penalty, we shall be placing on the Home Secretary, whose unenviable task it is to tender advice to the Crown, a burden which should never be borne. I ask: Ought our society to ask any man to shoulder the appalling responsibility of saying, Yea or Nay to the question, with all its dreadful imponderables, of a reprieve? Further, someone has to carry out the order; or, rather, a number of persons must make themselves responsible for the final act of hanging. It is one thing to debate this issue in the comfort of the House of Lords; it is another matter to find oneself implicated in the execution of a fellow member of society, however depraved he may be. And, again, I believe that the society which allows this law of hanging to remain on its Statute Book degrades itself, coarsens itself, cheapens itself.
My Lords, in my opening remarks I referred to my concern for those who were related to, or dependent on, the one who has been murdered. There is, of course, a sense in which no compensation can ever be made to those who by some fearful act have been deprived of a relative; but there is a sense in which some kind of amends may at least be attempted. In the realm of crime and punishment, I believe that the reinstatement of such ideas as duty and repayment, of sweat and toil, might be of more avail, in many cases, than the reference of the criminal to the psychiatrist's consulting room. I am not one of those who subscribe to what I have called elsewhere "the cult of the easy". A hard way back for the man who has made it hard for others may be the best way for all
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concerned. But even in the dire case of murder, I believe that it should be made possible for the murderer, during the long years of his imprisonment (and I do not seek for the lessening of that period), so to work as to make at least some financial contribution to the remaining members of the family which he has deprived.
In saying this, I have touched on a matter which calls for far more attention than it is now receiving: I mean the employment of the prisoner—and I am now thinking particularly of the murderer—during his time of imprisonment. I am one of those who hold that, wherever possible, he should be given work of such a kind as will be profitable to the community: that it should be paid for, and that a large part of the pay should be used for the compensation of those whom he has injured. Difficult as this would be to operate—and I am not blind to these difficulties—I am sure that its operation would do something to stop that "rotting" of a man during long imprisonment, to which frequent reference has rightly been made in the course of the earlier stages of this debate, as well as making some tiny compensation to the bereaved. Compensation, on the one hand, and the promotion of self-respect, on the other, would go together.
My Lords, I have said enough. With the necessary safeguards now written into this Bill, let us by an overwhelming vote in its favour say to the country, whether they be ready for our lead or not—and if we are not here to give a lead, what are we here for?—"We will give this a fair trial. If, after a period of years, it can incontestably be proved that there has been a rise in the rate of those crimes which hitherto have involved capital punishment, and if that increase seems to be attributable to the abolition of capital punishment, then we will think again. But now, in 1965, let us be done with this relic of a bygone age. We in this House invite you to follow our lead. Have done with this thing! In the name of God, let it go!"
3.17 p.m.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I shall not trouble your Lordships this afternoon for many moments. I want to say only a few final words on this the Third Reading of the Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Bill. I, as your Lordships know, was one of those, among

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others of your Lordships, who opposed this Bill, because we thought it would have the effect of encouraging violent crime and discouraging the police. If the opposition is pressed to a Division today, as I understand it will be, I shall again vote against the Bill, although I realise that both Houses of Parliament have taken a different view.
I must confess that, in spite of the powerful arguments—and I thought them very powerful—adduced by the noble Lord, Lord Colyton, I do not think it likely that any speech by me or anyone else will be calculated to make this House alter the decision to which it has already come. I say this the more because I am very conscious of what I believe to have been the nature of the motive that caused the majority of your Lordships and Members of another place to support the Bill in its earlier stages and to vote as they did. It was not that the great mass of our fellow countrymen want this Bill passed. On the contrary, I think it is generally agreed, and admitted even by the supporters of the Bill, that the great majority of our fellow countrymen are strongly opposed to the abolition of capital punishment. Nor, in my view, were those noble Lords who supported this Bill actuated by the dictates of pure reason. Indeed, I got the impression that noble Lords who advanced those elaborately marshalled arguments to which we listened, to the effect that twenty years' imprisonment was really a greater deterrent than fear of hanging by the neck, were not convinced even themselves.
And I will say to the most reverend Primate who just made so moving a speech and who quoted a remark of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Shawcross, that there was not a shred of evidence that capital punishment was a deterrent, that that was not the view either of the police or of the prison warders, and, with all deference to the noble Lord, Lord Shawcross, I would prefer their opinion on this point to his. I do not believe that the sort of arguments to which I have just been referring had any influence on the decision to which your Lordships came, and that the majority of noble Lords were actuated by something far more simple and fundamental: by the dictates of personal conscience. They simply could not bear the idea of one man hanging another and of themselves
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personally, as members of society, sharing with the hangman a part of the responsibility for such a deed. I believe it was that which was in the minds of most noble Lords when we debated the Second Reading of this Bill.
I do not in the least complain of that. None of us, whatever our views about this Bill, likes the idea of taking away a fellow man's life. And I do not pretend that I personally do not have a feeling of relief if that is not going to happen again. But the supporters of this Bill—and I will say this with very great deference to the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York—who have, or will have, by their action to-day, brought capital punishment to an end, must face one hard, inescapable fact. We who are citizens of this country have a dual responsibility. It is not only to see that justice and mercy shall be meted out to the evil-doer, however heinous his crime; it is also to see that, so far as it is in our power, proper protection is given to the ordinary law-abiding citizen, whether that citizen be a man or a woman or a child, and whether he or she be young or old.
That being the case—and I would say again that noble Lords must face this fact—it is not we who have opposed this Bill but those noble Lords who supported the Bill who will henceforth be on trial. If their sanguine expectations are realised, and if the figures of murder and violence go down, or even remain where they were before the introduction of this Bill, then they and we can alike rejoice. But if the figures of murder and violent crime, which so often leads to murder, continue to go up, what will their position be then? They will have done indeed their duty by the murderer by tempering their justice with mercy, but what about their equal responsibility of protecting the law-abiding citizen from murder and outrage? That is something about which they will assuredly have to give very serious attention and anxiously search their consciences. If such a time does come—and I hope, with them, that it will not—I hope, too, that they will not shrink from the agonising reappraisals to which the harsh lessons of experience may lead them.
3.25 p.m.
LORD PARKER OF WADDINGTON: My Lords, I had not intended to take

541
part in the debate to-day, but in view of what is transpiring I should like for a moment to recapitulate some of the views that I expressed on Second Reading. This is a subject which, as we all know, gives rise to high emotion one way or the other. I have always tried to approach the matter on a purely practical basis. It is said that the death penalty is a unique deterrent, and I should be the last person to vote in favour of the abolition of something which I believed was a really unique deterrent. But your Lordships probably know the figures. Out of some 170 murderers every year, only a minute percentage are ever hanged. After all, it is the certainty of punishment which is the only real deterrent. Secondly, murder is in quite a different category from, say, many other offences. I suppose that 90 per cent., or more, of all murders arise in some domestic situation which will never arise again, or in the course of some sexual crime. Nothing, I venture to think, in those cases will be a deterrent at all.
It is always said that judges are reactionary; that they never want any change in the law. But they sit there every day seeing where the shoe pinches and where injustice is being done. For seven years I have presided in the Court of Criminal Appeal, to whom almost every capital murderer appeals, and for the last four of those seven years I have been so disgusted (if I may put it that way) with the anomalies that arise, with the injustices that are done as between man and man—one man is hanged and another, equally blameworthy, imprisoned for life—that I determined four years ago that something ought to be done, and I was in favour of abolition.
When one gets to that stage, there are only three courses open. The first is to amend in some respect the Homicide Act. I venture to think that that is quite impossible. It is impossible to legislate for every type of crime which may occur at any time in the future. Whatever one does, there will be anomalies. I was interested to know—I was out there at the time—that the New Zealanders were minded to amend the Homicide Act, and they produced draft after draft and came to the conclusion that nothing they could put into an Act of Parliament would really see that justice was done in all cases. They went ahead—if one can call
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it "ahead"—and completely abolished the death penalty.
The other two courses are to go back to the stage when every murder was a murder attracting the death penalty, and when reprieves were the exceptional course. Again I venture to think that one cannot go back now, certainly not after the overwhelming vote in another place and in your Lordship's House on Second Reading. That means, I think, that we should go ahead and completely abolish the death penalty, subject to certain safeguards. On Second Reading I voted in favour of this Bill on the condition that certain Amendments were inserted which I thought would provide safeguards up to a point. I introduced those Amendments, and your Lordships passed them. They are the Amendments which, for the last four years, I have thought should be the conditions for abolishing the death penalty.
I am a little worried to-day at those who threaten to divide the House at this stage. I cannot believe that they would face a constitutional issue on this point, and that really the gambit—if it be a gambit—is to see that the Bill does not get through this Session, and that those who favour it should start again. I ask those who threaten to do that to think again. Take the unfortunate Judges, whom I represent and who arc almost to a man behind me on this matter. Are they to go through the farce, indeed the tragedy, day after day, of sentencing people to death, when everybody knows the death penalty will never be carried out? I ask those who threaten to divide the House to think again.
3.30 p.m.
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, that almost everything that can be said on this subject has been said in the course of our debates, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Parker of Waddington, has really given us to-day a résumé of the speech he made on Second Reading. I must say something in reply to some of the points made by the noble Lord, but because everything has been said, and if I may say so, said so well on both sides, I do not propose to speak for very long to-day and I shall endeavour, so far as possible, not to go back on to old ground.

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My noble friend Lord Colyton has said that he proposes to divide the House. I can see no constitutional reason why he should not do so if he so wishes, nor can I see any constitutional issue arising if this House takes a different view from another place on a Private Member's Bill. So far as the position of the Judges is concerned, they have to implement the law as Parliament decides it to be, and I must say I was surprised the other day to note that following upon a Report made by a Committee on the functions of the Court of Criminal Appeal, action has been taken on that Report by Her Majesty's Judges without any expression of view upon that Report by either House of Parliament. I certainly do not think that there would be anything wrong or unconstitutional in dividing if my noble friend decides so to do. If he does, I shall certainly support him.
Last week I read in the Daily Telegraph, to my surprise and astonishment, an emphatic statement that I intended to divide the House. Where they got that from I do not know; they certainly did not get it from me because it was not my intention, after the majority this Bill got on Second Reading and the Amendments carried in Committee and on Report, to ask the House to divide. But I still think that, despite those Amendments, this is a bad Bill for Parliament to pass at this time. If there is a Division, I shall vote against it, and I should like to state quite shortly the reasons why I shall do so.
As my noble friend Lord Colyton has said, this is not a Bill, so far as one can judge, which is wanted by the public. In so far as there has been any attempt to find out what the public think about it, the indications are that the public do not want it. So far as I know, not many Parliamentary candidates said at the time they were standing for Parliament that they were in favour of abolition. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor excused the failure to consult the electorate by saying that he had always set his face against this becoming a Party matter. I certainly would not wish it to become a Party issue, as apparently it was in New Zealand, and in fact it could not become a Party issue as views on this cut right across Party lines. The fact is that the public have had singularly little opportunity to make their views known.
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If it is the case that the public are against it, we are being invited to ignore public opinion. It is said, and said powerfully, and said this afternoon by the most reverend Primate, that we should give a lead. That is an argument which can always be advanced in support of a measure the public do not want.
No one, not even the strongest opponent of this Bill, likes capital punishment. I myself would like to make it clear that I do not want to see it retained out of any spirit of vengeance or of lex talionis or for the purposes of retribution. What concerns me is the possibility that, if it is not retained, a lot of people will be murdered in future who would not suffer that fate if in fact the law were not altered. I would gladly see capital punishment go if I felt that could be done without serious risk, but to abolish it now, in this age of violence, with so much grave crime, involves, in my belief, serious risk that more people will be murdered. Those who support this Bill are prepared to take that risk. My Lords, I for one, am not prepared to take such a risk. The noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor said on Report that he was not satisfied that an experimental period of five years was really long enough and that the number of murders goes up and down as between one year and another. It is to be inferred from that statement that he recognises that the passing of this Bill may be followed by an increase in the number of murders in this country in the next five years, but he hopes that will have evened out in a ten-year period. The most reverend Primate, in a moving passage in his speech to-day, told us he thought the death penalty degraded society and that society coarsened and cheapened itself by retaining it. I would say that it is a low form of society in which murders become prevalent, and if the consequence is that the rate of murders increases materially then I think the kind of society which permits that would properly be open to adverse comment.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Parker of Waddington, said he did not think that capital punishment was a unique deterrent, and he went on to say "because of the low numbers who were executed". I would have thought if that argument led anywhere it was in

545
precisely the contrary direction. If large numbers of people had to be executed for capital murder then it might be said that the deterrent was not effective, but I think such indications as we have in this country point in a very different direction. I am sure we all hope that, after the passing of this Bill, there will not be an increase in the number of murders, but if there is—and the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, if I do not misunderstand him, appears to think there well may be—the supporters of this Bill will have a responsibility which I for one would not like to share.
We have been given the figures for capital and non-capital murders for a period before and after the passing of the Homicide Act. They have been referred to before, but they are, I think, significant, and if I may I should like to remind your Lordships of them. They show that the annual average of non-capital murders has increased since those murders were made non-capital, by 31. Thirty-one more people are killed—that is the annual average. In every year since 1957, the year of the Homicide Act, there have been more non-capital murders than in any of the years from 1952 to 1956 inclusive. In 1957 the figure rose to 174. That figure has been exceeded in each of the last three years.
The number of capital murders has ranged since 1952 between 31 as the highest in any one year and 17, and the annual average has only risen from 20 to 23 since the Homicide Act was passed. Expressed in percentages of the total number of murders, the percentage of capital murders has fallen by 0·9 per cent. and non-capital murders have increased by 0·9 per cent., but that 0·9 per cent. means an annual average of non-capital murders rising by 31. Now if capital punishment had no real deterrent effect one would not have expected such a rise in the annual average of non-capital murders when the annual average of capital murders shows so little change. If in this age of violence it was to be expected that more people would be victims of murder, and that that was one of the reasons for the rise in the yearly average of non-capital murders, surely it is significant that there has been no similar increase in the number of capital murders. Surely these figures are some evidence that capital punishment, abhor-
546
rent though it is, is in fact a unique deterrent. I am sure we all hope that, if this Bill is passed, we shall not see a similar rise in what are now capital murders.
By this Bill you are removing the deterrent to killing by those with long criminal records. They know—it does not take much intelligence to realise it—that if they are caught and convicted again they will inevitably suffer a long term of imprisonment. They know that, if this Bill is passed, if in order to prevent identification they kill the person who comes upon them in the course of the commission of a crime the most they will suffer if caught and convicted will be a longer term of imprisonment. How long no one can say. It will under this Bill depend on the Home Secretary of the day, and the present Home Secretary has made it clear in a speech that has been quoted often in this House that that may mean nine years or so.
By this Bill you are removing, too, the deterrent against killing to avoid arrest, whether it be of a policeman or of a member of the public, and the deterrent against the killing of prison officers. The noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, has, I know, asserted that there is still a deterrent in those cases. She said on July 27 that if it is a policeman who is murdered the person who commits the murder will know that he has committed a murder of exceptional gravity. Will that really be a deterrent to a man with a very bad record who knows that if he is caught he will in any event get a very long term of imprisonment? All he will get, should he be caught after killing, is perhaps a still longer term. She went on to say if it is murder of a prison officer—and I quote her words—the murderer
"knows that his chance of release has gone forever".—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 268 (No. 110), col. 1210, July 27, 1965.]
I should like to ask the noble Baroness what authority she has for saying that. I have not noticed that the Home Secretary or any member of the Government has said anything of the sort. If she is right, for murder of a prison officer there will be a life sentence which really means imprisonment for life. She did not say that that would be the effect of the murder of a policeman. Does she regard such a murder as less grave? I hope

547
the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor will deal with this point when he comes to reply.
As I understand the Bill, persons who murder policemen and prison warders will be dealt with just like other murderers, and the length of their imprisonment will depend on the decision of the Home Secretary and may well be far less than imprisonment for life. It is quite true that this Bill has been improved by the Amendments moved by the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chief Justice; but I must confess that I preferred the Amendment he moved and which was carried into the Bill to that which he substituted for it. It is the function of the Judges, in my belief, to decide what is the proper sentence to impose. The only exception to this in the field of serious crime has been where the punishment is death, for it has always in this country been regarded as too heavy a burden to put on a Judge to make him decide whether or not to pass a sentence of death. But now that murder ceases to be capital there is, so far as I can see, no reason at all why Judges should not have power to pass the sentence they think is right for murder just as they do for other serious crimes—for attempted murder, which although the victim does not die, may leave him crippled for life. Once murder is made non-capital, I think it is an invasion of the proper province of the Judges for Parliament to say that in such cases a life sentence must be passed and that it will be for the Executive to say what it really means. I think this is wrong in principle, and that is why I preferred the Amendment first moved by my noble and learned friend Lord Parker of Waddington. It is true that the Judge will have power, as he had without any statutory provision, to say what he thinks a life sentence should mean, but it will still be for the Executive to decide in murder cases what in fact it does mean.
I have said before and said again, and if your Lordships would allow me I should like to repeat, that I have for long been in favour of a substantial relaxation of the rules with regard to release on
548
licence. I should like to see much wider powers for that, and powers exercisable not only in cases of murder; but I should be strongly opposed to the Home Secretary and the Home Office exercising this power on their own. I think it essential that there should be an advisory body, on which the Judiciary should be strongly represented, to advise the Home Secretary after going into all the facts of the case.
It is because I fear the consequences of abolition now that I am opposed to this Bill. Of course it can be said that there never will be a right time for abolition. I do not share that view, and if since the passing of the Homicide Act we had seen no real increase in the annual average of non-capital murders I should myself have been in favour of this Bill. But the annual average of persons murdered where the death penalty has been abolished has risen, as I have said, by 31. I hope my fears as to the effect of this Bill will not be realised, that we shall not see a similar rise in capital murders. If my fears are not realised, I shall not object at the end of the five years' period, nor do I suppose there will be any objection, to this Bill's being made permanent. But if my fears prove true, then indeed some other solution will have to be found. I do not think it means going back to the Homicide Act. Some other attempt at finding a solution will have to be made.
In conclusion, I would say this. As your Lordships know, I have opposed this Bill from start to finish. I oppose it today. But I hate hanging. During my professional career I never attended a murder trial in which I was not professionally engaged, and I hated being engaged in one. But I still believe that we cannot dispense with this terrible punishment now without subjecting a number of people to a greater and serious risk of being murdered, and so I repeat, if there is a Division on this Bill I shall vote with those who vote against it.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I think this would be the right moment for me to interrupt Business for the Royal Commission.

SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
3.50 p.m.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD GARDINER): My Lords, I beg to acquaint the House that a Commission has been issued under Her Majesty's Great Seal to several Lords named therein authorising the said Lords to declare in the name and on behalf of Her Majesty Her Majesty's approbation of the choice of the Commons of the Right Honourable Dr. Horace Maybray King to be their Speaker.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure until 4 p.m.
Moved accordingly and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.
4.0 p.m.
THE LORDS COMMISSIONERS (THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD GARDINER), THE VISCOUNT DILHORNE, THE EARL OF LISTOWEL, THE LORD HENDERSON, and THE LORD OGMORE)THE LORDS COMMISSIONERS (THE LORD CHANCELLOR (LORD GARDINER), THE VISCOUNT DILHORNE, THE EARL OF LISTOWEL, THE LORD HENDERSON, and THE LORD OGMORE) being seated in front of the Throne, and the Commons, having been sent for, being at the Bar:
MR. SPEAKER-ELECT (DR. HORACE MAYBRAY KING), addressing the Royal Commissioners, said: My Lords, I have to acquaint your Lordships that, in obedience to Her Majesty's Commands, Her Majesty's most faithful Commons have, in the exercise of their undoubted rights and privileges, proceeded to the election of a Speaker, and that their choice has fallen upon myself. I now present myself at your Lordships' Bar and submit myself with all humility for Her Majesty's gracious approbation.
The Commission having been read:
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Dr. King, we have it in command from Her Majesty to declare Her Majesty's entire confidence in your talents, diligence and sufficiency to fulfil the important duties of the high Office of Speaker of the House of Commons to which you have been
550
chosen by that House; and in obedience to the Commission which has been read, and by virtue of the authority therein contained, we do declare Her Majesty's Royal allowance and confirmation upon you, Sir, as Speaker of the House of Commons.
MR. SPEAKER: My Lords, I submit myself in all humility to Her Majesty's Royal will and pleasure, and if, in the discharge of my duties and in maintaining the rights and privileges of the Commons House of Parliament, I should be led into any inadvertent error, I pray that the blame may be imputed to me alone and not to Her Majesty's faithful House of Commons.
Mr. Speaker and the Commons then retired.
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

MURDER (ABOLITION OF DEATH PENALTY) BILL
4.17 p.m.
Debate on Third Reading resumed.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, in an exceptionally large House, after two days of debate, your Lordships voted for the Second Reading of this Bill by 204 to 104—a proportion of 2 to 1; substantially the same as had happened on the Second Reading in another place. One or two noble Lords expressed the hope that the learned Judges would be satisfied about what I may call the release procedure, and, as your Lordships know, Amendments were moved and considered, first in Committee and subsequently on Report stage, and were agreed to. I should have hoped that in those circumstances it might be possible to dispense with a Division of the House on the Third Reading, but of course the noble Lord, Lord Colyton, is fully within his rights in dividing the House upon it. However, I am sure that your Lordships will feel that at this stage I can be extremely short, because I think we have had—and perhaps inevitably—no new arguments at all.
The noble and learned Viscount, Lord Dilhorne, asked me specifically to ans-

551
wer the question whether it was right that anybody who killed a policeman or a warder would never be released at all. That of course is not so. His case would be treated in the same way as others, bearing in mind, of course, the particular gravity of his crime. The noble Lord, Lord Colyton, dealt almost entirely with public opinion and the public opinion polls. Your Lordships may remember that on the Second Reading debate the noble Lord, Lord Windlesham, in an obviously well-informed and careful speech, dealt fully with the public opinion poll.
The main argument for those who believe in capital punishment has throughout been—and it is, I believe, the only rational argument for the retention of capital punishment—that it is a much greater deterrent than any other form of punishment, and that therefore if you abolish capital punishment murders will increase. I do not doubt that a great many members of the public who have never had occasion to consider the relevant facts believe that. It has always seemed to me quite natural that they should. The division here is very largely between informed and less-in-formed opinion; but this has always been the main argument. It was on Second Reading, it was in 1956 and it was in 1948. Indeed, if one were to go back to 1748 one would find that this was still the main argument. William York was convicted of murder at Durham Assizes in 1748 during that short period in our legal history when the trial judge had the right himself to respite the death sentence. The Chief Justice, before whom York was tried, was not sure whether that was a proper case in which to exercise the power. He therefore asked the other judges, who met and sent him their views in a memorandum—which is why we know what they said. They said:
"He is a proper subject for capital punishment and ought to suffer. Though the taking away of a life of a boy of ten years old may savour of cruelty, yet as an example this boy's punishment may be a means of deterring other children from like offences; and as the sparing of this boy merely on account of his age will probably have a quite contrary tendency, in justice to the public the law ought to take its course".
This has always been the main argument; and, of course, it is a view which anybody is entitled to hold. But no new
552
point about it has been made to-day. For myself, I am absolutely certain that the existence or non-existence of capital punishment has absolutely no relation at all to the homicide rate. I believe this because from 125 years ago, when we in this country successively abolished capital punishment in the case of over 200 different offences, we have always been told, particularly by the judges, that if we abolished capital punishment from this crime, then this crime would enormously increase, and that if we abolished it from that crime, then that crime would enormously increase. The fact is that at that time there was no subsequent increase in those crimes at all.
Further, I believe it has no relation to the homicide rate because the experience of other countries has been the same—and they are countries of the greatest diversity of geography, of race and of economies. While most of the civilised countries of the world, as your Lordships know, have long abolished capital punishment, there is, I am satisfied, no country in which the abolition of capital punishment has resulted in any increase in murder in that country; and I should think that the experience that we have had since the introduction of the Homicide Act tends to point in that direction. I know one can always argue statistics in different ways. I base my reliance on the simple fact, relied on by Mr. Henry Brooke, that in 1957 we abolished capital punishment 85 per cent. We are now dealing with the 15 per cent. anomaly; and, if capital punishment is a far greater deterrent than any other form of punishment, should we not all have expected that there would be a very substantial increase in the number of murders in the 85 per cent. category from which capital punishment was then removed, and a substantial decrease in the number of murders in the 15 per cent. category for which it was retained? On the contrary, as Mr. Brooke pointed out, there has been no substantial change at all.
Secondly, my Lords, it is my own view that the deliberate putting to death of a man or a woman in cold blood as a punishment for crime is no longer consistent with our own self-respect. Thirdly, I do not believe that fallible human beings are entitled to impose a punishment so irrevocable that, if they find

553
they have made a mistake, they have, by choosing this form of punishment, made it impossible for them to do anything to rectify that mistake. Further, I do not believe that any human being is irredeemable: nor do I believe that any other human being is himself or herself fit to decide that some other human being is not fit to live. Next, I think we ought not to employ people to do that which we would in no circumstances do ourselves. It was a former prison governor of Pentonville Prison who said:
"I never can help asking myself why, when one is called upon to superintend an execution, one should have been affected by such an acute sense of personal shame. There must be something fundamentally wrong with a law which has the effect of lessening the self-respect of those whose duty it is to carry it out".
Lastly, I believe that in a short time the thing which will surprise us will be why we did not do this earlier; why we did not do it at the sort of time when most civilised countries did it: I believe we shall realise for the first time the effect of example. It was one of the representatives of an abolitionist country who said to the Select Committee:
"In my country, the lesson has been learnt that the best way of inculcating respect for human life is for the State itself to refrain from taking life in the name of the law".
My Lords, I believe that that is right, and in expressing the hope that your Lordships' House will pass the Third Reading of this Bill by the same sort of proportion as it passed the Second Reading, I am quite sure that, when the traps have been removed from the prisons, not only shall we be as safe a country but we shall be a much saner and healthier one.
4.28 p.m.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: My Lords, I think there is just one addendum that I ought to make to the short list of reminders which I gave in my opening remarks. I think your Lordships need to have in mind that we are not here to discuss the abolition of the death penalty. We are here to discuss the abolition of a number of completely anomalous instances in which the
death penalty has survived after it has been abolished for by far the greater part of crimes that were formerly capital.
Public opinion has been quoted, and I am quite willing to concede to the noble Lord, Lord Colyton, that public opinion is probably against the abolition of the death penalty and that the public opinion polls are as good a reflection of public opinion as we are able to get at present. But if, in the decisions in your Lordships' House, we were to follow the public opinion polls, some very curious results would follow. At present, one of the results would be that noble Lords opposite would be under an obligation to accept any measures that were moved from the Benches on this side of the House. What is much more important is that public opinion is, on this issue, ill-informed; and the young men who brought Lord Colyton their petition also appear to be ill-informed. They were, very understandably, deeply concerned, as we all are, about child murders, but it is a very long time since a child murderer has been hanged, because most child murders are not committed in the course of theft, children are not policemen and children who are murdered are seldom, if ever, shot.
What we are here to do to-day is to remove this differentiation between the murderer who takes sixpence from his victim's pocket and the one who does not—a differentiation which, as the law now stands, is, or may be, a matter of life and death: a differentiation between those who murder by shooting and those who bludgeon their victims to death; and a differentiation which favours the poisoner and allows the person who shoots in hot blood to be hanged. I am sure that when we appreciate that this is what we are deciding, we in this House shall not hesitate to align ourselves with the practice which now prevails in the greater part of the civilised world.
4.30 p.m.
On Question, Whether the Bill shall be now read 3ª?
Their Lordships divided: Contents. 169; Not-Contents, 75.

CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Amherst of Hackney, L.

Arran, E.

Addison, V.

Amory, V.

Arwyn, L.

Airedale, L.

Amulree, L.

Asquith of Yarnbury, Bs.

Alport, L.

Archibald, L.

Astor, V.

Attlee, E.

Hankey, L.

Plummer, Bs.

Auckland, L.

Harewood, E.

Ponsonby of Shulbrede, L.

Baldwin of Bewdley, E.

Harmsworth, L.

Queensberry, M.

Beswick, L.

Harvey of Tasburgh, L.

Raglan, L.

Blackford, L.

Hastings, L.

Rank, L.

Blyton, L.

Henderson, L.

Rathcreedan, L.

Boothby, L.

Henley, L. [Teller.]

Rea, L.

Boston, L.

Hertford, M.

Reay, L. [Teller.]

Bourne, L.

Hilton of Upton, L.

Redesdale, L.

Bowden, L

Hives, L.

Ritchie of Dundee, L.

Bowles, L.

Hodson, L.

Robertson of Oakridge, L.

Boyd-Orr, L.

Howard of Glossop, L.

Royle, L.

Bridgeman, V.

Hurcomb, L.

Russell of Liverpool, L.

Brockway, L.

Hurd, L.

Sainsbury, L.

Brook of Ystradfellte, Bs.

Iddesleigh, E.

St. Albans, L. Bp.

Brown, L.

Ilford, L.

St. Davids, V.

Burden, L.

Ingleby, V.

St. Edmundsbury and Ipswich, L.Bp.

Burton of Coventry, Bs.

Kennet, L.

Byers, L.

Killearn, L.

St. Just, L.

Carnock, L.

Lansdowne, M.

Segal, L.

Carrington, L.

Latham, L.

Shackleton, L.

Cawley, L.

Layton, L.

Shepherd, L.

Champion, L.

Leatherland, L.

Sherfield, L.

Chorley, L.

Lilford, L.

Silkin, L.

Citrine, L.

Lindgren, L.

Simey, L.

Clinton, L.

Listowel. E.

Simonds, V.

Clwyd, L.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Snow, L.

Cohen, L.

Longford, E. (L. Privy Seal.)

Soper, L.

Cohen of Brighton, L.

Lucas of Chilworth, L.

Sorensen, L.

Coleraine, L.

Luke, L.

Southwark, L. Bp.

Colgrain, L.

Lyle of Westbourne, L.

Stonham, L.

Coventry, L. Bp.

Mabane, L.

Strange of Knokin, Bs.

Craigmyle, L.

McNair, L.

Summerskill, Bs.

Croft, L.

Mancroft, L.

Swanborough, Bs.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Merthyr, L.

Swinton, E.

Devonshire, D.

Meston, L.

Tangley, L.

Dinevor, L.

Milford, L.

Terrington, L.

Dudley, L.

Milford Haven, M.

Thurlow, L.

Effingham, E.

Mitchison, L.

Twining, L.

Elliot of Harwood, Bs.

Morris of Borth-y-Gest, L.

Wade, L.

Emmet of Amberley, Bs.

Morris of Kenwood, L.

Waldegrave, E.

Exeter, L. Bp.

Morrison, L.

Walston, L.

Falmouth, V.

Mottistone, L.

Ward of Witley, V.

Foley, L.

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Fortescue, E.

Napier and Ettrick, L.

Wilberforce, L.

Gainsborough, E.

Newcastle, L. Bp.

Willis, L.

Gardiner, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Newton, L.

Winterbottom, L.

Geddes, L.

Norwich, L. Bp.

Wise, L.

Gifford, L.

Norwich, V.

Woolton, E.

Grantchester, L.

Ogmore, L.

Wootton of Abinger, Bs.

Granville-West, L.

Oxford, L. Bp.

York, L. Abp.

Haddington, E.

Parker of Waddington, L.

Ypres, E.

Haire of Whiteabbey, L.

Phillips, Bs.

NOT-CONTENTS

Ailsa, M.

Devonport, V.

Kemsley, V.

Allerton, L.

Digby, L.

Lambert, V.

Ampthill, L.

Dilhorne, V.

Long, V.

Ashbourne, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Lovat, L.

Balfour of Burleigh, L.

Ellenborough, L.

MacAndrew, L.

Barnby, L. [Teller.]

Erroll of Hale, L.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Falkland, V.

Merrivale, L.

Bolton, L.

Ferrers, E.

Mersey, V.

Brocket, L.

Forster of Harraby, L.

Middleton, L.

Chesham, L.

Furness, V.

Milverton, L.

Cholmondeley, M.

Glasgow, E.

Monsell, V.

Clitheroe, L.

Glendevon, L.

Morton of Henryton, L.

Colwyn, L.

Godber, L.

Rathcavan, L.

Colyton, L. [Teller.]

Goddard, L.

Reith, L.

Coutanche, L.

Greenway, L.

Rockley, L.

Cromartie, E.

Grenfell, L.

Rowallan, L.

Denham, L.

Harris, L.

St. Aldwyn, E.

Deramore, L.

Inglewood, L.

St. Helens, L.

Derwent, L.

Ironside, L.

Salisbury, M.

556

557

Saltoun, L.

Stamp, L.

Tweedsmuir, L.

Shannon, E.

Strathcarron, L.

Waleran, L.

Sinclair of Cleeve, L.

Strathclyde, L.

Willingdon, M.

Somers, L.

Stuart of Findhorn, V.

Wolverton, L.

Soulbury, V.

Teynham, L.

Wynford, L.

Stamford, E.

Tucker, L.

Yarborough, E.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Resolved in the affirmative, and Bill read 3ª accordingly, with the Amendments.
BARONESS WOOTTON OF ABINGER: My Lords, I beg to move that the Bill do now pass.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Baroness Wootton of Abinger.)
VISCOUNT DILHORNE: My Lords, I rise, not to carry on opposition to this Bill, but, despite having been referred to as, and probably being, one of the ill-informed opponents of this Bill, to extend my sincere congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton of Abinger, on the success she has achieved, despite the strongest opposition that we could put forward. I should like also, if I may, to congratulate a Member of another place, Mr. Silverman, and the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor, who together have fought for so many years to bring about this change in the law.
On Question, Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.

LONDONDERRY ANTI-SUBMARINE SCHOOL
4.48 p.m.
THE MINISTER OF DEFENCE FOR THE ROYAL AIR FORCE (LORD SHACKLETON): My Lords, with your Lordships' permission, I should like to intervene to repeat a Statement which is being made in another place by my honourable friend the Minister of Defence for the Royal Navy on behalf of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Defence, about the future of the Joint Anti-Submarine School at Londonderry. The Statement is as follows:
"My right honourable friend the Home Secretary and I"—
that is, the Minister for the Navy—
"have visited this establishment, and we have given long and careful consideration to the representations made to keep this Training School at Londonderry by the Prime Minister and Government of Northern Ireland, the Mayor
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of Londonderry, the honourable Member for Londonderry and other honourable Members"—
and, perhaps I may add, by noble Lords in this House, in particular, my noble friend, Lord Haire of Whiteabbey.
"Nevertheless, we have come to the conclusion that the advantages in economy and efficiency to be gained by moving the school to Plymouth are so great that they must be accepted. The move will save between £400,000 and £500,000 a year, and will also make available well over 200 officers and ratings for service elsewhere. The rundown will not take full effect for about three years, and during that time, in conjunction with the Government of Northern Ireland, Her Majesty's Government will make every effort to bring new employment to the area.
"This was a hard decision to take, because it must break a strong and fruitful link between the Royal Navy and this part of Northern Ireland, and will be a blow to the city and people of Londonderry. Nevertheless, quite apart from the substantial economies I have mentioned, the move will have decisive operational advantages, not only for the Navy but also for the R.A.F."
LORD ST. OSWALD: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord for repeating this Statement. The saving he has described in men and money is considerable. I suppose that we can take it that the savings are in absolute terms—that is to say, at least 200 officers and ratings fewer will be employed at Plymouth, for the same result, as are now employed at Londonderry, and also the operational costs at Plymouth, for at least the same result, will be between £400,000 and £500,000 less than at Londonderry. But even if this is conceded, as I assume it is, there is still no reference in the Statement to capital costs. Will the installations to be dismantled at Londonderry have to be re-created from scratch at Plymouth, and, if so, at what capital outlay?

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I should also be grateful if the noble Lord could be a little more explicit, for the benefit of a landlubber, on the "decisive operational advantages" referred to in his closing words. Can he reassure us on this point—because I understand that the School at Londonderry is held in very high repute by the Services concerned? I am sure that he will have answers to these questions. I put them merely in order to clear my own mind.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, first of all, on the noble Lord's point as to whether good results will be obtained for the money, let me say that very much better results will be obtained for the money. The capital cost will be paid for in the course of one year's saving—in other words, it will come within £500,000. The noble Lord asked for the "urgent operational reasons". This is a fairly complicated subject. The majority of submarines available for this training, and the majority of ships, are in the South, and it has been calculated that this move will save the equivalent of 1½ submarine hulls and 1½ anti-submarine ships in sheer time of passage and convenience. In addition the Anti-Submarine Tactical Trainer is in the south. There are many valid operational reasons why this should be done. I should add that it has been only with the utmost regret that the Government have taken a decision which, in total effect, if we add savings of ships, is probably not £400,000 to £500,000 but £1 million a year.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, having been First Lord of the Admiralty for five years, may I be allowed to pay my tribute to the Joint Anti-Submarine Training School in Londonderry, which was a model of what a school should be and was much envied by the Navies of other nations? It is very sad that it should be closed, but I think that the noble Lord has certainly made out a financial case for doing so.
May I ask the noble Lord three questions? He spoke of "operational advantages", and in answering my noble friend Lord St. Oswald, he spoke of the saving in passage time. My recollection, which of course may be at fault, is that one of the reasons why Londonderry was chosen for the Anti-Submarine School was that it was much nearer deep water. If my
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recollection is correct, will not that operational disadvantage discount the advantages, whatever they may be? Secondly, may I ask the noble Lord whether he can tell me where the new School is to be at Plymouth? And, thirdly, could he tell the House how many men and women now employed at the School at Londonderry will find themselves out of a job as a result of this decision?
LORD HAIRE OF WHITEABBEY: My Lords, my noble friend will hardly expect me to be wild in my welcome of this Statement. I am satisfied that he and the other Ministers concerned have arrived at this serious decision only after the most careful thought and consideration. I am satisfied that only questions of defence costs, and of the economic re-deployment of the forces concerned, and no other social considerations whatever, have led to this decision. The proposal to delay action until 1968 will, of course, be welcome to everyone in Londonderry, and especially to the men concerned. Northern Ireland will surely feel that the axe has not fallen too suddenly and without due notice. The proposals to find alternative employment—
THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (THE EARL OF LONGFORD): My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt my noble friend, but we are on questions on the Statement and he is beginning to make a speech.
LORD HAIRE OF WHITEABBEY: My Lords, the proposals to find alternative employment for the men concerned lead me to ask whether new industries have been found for Londonderry in order to provide this new employment; because, clearly, we must give thought to the many men concerned who are, and have for long been, associated with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force at Londonderry.
LORD MERRIVALE: My Lords, as a Member of your Lordships' House who has visited the Submarine School at Londonderry, may I say that I was highly impressed by the facilities provided for submarine courses and also by the attitude there of the NATO Navy personnel. I should like to ask the noble Lord whether the numbers of NATO personnel which will use these training facilities will be less at Plymouth than they are at Londonderry.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, first of all let me deal with the question of the noble Lord, Lord Merrivale. It is up to NATO to make use of these facilities, if they wish. I hope very much that they will desire to continue to make precisely the same use of these facilities when they are at Plymouth. This is a point which has been clearly recognised.
I understand the feeling of my noble friend Lord Haire of Whiteabbey as a Northern Irishman—or Ulsterman, whichever he prefers to be called—on this matter. There is no doubt that the problem of employment is a serious one, and it is strongly recognised by the Government. Clearly, in view of the extremely important defence economies, there is a limitation to the extent to which the Defence Budget should carry what is essentially a social cost, but it is the intention of the Government, as part of their general plans for Northern Ireland, to do their best to bring new employment to Londonderry. But, as my noble friend has said, it will be some time before the run-down is completed.
Dealing with the points raised by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, certainly the presence of deep water close to Londonderry has been an operational advantage, but I should like to correct him historically. I think I am right in saying this—and my memory of the Anti-Submarine School probably goes back farther than that of the noble Lord—that it was placed in Northern Ireland during the war, when the Western Approaches in that area made an ideal centre, rather than anywhere in the South-West. I remember it when it was the Joint Anti-U-Boat School at Maydown, because the Navy were unable to provide intelligence for their own base and the R.A.F. had to provide it.
LORD CARRINGTON: My Lords, I was saying that its closeness to deep water was one of the reasons why the School was kept at Londonderry.
LORD SHACKLETON: I appreciate that. The point raised by the noble Lord has been taken into account, but it is small in comparison to the saving which I exemplified in terms of actual ship-time. I think the argument is that the operational advantages, from the point of view of both the Navy and the R.A.F., and also
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taking into account NATO requirements, are quite overwhelming.
LORD CARRINGTON: Will the noble Lord answer my other two questions? I asked where the school would be at Plymouth, and also how many men and women would lose their jobs as a result of this decision.
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, the reason why I did not answer the question about Plymouth is that I do not know the answer.
LORD CARRINGTON: It seems to be quite important.
LORD SHACKLETON: We have two or three years in which to plan. I think that, for the moment, Plymouth is near enough the geographical point. I appreciate that it will be of interest to have this information, and I will let the noble Lord know it.
The number of people whose jobs are at risk is different from the number who actually lose their jobs. The total number of civilians who will be affected in Londonderry is 481, which is a quite considerable number. Of these, 249 are established and will be offered jobs elsewhere in the Government service, possibly in Northern Ireland, in which case they have priority over unestablished civil servants in Northern Ireland. But I should not wish to deceive the House in suggesting that these jobs will necessarily be forthcoming within Northern Ireland. The remaining 232 are unestablished. Whether or not they will be discharged as redundant will depend partly on normal wastage.
LORD ASHBOURNE: My Lords, could the Minister confirm that when the School moves to Devonport its scope and capacity will be roughly the same as it has been at Londonderry over the last fifteen years or so?
LORD SHACKLETON: My Lords, the capacity and scope will be increased. I do not want to press this point, but there is great difficulty at the moment in carrying out the courses they want. The number has been cut from eight to six, and the length of the course has been cut from four to three weeks. We hope to restore the position. Perhaps I should say to the noble Lord that, although we

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said that the Joint Anti-Submarine School is leaving Northern Ireland, it is not closing down: it will continue with greater efficiency elsewhere.

RENT BILL
5.3 p.m.
Order of the Day for the Third Reading read.
LORD SHEPHERD: My Lords, I have it in command from Her Majesty the Queen to acquaint the House that Her Majesty, having been informed of the purport of the Rent Bill, has consented to place her interest, so far as it is concerned on behalf of the Crown, at the disposal of Parliament for the purposes of this Bill.
THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF LAND AND NATURAL RESOURCES (LORD MITCHISON): My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read 3ª.—(Lord Mitchison.)
On Question, Bill read 3ª, with the Amendments.
Clause 14:
Recovery of possession of owner-occupied houses
14.—(1) Where a person who has occupied a dwelling-house as his residence (in this section referred to as the owner-occupier) has let the dwelling-house on a regulated tenancy and the conditions mentioned in subsection (2) of this section are satisfied then if—
(b) the court is satisfied that the dwelling-house is required as a residence for the owner-occupier or any member of his family;
the court shall make an order for the possession of the dwelling-house, whether or not it would have power to do so under section 3 of the Act of 1933, and section 5(2) of the Act of 1920 shall not apply in relation to the order.
LORD HASTINGS LORD HASTINGS moved, in subsection 1(b), to leave out "any member of his family" and to insert:
"his wife or widow or his child (or, if more than one, such of them as may in default of agreement be decided by the court);".
The noble Lord said: My Lords, I know that it is not the normal practice to move Amendments on Third Reading if
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it can be avoided, but I think these two Amendments are self-explanatory, and it will be quickly understood why they are being moved on this occasion. With regard to the first Amendment, your Lordships will remember that Clause 14 in its original draft allowed an owner-occupier who had occupied a dwelling-house and then had let it unfurnished to recover it by giving notice to the tenant in the way laid down in the clause of his intention to do so, and at the same time allowed any member of his family who had resided with him in that house to recover it also.
We felt on the Committee stage that it was unreasonable to exclude from this right a wife or child of that occupier who had not actually lived in the house. Therefore we cut out the limitation, thereby passing an Amendment against the wish of the Government and allowing any member of his family to reacquire occupation of that house. The noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, resisted that strongly and made great play with his nineteen grandchildren. Later, when I pressed him on the inhumanity, as we thought, of excluding a wife or child from the home of the husband and father because they had not happened to live there, he brought in the difficulties about how you would decide between nineteen children, a curiously reactionary argument which met with strange support from a member of the Liberal Party who does not seem to be with us to-day.
Anyhow, being reasonable people in the official Opposition, we, of course, sought to meet these criticisms, and therefore this Amendment is really improving on what we did on the previous occasion. We are limiting the concession, as the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, likes to believe it is, to the wife or widow or the child of the owner-occupier, and, if more than one, such of them as may in default of agreement be decided by the court. By narrowing down this clause we feel that we have met the criticisms raised in Committee. We therefore put forward this Amendment, and as it is an improvement on the previous one I hope that the noble Lord opposite will have no difficulty in accepting it. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
Page 10, line 36, leave out from ("or") to end of line 37 and insert the said new words.—(Lord Hastings.)
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, may I correct the history a little? What happened in this case was that the original Bill confined the right of possession in these cases to relatives who had lived there with the owner-occupier, and an Amendment was put down by the Opposition which dispensed with the requirement of having lived there and extended the right to any member of the family. It did not need me to tell them that that was not right; they said so themselves and they were quite clear about it. No doubt the Conservative Party is always right, but not necessarily the first time. They have now tried to correct this minor error by limiting the matter a little, applying the right not to all members of the family but to some of them; and the "some", I notice, leaves out various possibilities—a mother, for instance, who has lived there, and so on. On the other hand, the Amendment that is now brought forward was in effect mentioned, and it was on the basis of this Amendment that the argument proceeded in Committee. I am certainly not going to repeat what was then said by way of objection to the original alteration.
On this side of the House, we still think that the original version was right and that the omission of the requirement of having lived there with the owner-occupier was quite wrong, for the reasons that were given at the time. But, so far as this Amendment is concerned, it simply corrects what was in fact a minor error, and, therefore, while in no sense of the word can I accept it, I should certainly not feel justified in suggesting to the House that a Division should take place on the Amendment.
LORD NEWTON LORD NEWTON moved, after Clause 14, to insert the following new clause:
Recovery of possession of dwelinghouse for residence by owner or his widow
.—(1) Where a person has purchased or become the owner of a dwelling-house with vacant possession and intends to occupy it within five years from the date of obtaining vacant possession and has let the dwelling-house on a regulated tenancy and the conditions mentioned in subsection (2) of this section are satisfied, then if—

(a) apart from the Rent Acts the landlord would be entitled to recover possession of the dwelling-house; and

(b) the court is satisfied that the dwelling-house is required as a residence for that
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person or his widow, and the said five years have not elapsed;

the court shall make an order for the possession of the dwelling-house, whether or not it would have power to do so under section 3 of the Act of 1933, and section 5(2) of the Act of 1920 shall not apply in relation to the order.
(2) The said conditions are—

(a) that not later than the commencement of the tenancy (or if the tenancy was created before the commencement of this Act, not later than six months after the commencement of this Act) the landlord has given notice in writing to the tenant that possession may be recovered under this section; and

(b) that the dwelling-house has not since the commencement of this Act been let by the said person on a regulated tenancy with respect to which the condition mentioned in paragraph (a) of this subsection was not satisfied."

The noble Lord said: My Lords, this new clause is almost identical with the new clause that I moved on the Report stage of the Bill, and somewhat similar to one moved on the Committee stage by my noble friend Lord St. Helens. So this matter has twice been discussed by your Lordships, and discussed fully, and I hope you will not expect me to spend very long this afternoon on rehashing the arguments in support of it. What this new clause broadly amounts to is this. It says that where a man buys a house with vacant possession, or becomes the owner of a house with vacant possession, and intends either to occupy it himself or that, in the event of his death, his wife should occupy it within five years of the date from which he obtained vacant possession, then he shall be able to obtain possession from the court within that five years as a matter of right, provided that at the time of the letting on a regulated tenancy he informed the tenant in writing that he would be recovering possession within the five years.
I think that at every stage in your Lordships' House, and pretty well at every stage in another place, Ministers have said that they accept in principle that exceptional treatment should be given to the man who wishes to buy a house for his retirement. The object of this new clause is to meet the case of purchase for retirement. At the same time, Ministers have always gone on to say that, although they accept it in principle, they have not been able to find a satisfactory way of carrying it out. It is my submission this afternoon, as it has been my submission

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before, that we have found, if not perhaps the best way of doing it, at any rate a perfectly adequate way of doing it. When we find what we consider is a good way of doing it, the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, objects that to do this violates the principle enshrined in the Rent Acts that it should be for the courts to determine where the balance of hardship lies between the owner and the tenant.
There are two answers to this objection of the noble Lord. The first is this—and I have made this point before. In Clause 14, which we have just been discussing and which deals with recovery of possession by owner-occupiers—incidentally, the Government's own clause—the Government themselves admit that in the particular cases dealt with by Clause 14 it is right that there should be no question of considering any possible hardship to the tenant. So in this new clause we are not seeking to write a precedent into the Bill. The second answer to the objection of the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, is this. If the Government really mean what they say—and I am sure they do, because they have said so often, and with great sincerity, that they would accept the principle that it is right to treat exceptionally the man who purchases a house for his retirement—then it follows from that as a matter of simple logic that consideration cannot be given to any possible hardship to the tenant. You cannot say, on the one hand, that the court shall decide where the balance of hardship lies and, at the same time, that you accept in principle that the man who buys a house for retirement should be exceptionally treated.
The other main objection which the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, has made to this clause is that it goes too wide. Theoretically, it certainly covers more than the man who buys a house for his retirement within a period of five years of obtaining vacant possession, and it must do so for this simple reason. As I know, and as the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, knows, it is not possible to write into this new clause or, indeed, into the Bill at all, the notion of retirement, because the word "retirement" is not capable of sufficiently accurate definition. But your Lordships may recall or, at any rate, I think the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, will, that at the
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Report stage the noble Lord, Lord Silkin, pointed out in a most persuasive speech in support of my new clause that there are equally deserving cases, in his judgment—and I would agree with him—which this new clause may take care of: cases which are just as deserving as that of the man who buys a house against his retirement.
They are, first, the man who has to go abroad for a few years because of his employment and wants to have a home to come back to when he returns to this country. Secondly, there is the case of a man in one of the Armed Services who knows that in two, three or four years' time he is going to retire, not from work, but from his service in the Navy, Army or Air Force, and again wants to have a home in which he and his family can live. I think that is really all I need say in commending this new clause once again to your Lordships' House.
It was apparent to me, at any rate, when I last moved this new clause on the Report stage that it found favour with every noble Lord present—with the exception, of course, of the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison—irrespective of where the noble Lords were sitting in the Chamber. I withdrew the new clause on that occasion, rather reluctantly, for two reasons. The first was that I hoped that the noble Lord would accede to the request made to him by his noble friend Lord Silkin that between the Report stage and Third Reading he would think yet again about this matter and try to put down his own form of words which would meet the object which I think he has at heart just as much as I have.
A further reason why I hoped the noble Lord would do that is that I do not imagine the drafting of this new clause is perfect, but it is the best that my noble friend Lord Hastings and I can do. The other reason why I withdrew my Amendment at the Report stage was simply that, although I was in no doubt that if I had pressed it to a Division there would have been a majority of your Lordships voting in support of the new clause, I doubted whether we had a quorum. If your Lordships remember, it was the last day's Sitting before the Summer Recess. If there had not been a quorum, even though the majority had

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been in favour of the new clause, that would have been the end of the day's proceedings on the Report stage of the Rent Bill and therefore if I had instigated anything like that I should have been in breach of an understanding which had been reached through the usual channels. However, I am under no such compunction this afternoon. I beg to move.
Amendment moved—
After Clause 14, insert the said new clause.—(Lord Newton.)
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, I envy, but suspect a little, the divining powers of the noble Lord, Lord Newton, who was able to say that everybody in the Chamber supported his new clause when he last brought it forward. It is quite true that my noble friend Lord Silkin and I did not agree on this matter, and I dare say we still do not agree—I do not know—but let us see exactly what is happening. Here is a group of three or four clauses which produce particular exceptions in favour of the landlord and entitle him to get possession in certain circumstances. To that group an addition is sought to be made. It is to follow immediately on one which deals with the recovery of possession of owner-occupied houses. Owner-occupation is the reason why the Government have put that clause in. It is the absence of that fact about which we have been complaining in connection with the previous Amendment. This is an entirely different matter. Here it is sought to bring in people who need never have occupied the house at all, but certainly were not occupying it at the time in question, and clearly again this is not a case of ministers of religion or persons employed in agriculture; it is something entirely new.
The position is that the noble Lord, Lord Newton, is perfectly correct if he says that my right honourable friend in another place and I here expressed sympathy with the wish to deal especially with cases of retirement, but we both said that we found great difficulty in devising suitable machinery, and in fact we have not found it. Whether one can be said to accept something in principle when what one says is, "I sympathise much with the intention but I do not see how to carry it out" is a matter of language with which I need not trouble your Lordships at this hour. I have looked at it
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again and I am still unable to see how to carry it out. What I am quite clear about is that the clause proposed here, which incidentally does not mention retirement at all—does the noble Lord wish to say something?
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, what I said under my breath was that we know that, and I went to great pains in my speech to explain exactly why the word does not occur.
LORD MITCHISON: Then we can proceed from there: whatever else it does, the clause does not mention retirement. What it does is to give a man who has bought a house and who is not expected to have occupied it, and it gives certain relatives of that man also, the right to get into the house as a resident; a right against the tenant who is there at the moment; a right to be exercised on notice and within five years. The conditions of exercising the right, other than those I have already mentioned, consist in the satisfaction of the court that the dwelling-house is required as a residence and—a very vague one—that at sometime or another, there was an intention to occupy it. That is what we are asked to accept as a provision.
I am not quite clear what the merits of this clause are, and that is what troubles me. It is agreed that it goes infinitely beyond the case of the man who retires. I should have thought it might easily lead to people making a practice of getting a notice of this kind. I do not quite know when they are supposed to have the intention, thereby creating the right to use the clause at a later stage. But what is the real purpose and object of it? I listened carefully to the noble Lord's speech, and if it is agreed that this is not just a question of retirement, what is the reason for putting forward this clause at all? I should understand it if there were no provision at all bearing on this case, but in effect we are being asked to say that the provision that occurs in paragraph (h) of the First Schedule to the Rent and Mortgage Interest Restrictions (Amendment) Act 1933 is insufficient, and we are asked to give to the landlord in this particular case rights which are far more extensive than those already given by that paragraph.
I think I ought just to remind your Lordships what that paragraph says. It

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is at the end of the First Schedule to the 1933 Act and it provides for recovery of possession where the dwelling-house is reasonably required by the landlord, and then there is a limitation of date, the limitation now being the date when this particular Bill was introduced, because that is by an Amendment in this Bill; and then it goes on to say
"for occupation as a residence for—

(i) himself; or

(ii) any son or daughter of his over eighteen years of age; or

(iii) his father or mother:

Provided that an order or judgment shall not be made or given … if the Court is satisfied that having regard to all the circumstances of the case, including the question whether other accommodation is available for the landlord or the tenant, greater hardship would be caused by granting the order or judgment than by refusing to grant it."
That is a well-tried provision which is intended to deal with this type of case. It has been in existence now for over thirty years. What does this proposed clause seek to do? What it seeks to do is, first of all, to omit the discretion of the court not to make an order if it thinks it would be unreasonable to do so. That is in all these rent cases, although I did not actually read it out. Secondly, it seeks to omit the question whether the landlord's requirement is reasonable; and, thirdly, to omit the question of greater hardship.
These are all matters which fall to be decided by the courts, and what in fact is happening in this case is that the new clause seeks to deprive the tenant of the protection of the court, and only the tenant. This is in fact a landlord's clause if ever there was one. It is so widely drawn that it could be applied in a large number of cases. The provision in the 1933 Act will be of little or no practical use afterwards because people will proceed on this new provision, the whole object of which is to deprive the tenant of the protection of the court. That is as I see it. I may be wrong, but if that is the position I say to your Lordships that this is a most remarkable attitude to take up. I always thought we were all agreed that in cases of this kind these questions of recovery of possession of a house were bound to involve human factors; there were bound to be different circumstances in different cases, and for those reasons it was right to leave, as
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there had always been left, a wide ambit to the discretion of the court. Questions of what is reasonable, of where the greater hardships lie, are, I suggest, matters which the court ought to be allowed to consider, and not forbidden to consider, as in effect this clause provides. This clause really enjoins on the court to let the landlord in, being a landlord who has not himself ever occupied the house, who has bought or has acquired it in some way or other and requires it as a residence for himself or members of his family.
I suggest that in the present housing conditions, and indeed in the housing conditions we have had for twenty or thirty years past, to put in such a provision is bound to cause considerable hardship to a considerable number of tenants. I would again suggest that it is unworthy of Parliament in those circumstances to consider that this is a better alternative than the provision which already exists in the 1933 Act. There is no doubt where the political majority lies in this House, but I say to your Lordships that in my humble opinion it will be a discreditable thing if we seek by this particular clause to deprive tenants all over the country of the protection of the courts in the manner I have indicated, because that is the effect of the proposed clause.
LORD NEWTON: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, said that it would be discreditable for this House to insert this new clause in the Bill. Is it not also rather discreditable for the noble Lord to come down here now and plead the wrongfulness of this new clause, on the ground that it includes a possible hardship to the tenant, when time and time again Ministers in both Houses of Parliament have said they accept in principle that it is right to put the man who wishes to purchase a house for his retirement in a favourable position? One cannot maintain both these things at the same time.
Unfortunately I did not bring with me all the relevant Hansards, but I have one here and I will just remind the noble Lord what he said about this in Report stage:
"I think we are all agreed that if we could provide for the case of a man who buys a house with a view to retiring shortly into it, we would do so. My right honourable friend certainly said it quite clearly in another place; I repeated it here, and I have repeated it again to-day."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 269, (No. 116), col. 446, August 5, 1965.]
LORD MITCHISON: I am much obliged to the noble Lord. He knows quite well that this was with reference to retirement, as was what my right honourable friend said. We both used the same language: that we were sympathetic to the idea but did not believe it could be carried out. This clause goes far beyond it.
LORD NEWTON: The reason it goes beyond it, as I have already explained to your Lordships, is that it is intended to deal with the retirement case. The noble Lord said that he was uncertain what our purpose was. It is to deal with the case
Resolved in the affirmative, and Amendment agreed to accordingly.
5.42 p.m.
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass. I
of the man who purchases a house for his retirement. But, as the noble Lord, knows, it is not possible to narrow the clause by writing in references to retirement; it cannot be done. We could go on debating this matter for ever. I do not think the noble Lord and I are any nearer than we have ever been, so I must now ask your Lordships to decide between us.
5.32 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said Amendment shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 70; Not-contents, 56.

CONTENTS

Aberdare, L.

Devonshire, D.

Long, V.

Allerton, L.

Digby, L.

Lothian, M.

Alport, L.

Dilhorne, V.

Luke, L.

Amherst of Hackney, L.

Drumalbyn, L.

Mancroft, L.

Ampthill, L.

Eccles, V.

Margadale, L.

Auckland, L.

Effingham, E.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Barnby, L.

Elliot of Harwood, Bs.

Mersey, V.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Emmet of Amberley, Bs.

Morrison, L.

Boston, L.

Falkland, V.

Newton, L.

Brooke of Ystradfellte, Bs.

Ferrers, E.

Reading, M.

Carrington, L.

Fortescue, E.

Redesdale, L.

Chesham, L.

Glasgow, E.

St. Aldwyn, E. [Teller.]

Clinton, L.

Glendevon, L.

St. Helens, L.

Colgrain, L.

Greenway, L.

St. Just, L.

Conesford, L.

Grimston of Westbury, L.

St. Oswald, L.

Coutanche, L.

Harris, L.

Somers, L.

Craigmyle, L.

Hastings, L.

Strange of Knokin, Bs.

Craigton, L.

Hertford, M.

Stuart of Findhorn, V.

Crathorne, L.

Horsbrugh, Bs.

Teynham, L.

Cromartie, E.

Ilford, L.

Tweedsmuir, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Inglewood, L.

Waldegrave, E.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Killearn, L.

Ward of Witley, V.

Derwent, L.

Lambert, V.

Wolverton, L.

Yarboroueh, E.

NOT-CONTENTS

Addison, V.

Hilton of Upton, L.

Royle, L.

Airedale, L.

Hives, L.

Sainsbury, L.

Amulree, L.

Hobson, L. [Teller.]

Segal, L.

Arwyn, L.

Hurcomb, L.

Shepherd, L.

Beswick, L.

Iddesleigh, E.

Simey, L.

Blyton, L.

Latham, L.

Snow, L.

Bowden, L.

Leatherland, L.

Sorensen, L. [Teller.]

Brockway, L.

Lilford, L.

Southwark, L. Bp.

Burden, L.

Lindgren, L.

Stonham, L.

Champion, L.

Listowel, E.

Strabolgi, L.

Chorley, L.

Lloyd of Hampstead, L.

Strang, L.

Cohen of Brighton, L.

Longford, E. (L. Privy Seal.)

Summerskill, Bs.

Francis-Williams, L.

Mitchison, L.

Wade, L.

Gainsborough, E.

Morris of Kenwood, L.

Walston, L.

Gardiner, L. (L. Chancellor.)

Nathan, L.

Wells-Pestell, L.

Geddes of Epsom, L.

Peddie, L.

Williams, L.

Granville-West, L.

Phillips, Bs.

Willis, L.

Haire of Whiteabbey, L.

Plummer, Bs.

Winterbottom, L.

Henderson, L.

Rea, L.

think it would be appropriate if I were to say a few words—and only a few words—about the Bill as a whole. We have I think, in general, on both sides of the House, been agreed that something was required. I think I might go rather

575
further and say that this Bill was a courageous venture—for that word was used three times on the Second Reading. I hope that I may go yet a little further, and say that a great deal of it, at any rate, is good. The reason why noble Lords opposite regarded it as courageous, I feel, was that the Bill involved in some cases an increase of existing controlled rents, and they thought that that was beyond the brief of the Labour Party.
But the real courage of the Bill, it seems to me, is that for the first time it does not propose the idea of control of rents by reference to rateable value, by reference to a percentage increase or something of that sort, but founds it on the judgment of men who have some knowledge of the right sort of amount that the rent ought to be; because, great as is my respect for a valuer, that is probably the way in which a great many of them are hound to face it.
When this question became clear in the course of discussion on Second Reading a number of noble Lords opposite expressed some doubt as to whether the Bill could be put into operation fast enough to exclude what might well be a most inconvenient gap. I am trying to put this fairly to all sides concerned, and I said at the time—I gave the House a formal assurance—that we would indeed proceed with it as rapidly as possible. Perhaps I may take the opportunity today of saying a word or two on how things are moving.
First of all, the Greater London Rent Assessment Panel will be given responsibility for the whole of Greater London and the complexity of its housing problem. But most important, I think, in the meantime—and I believe that a public announcement has already been made on this matter—is the fact that most distinguished persons have agreed to serve on it. The President is to be Sir Sydney Littlewood, who is a Past President of the Law Society. The Vice-Presidents will include Professor Donnison, who is a Professor of Social Science and Administration at the London School of Economics, and was a member of the Milner Holland Committee. There is another member of the Milner Holland Committee, in the person of Mr. Pilcher, who is a chartered surveyor and Past-President of the Royal Institution of Chartered
576
Surveyors; and then a former Deputy Chief Valuer of the Valuation Office of the Department of Inland Revenue, Mr. J. J. Edwards. I cannot imagine a more distinguished and suitable body for the purpose than those gentlemen. We propose soon to issue invitations to prospective London Panel members—that is to say, the people who will be serving under the President and Vice-Presidents in dealing with the machinery of the Bill.
The question of the rent officer service is also being considered. Noble Lords will remember that the rent officers have a new function under the Bill. They are, as it were, the equivalent of conciliators in industrial disputes rather than a tribunal of any sort. We shall require about a hundred or so in London and two to three hundred in other parts of the country. Applications have already been received for many times the number required in London, though we have not yet proceeded towards getting applications in other parts of the country. I think it right to mention the proposed salaries so as to give the House an idea of the type and status of person we are looking for. The salary will be from £1,495 to £1,745, with an additional allowance of £250 for senior rent officers. Outside London the salaries will be the same, less the London weighting—the usual allowance that is made for the extra expense of living in London. The Bill is not yet law and we could not have gone any further than we have gone already; but I think it is fairly clear that London at any rate will get under way quickly, and there is every reason to believe that the other parts of the country will follow pretty quickly, probably beginning with the West Midlands.
As regards Scotland, here again the proceedings are not quite so far advanced as they are in London, but it is intended to appoint rent officers and rent assessment committees early in the New Year in the four cities in Scotland, the large burghs. There have been informal consultations about that, and there will be statutory consultations as provided in the Bill as soon as it is enacted. There will follow consultations with the other large burghs and counties. In general, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State expects the system to be in operation for most of Scotland in the early part of next year. My Lords, I apologise for

577
having taken a long time to deal with this, but the House really was interested in the possibilities of getting it moving as quickly as possible. If I have not given any great detail, it really is because one cannot say much more than I have said; but I hope that the House will take this as an indication that we are really trying to get a move on.
I do not think I need say any more, except that one is allowed on this sort of occasion to say "Thank you" to all noble Lords who, through varying points of view, some of them most critical of some parts of the Bill, have nevertheless made constructive—I hope I do not sound as if I am arrogating to myself any right to say this; I do not so intend—criticisms of the Bill. I am most grateful to them. I apologise for all my own deficiencies, which have been numerous, some detected by noble Lords opposite and others not detected. My Lords, I beg to move.
Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Lord Mitchison.)
5.50 p.m.
LORD ILFORD: My Lords, I shall detain your Lordships for only a few moments at this late stage of the Bill. First of all, perhaps I might express my own thanks to the noble Lord for the information which he has just given us about the arrangements which are being made for bringing this Bill into operation.
There are two matters which I should like to put to your Lordships and to the Government. Both are matters which can be appropriately discussed at this late stage of our proceedings. First of all, this is undoubtedly an exceedingly obscure Bill. I do not in my experience recall a Bill of greater obscurity or complexity. Clause 1 itself is a masterpiece of legislation by reference. It presents the greatest difficulties of construction. I am not complaining of the draftsmanship; in some ways the draftsmanship is a model of the Parliamentary draftsman's art. It is the complexity of the subject matter of the Bill which makes it so difficult to put it into simple and straightforward language. But it is unfortunate that a Bill of this nature should be a Bill which is expressed in such an obscure fashion. This Act will affect hundreds of modest homes in all parts of the country. It will affect the comfort and the happiness of thousands of persons, landlords as well as tenants. This Act will
578
have to be interpreted to these people by their solicitors, by house agents, estate agents and so on. I desire to make no reflection on the small solicitor, but most of the solicitors who have to advise on this Bill are not the sort of solicitors who are accustomed to deal with complicated legislation. It may well be that they will find it difficult to appreciate what this Bill is all about. I confess I had to read it several times myself before I began to understand it.
My recollection goes back a long way in these matters. I remember the Act of 1920, which was the consolidation Act passed at the end of the First World War. In those days I was in active practice at the Bar and was very glad to go down to the county court and argue a point on the Increase of Rent and Mortgage Interest (Restrictions) Act for a modest fee of three guineas, which was the fee I commanded in those days. At the same time I used to go to what in those days was called a "poor man's lawyer centre" and give advice, mainly on rent questions, to persons who were not able to pay for advice. At times I am appalled when I think of the misery I must unwittingly have caused by the unsound advice I gave to those unfortunate people. I am quite sure that we are going to find this Act even more difficult to construe than the Increase of Rent and Mortgage Interest (Restrictions) Act, 1920.
It seems to me that this Bill is a most suitable Bill for reference to the Lord Chancellor's new Law Commissioners. I believe that at an earlier stage of the Bill something was said about referring the Bill to the Commissioners for early consolidation. I should like to ask the Government for an assurance that this Bill will in fact go to the Commissioners at an early stage for consolidation. Consolidation is not going to be an easy task and it will take some time for the work to be done. I hope that the Government will be able to refer this legislation to the Commissioners at an early stage so that it may be put into a form in which it will be more readily understood by those who have to interpret it.
There is one other matter to which I should like to refer. The Bill provides no appeal from the rent assessment committees. In my experience every tribunal works better if there is an appeal

579
from its decisions. Only your Lordships' House and the most humble and modest tribunals are free from the operation of appeal tribunals. I am quite sure that these rent assessment committees will do their work much better if they know that their decisions will be subject to appeal. It may well be that provisions relating to appeals from these committees have been omitted from the Bill because it is possible, under the Tribunals and Inquiries Act 1958, to extend the provisions of that Act to tribunals which are set up by legislation passed subsequently to the Act, as these tribunals will be. As I understand the Act of 1958, the Lord Chancellor in conjunction with the Secretary of State may direct that the Tribunals and Inquiries Act 1958 should apply to the decisions of the rent assessment committees. In that way there will be an effective appeal on a question of law to the tribunals set up under the Act of 1958. I hope that we may have some assurance from the Government that this matter will be considered and that the Act of 1958 will be applied to this Bill at an early stage.
If I may indulge in reminiscence again for one moment, I remember when the Act of 1920 came out how difficult it was to give anybody any positive advice. Indeed, when the Court of Appeal began to receive the appeals and to appreciate the circumstances in which they came to them—because most of the persons engaged in this litigation are not in a position to go to the Court of Appeal and there were no legal aid provisions in those days—and realised the importance of clarifying this legislation, they in a short time succeeded in clearing up most of the outstanding obscurities in the Act of 1920. It has always seemed to me that the Court of Appeal of those days did not receive the credit which they deserved for the manner in which they took this legislation in hand and made something workable and understandable out of an obscure and difficult piece of legislation. I hope that to-night we may have an assurance that this matter of appeal has not been overlooked and that it is intended to apply to the rent assessment committee under this Bill the provisions of the Tribunals and Inquiries Act 1958.
6.0 p.m.
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, we did, of course, give this Bill a Second Reading, but on that occasion we pointed out that it was good only in parts. I had the impression on Second Reading that the Government spokesman thought the Bill was so good that it would be very difficult to improve upon it at all, but in fact we discussed 84 Amendments during the Committee stage and 32 more on the Report stage. More than 40 of those were the Government's own Amendments, so it is clear that this House had a task to perform, and that we performed it well. Of the other Amendments, nearly 70, which were put down by the official Opposition, I regret to say that, to the best of my memory, only one was willingly agreed to by the noble Lords opposite, and that another four or five we have had to pass against the wishes of the Government.
The noble Lord was kind enough to refer to our constructive attitude but, apparently, he did not think it was all that constructive when it came to the vote. I am reminded of the London Government Bill, of which both my noble friend Lord Newton and I were leading protagonists on the Government side. On that occasion, of 80 Amendments of real substance which were passed during the Committee stage, and of many more consequential ones, no fewer than 30 were put forward by the Opposition, the Labour Party, and were accepted by us.
THE MINISTER WITHOUT PORTFOLIO (LORD CHAMPION): But they were good Amendments.
LORD HASTINGS: When we compare our attitude towards their Amendments I find that this reflects little credit on the Government's attitude during the passage of this Bill. I am afraid that perhaps their intelligence was not quite up to the enlightenment shown by us when the positions were reversed.
The noble Lord referred to the fact that we had mentioned that this is a courageous Bill. Of course we did; but only in two respects, one of which he mentioned: that the controlled statutory rents will eventually become regulated ones, and the rents will go up. The second, of course, was because the Bill

581
did not propose the repeal of the 1957 Rent Act to the extent which the electorate had been led to believe. In those respects only is it a courageous Bill. But, that said, of course there is a lot of good in it. We have said that before, and we say it again. There are still many things in it that we do not like, and we do not know how this Bill will work, but we hope that it will work well.
We are grateful to the noble Lord for giving us information about the progress already being made. I am not quite sure about the propriety of taking these anticipatory steps before the Bill becomes law, because I remember, again in the case of the London Government Bill, being taken very heavily to task—I think by the late-lamented Lord Morrison of Lambeth, and possibly by others—because our Government dared to prepare the tremendous changes which had to take place in the government of London before the Bill actually became law. But, again, being efficient and enlightened, of course we entirely applaud the action that the present Government have taken on this occasion.
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, I think that if this suggestion went into circulation without correction it might do some harm. If the noble Lord will look at HANSARD, he will find that I did not mention, in effect, anything of substance that had already been done. What was referred to was by way of preparation; for example, the number of gentlemen who were going to serve, the number of applications which had been received, and the number of informal consultations to be followed by statutory ones. That kind of thing, I should have thought, was permissible, correct and in the present circumstances required, and I earnestly hope that the Opposition, having urged us to get on with the Bill just as quickly as we could, are not now going to say "Not quite so fast."
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, I was not saying anything of the sort. I was pointing out to the noble Lord only that those were the sort of measures we took with regard to the London Government Bill, and that the attitude on this occasion is somewhat different. Of course, on Second Reading the noble Lord said that this is not a Bill to provide more houses, and that is quite true. Unfortunately, it is
582
not a Bill, either, to provide more houses for rent and that is much more important. As my noble friend Lord Newton said on Second Reading, this Bill is unfortunately going to have the effect of making fewer houses available for rent in the private field, but we understand, of course, that this is the Government's wish and that they do not believe that the private landlord has a part to play in the future. It is interesting that there are two members of the Milner Holland Committee on the Kent Assessment Panel, for that Committee thought that the private landlord had a great part to play, if we were going to solve the problem in London at all. But be that as it may—
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord again, but he really must not say I said that. I never said anything of the sort. I have never suggested that the private landlord had no part to play.
LORD HASTINGS: My Lords, I hope I did not say that the noble Lord had himself said that. I was referring to the Government, and I think we shall find on reference back that that sort of thing has been said or indicated by the noble Lord's right honourable friend. However, we must not make too much of that. The fact is that the Government believe that the problem of rentable housing is to be solved by the local authorities. Of course, we are expecting to hear about that in the future, and it will affect the whole field of subsidies. I am just pointing out that this Bill does not really help the provision of houses for rent, and in the private landlord field it will, I am afraid, prove a handicap.
With that said, I should again like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, and the noble Lord, Lord Champion, also, for dealing so thoroughly, though sometimes unwillingly, with our large number of Amendments, and of course for their courtesy. My noble friend Lord Ilford has pointed out the great obscurity of the Bill, and I remember that both noble Lords on one occasion at least, having given one interpretation of a clause, found that they were wrong. Therefore, human fallibility being what it is, we cannot expect too much, even of the Labour Government. But I thank the noble Lords for their courtesy. I am only too glad to admit that the

583
noble Lord, Lord Mitchison, who has taken on the greater burden of this task, has been courteous and a worthy battle foe. I detected a slight disappointment in him this afternoon when, shortly before we came into this Chamber, he told me that he had been reading a book on the Vikings and he felt quite sure, partly, I think, as a result of my behaviour during the passage of this Bill, that I must be the direct descendant of one of the more ferocious of the Vikings named Hasting. Unfortunately, that is not so, but I am glad to know that the noble Lord considered that I also was a worthy opponent. That said, we shall be relatively glad, though not entirely happy, to allow this Bill to pass.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, may I just reply to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Ilford, about the Law Commission? The noble Lord will remember that under the Law Commissions Act the Law Commission has to prepare its programme, it is then for the Minister—in the case of the main Commission the Lord Chancellor—to approve the programme, and the programme has then to be laid before Parliament. I shall not, I hope, be disclosing anything I should not if I say that both Law Commissions have already produced their programme, and I have already approved the programme for the main Law Commission. Not being either a Statutory Instrument or a Command Paper, it could not be laid before Parliament when Parliament was not sitting, but if the noble Lord will wait for 48 hours I think he will find that his question is answered. It would not, of course, be proper for me to say which way it will be answered, but I think he will find that it is answered, and I hope to his satisfaction.
LORD ILFORD: My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble and learned Lord the Lord Chancellor for that informa-
584
tion. I wonder whether the noble and learned Lord could give me some assurance about the other matter, the intention of applying the Act of 1958.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I should hope that my noble friend Lord Mitchison will reply to that point.
LORD MITCHISON: My Lords, may I be allowed, in mercy, to look at the point in Hansard, and to write to the noble Lord about it? I do not remember it with sufficient accuracy, I am ashamed to admit. The noble Lord's speech was such an exciting one that I forgot parts of it; but I will write to him on the point.
On Question, Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.

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  REVIEW OF PARLIAMENTARY CONSTITUENCIES