Sitting of 14 February 1966

Preamble
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]
ORAL ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS
  HOSPITALS

    New Hospital, Newcastle-upon-Tyne
    Mr. Rhodesasked the Minister of Health what plans exist for the building of a new hospital in Newcastle-upon-Tyne; and what is the expected date of commencement and completion of any such proposed building.
    The Minister of Health (Mr. Kenneth Robinson): The building of a new hospital has been agreed in principle and outline proposals are now under discussion. No firm starting date can yet be given.
    Mr. Rhodes: Would my right hon. Friend bear in mind that for some years there have been dire shortages in beds and staff in this region and that the completion of a new hospital for the area is a vital part of the plan to overcome the problem?
    Mr. Robinson: Future development of hospital services in Newcastle generally is one of the matters being discussed as part of the current review of the hospital programme.
    Mr. R. W. Elliott: Would the right hon. Gentleman discuss with the regional board the need for a day hospital and psycho-geriatric unit within the existing general hospital in Newcastle?
    Mr. Robinson: I have no doubt that this also will form part of the discussions which are now taking place in connection with the programme.
    Dame Irene Ward: While welcoming the news the right hon. Gentleman has given, may I ask him to bear in mind
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    that quite a lot of requests have been made following questions by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, North (Mr. R. W. Elliott) and that on every occasion we have received indications of the shortages but never any money to get on with the work? What we want to do is to get on with the work—now.
    Mr. Robinson: The regional board has more money than it had under the previous Government, and I have no doubt that the remarks of the hon. Lady and her hon. Friends will not go unnoticed by the board.

    Cervical Cancer Screening Service
    Mr. Woodnuttasked the Minister of Health if he will instruct the regional hospital boards to reduce the interval between tests in the cervical screening service from five years to three years; and if he will also issue instructions to reduce the age at which tests commence from 35 years to 21 years.
    Mr. K. Robinson: The frequency and age range adopted were recommended by my medical advisers as a practical basis for a start to routine screening. Boards have been advised to plan laboratory facilities on this basis. Study of these matters is continuing and I am keeping them under review.
    Mr. Woodnutt: I realise the difficulty the right hon. Gentleman is in in providing these facilities so quickly, but may I ask him to look at an article in the Lancet of 29th January, by the Medical Officer of Health for Derby, from which he will see that in the 10 months to 31st October, 1965, of the positive tests taken at Derby no less than 65 per cent. were of women under the age of 35 and 15 per cent. were under the age of 25? Would he consider having tests started at the age of 21 and not 35?
    Mr. Robinson: I do not think that those findings conform with the general experience. We take the view that these tests should start where the need is greatest. I am told that the risk of cervical cancer increases considerably after the age of 35, but we shall extend the age range as facilities extend. In the meantime, younger women who wish to have the tests will not be turned away.
    Mr. Lubbock: Will the right hon. Gentleman recall that in Orpington we have testing every three years from the age of 25 onwards and that this decision was made with his approval? Will he at least consider lowering the age to 25 if not to 21?
    Mr. Robinson: I propose continuing as we have started, but, as I say, my mind is not closed to extending the age range as soon as we have sufficient facilities.
    Mr. Braineasked the Minister of Health what progress is being made in establishing adequate facilities in Essex, especially South-East Essex, for the early detection of cervical cancer.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Mr. Charles Loughlin): There has been good progress towards the establishment of a cervical cancer screening service in Essex. Diagnostic facilities for women with symptoms are fully available and screening of women without symptoms should have started in all areas by the spring. In South-East Essex a service for women without symptoms has already started and is to be expanded.
    Mr. Braine: I appreciate what the hon. Gentleman has said, but as the difficulty here as elsewhere in the country seems to be a shortage of technicians for the initial screening, will the hon. Gentleman kindly inquire into whether the facilities for training in our hospitals are adequate—I have reason to believe they are not—and whether the conditions of pay and service for attracting these technicians are adequate, and will he ask his right hon. Friend to look into the admirable Brighton cancer project to see whether that example can be followed elsewhere in the country?
    Mr. Loughlin: My right hon. Friend is studying the Brighton project, but—and I think that the hon. Gentleman appreciates this—one of the drawbacks to the full extension of this service, though not in recent months, has been the whole issue of training sufficient personnel. We think that there has now been real progress in the enrolment and training of the personnel, and while we are not supremely optimistic, we think that we are making the right kind of progress.
    Mr. Geoffrey Lloydasked the Minister of Health what facilities are available in the Birmingham region for
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    cervical cancer tests; and what factors are delaying full facilities for the screening of women of 35 years of age or over.
    Mr. Loughlin: Diagnostic facilities are available in the region for all women with symptoms. There is a partial service for screening other women in over two-thirds of the region. The main impediments to a full service are lack of laboratory space and of technicians trained in cytology; both are being remedied as fast as possible.
    Mr. Lloyd: Is the Minister aware that in my constituency the Standing Conference of Women's Organisations is expressing considerable anxiety about this matter, especially since many patients seeking this test have been advised to come back in six months? Will he press on very fast with the development of electronic scanning devices?
    Mr. Loughlin: We are aware that deficiencies exist in this service in this region. My right hon. Friend has urged the board to push on with the service as fast as possible. As for the last part of the right hon. Member's supplementary Question, I am not too sure that this could be done at present.
    Dame Joan Vickersasked the Minister of Health whether he will state Her Majesty's Government's present policy in regard to the provision of cervical tests for cancer for women; and what advice he has given to hospital boards and local authority health committees in regard to this matter.
    Mr. K. Robinson: Our aim is to make routine screening available to all women at risk, starting with those aged 35 or over, at five-yearly intervals. Hospital authorities have been asked to expand facilities for cytology in hospital laboratories to support this service. Sufficient trained laboratory staff are now becoming available to allow routine screening to start in most areas and I am preparing further detailed guidance for all health service authorities on the organisation and development of a full-scale service.
    Dame Joan Vickers: While thanking the Minister for that reply, may I ask him to consider the problem in relation to women under the age of 35? A small committee, of which I am chairman, has

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    discovered that 80 per cent. of the women found to have positive symptoms are under the age of 30.
    Mr. Robinson: I referred to this matter in answer to an earlier supplementary question. I will look at this evidence, but all the indications which I have received from my medical advisers suggest that the risk rises steeply from the age of 35. Although the hospital returns for December are not yet complete, those available suggest a 25 per cent. increase at least over the June rate of 51,000 women tested per month.
    Mr. Fisher: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many women have to wait months before they can obtain appointments for tests in a hospital and that this delay is sometimes literally a matter of life and death? Can he do anything further to improve the position in this very important respect?
    Mr. Robinson: There should be no delay for women with symptoms, which is the category suggested by the phrase "a matter of life and death". I accept that the development of the service is not uniform over the entire country but we are doing our very best to bring up the more laggard areas at any rate to the average as quickly as possible.

    Mentally Subnormal
    Mr. Biggs-Davisonasked the Minister of Health what progress hospital management committees have made with the implementation of his circular on improving the effectiveness of the hospital service for the mentally subnormal; and whether he will make a statement, with particular reference to research within the hospital.
    Mr. K. Robinson: The full implementation of this recent circular will take time, and it is too early to assess progress.
    Mr. Biggs-Davison: Is the Minister aware of the opinion that relatively too much is being spent on administration and not enough on research? What plans does the Minister have for the improvement of junior training centres which, despite devoted staff, are inadequate in my part of Essex?
    Mr. Robinson: In general, the development of junior training centres is
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    proceeding at a very satisfactory pace. In reply to the first part of his supplementary question, I assure the hon. Member that over 300 research projects concerned with sub-normality were initiated or completed in hospitals during the five-year period to 1964 and that the majority of these were in hospitals for the subnormal.
    Mr. Fell: As the greatest drawback to an improvement in caring for the mentally subnormal is, as is shown in my local hospital, the lack of nurses, both male and female, will the Minister look carefully at the scales of pay for nurses in this type of nursing?
    Mr. Robinson: As the hon. Member knows, there has recently been a substantial improvement in nurses' pay, and there is a differential in favour of psychiatric nurses which has been maintained.
    Sir K. Joseph: In the light of the case of the boy Tommy Coyne, reported in the papers this morning, will the Minister look urgently and carefully at the treatment of the young mentally subnormal?
    Mr. Robinson: Yes, Sir. The boy in question is not subnormal, but is a psychiatrically ill patient. Perhaps I may take this opportunity of saying that I am having a full investigation made but that a preliminary study of the facts suggests a very different picture from that presented in the Sunday newspaper concerned.

    Blood Transfusions (Authority)
    Mr. Shepherdasked the Minister of Health whether, in view of the inconvenience caused to hospitals in having to seek recourse to the courts for permission to use blood where objections are raised, he will give authority to hospitals to make use of plasma without such procedures.
    Mr. K. Robinson: Hospital authorities have in fact been advised not to resort to the courts in such cases but to rely on the clinical judgment of the consultants concerned after full discussion with the parents.
    Mr. Shepherd: Do not some hospitals feel that there is not sufficient ground for so doing? Will he draw to the attention of hospitals the fact that they are entitled

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    to use blood when their clinical judgment determines?
    Mr. Robinson: I will see if any further guidance is needed, but I am advised that if he obtained the written supporting opinion of a colleague that a patient's life was in danger, and an acknowledgment from the parents that they refused consent, despite their having been given an explanation of the danger, a doctor would run little risk in a court of law if he acted with due professional competence and in accordance with his own professional conscience.

    Mental Hospital Patients (Food)
    Mr. Waltersasked the Minister of Health if he is satisfied with the present allowance for food per patient in mental hospitals; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Charles Morrisonasked the Minister of Health how often he reviews the allowance for food per patient per week at mental hospitals.
    Mr. K. Robinson: The amount spent on food at hospitals is decided by the hospital management committees. My Department is carrying out a study of food in psychiatric hospitals and I hope shortly to give advice which will help management committees in making these decisions.
    Mr. Walters: Bearing in mind the fact that what that amounts to is 37s. 6d. per patient per week, on average, and that this has to include provision for special diets, when prescribed—which is about one-third of that prescribed in ordinary hospitals—and that patients who have left mental hospitals are loth to complain, should not the Minister institute an inquiry as soon as possible?
    Mr. Robinson: I do not accept the hon. Member's figures. On average, the cost per person per week in mental illness hospitals in 1964–65 was 25s. 2d., and the cost in acute hospitals was 33s. 3d. Some disparity is to be expected because of the extra quantities of milk and some other foods which are required for physically ill people and the greater number of elderly patients in psychiatric hospitals. I am not satisfied that these considerations fully justify the present disparity.
    Mr. Raphael Tack: Can my right hon. Friend say whether there is any justification for treating mental patients as "untouchables" or second-class citizens by giving them a lower food allowance than is given in ordinary hospitals?
    Mr. Robinson: There is no reason whatever for treating psychiatric patients as "untouchables"—nor do I think that they are so treated today. I have given the reason for the difference between the cost of feeding the two types of patient. I should not like to foreshadow the results of the study I am having undertaken, which is not quite complete.

    Maternity Hospital, Leicester
    Mr. Farrasked the Minister of Health if he will authorise the early construction of a new maternity hospital in Leicester.
    Sir B. Jannerasked the Minister of Health whether he is aware of the concern felt over the condition and inadequacy of the Bond Street Maternity Hospital, Leicester, which have progressively worsened for years; and if he will expedite the erection of a new maternity hospital in that area.
    Mr. K. Robinson: I am aware of the poor conditions in which the work of the Leicester Royal Infirmary Maternity Hospital is at present carried on. The Sheffield Regional Hospital Board will provide a new maternity unit for this hospital and hope that planning will be completed in time for building to start towards the end of next year.
    Mr. Farr: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that at probably no other maternity hospital in this country do the staff and patients have such conditions? Will he give the House an assurance that this projected construction date will not be delayed by any threatened governmental economies?
    Mr. Robinson: No, Sir. Before the building can start the hospital board has to obtain my approval to the final cost limit of the scheme, and then has to prepare working drawings and bills of quantities, and then it goes out to tender. I hope that as soon as it is ready to start it will be able to do so.
    Sir B. Janner: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is considerable concern

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    at the delay which has been caused in regard to the erection of the new building and the development of existing buildings over many years, and under the last Government in particular? Does he realise that this ought to be one of his first priorities? We must remedy the defects which have cropped up under the last Government.
    Mr. Robinson: I recognise this as an urgent need.
    Mr. Farr: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the Minister's reply, I beg to give notice that I shall seek to raise the matter on the Adjournment.

    Central Kent
    Mr. John Wellsasked the Minister of Health if he will take special measures to obtain a definition of the estimated population of the area served by the West Kent Hospital, in view of the fact that this area is short of beds of all types and in order to enable comparison with other areas.
    Mr. Loughlin: The hospital service for the central Kent area is provided by a number of hospitals jointly and one particular hospital in the group cannot be said to serve a defined population.
    Mr. Wells: Is the Parliamentary Secretary aware that the hospitals at Tunbridge Wells, Ashford and Canterbury were rebuilt between the wars, that they have traditionally had space to spare and have provided beds for my constituents hitherto, but that with the growth of population in the South-East they now say that they are unwilling to provide beds for my constituents, whereas the West Kent General Hospital at Maid-stone has remained more or less static in its bedding? Will he take urgent steps to consider the problem and remedy it?
    Mr. Loughlin: There has been a recent completion of facilities at the West Kent General Hospital. The original Answer pointed out that we cannot define populations in relation to one hospital. It so happens that if we took all the hospitals in this area we should find that the number of beds was in excess of that which is considered normal. We are not saying that full facilities are available, but we think that the regional hospital board has looked at the problem.
    Mr. Deedes: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this is a basic failure to forecast the needs of the very big increases in population which will come in this region? Will he ask his right hon. Friend to have another look at the potential needs in the South-East, in terms of the hospital building programme?
    Mr. Loughlin: We are inquiring into the whole business of the projection of populations.

    Admission to Hospital (Waiting Time)
    Mr. Farrasked the Minister of Health what is the average length of time a patient has to wait for a doctor's recommendation before gaining admission to a hospital for an operation.
    Mr. K. Robinson: The time varies so much according to the operation that an average figure would have little meaning. Urgent cases are admitted without delay.
    Mr. Farr: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that in Leicestershire the time is increasing year by year and that a constituent of mine has had to wait as long as six years for admission to hospital and, during the whole of that time, has had a bag packed and has been taking tablets to relieve the pain?
    Mr. Robinson: I will gladly look into any cases of which the hon. Gentleman tells me, but, in the country as a whole, a sample in-patient inquiry in 1961 indicated that, for non-urgent surgery, the median waiting time varied between about five and 12 weeks according to the type of operation required, and the strict average, that is, the mean waiting time, is between 9 and 21 weeks.
    Mr. Manuel: Is my right hon. Friend aware that private patients going into pay beds get in very much more quickly and that the length of queues for ordinary patients is sometimes far too long? This could possibly mean that an operation will not be as successful as it might have been.
    Mr. Robinson: To the extent that my hon. Friend's first allegation is true, this. I hope, will be remedied to some extent by the review of pay beds which I have asked hospital boards to undertake.
    Mrs. Braddock: Is the Minister aware that the waiting lists are increasing the

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    whole time and that there is much resentment in some places at the fact that, if patients offer to pay to go into hospital, they can jump the queue, leaving people who are very much more ill and need an operation more quickly well behind in the list? What steps is he taking to deal with this?
    Mr. Robinson: As the House knows, this is something which I am very keen to contain, to reduce and to eliminate if I can. These are the purposes of the review of pay beds which is currently proceeding.
    Mr. Frederic Harris: Is the Minister aware that the figures he was quoting from are four years old? Would it not be a good idea for him to have another inquiry to bring himself up to date and know the extent of this problem, which is very serious in many parts of the country?
    Mr. Robinson: I should like to have a very much deeper analysis of waiting lists, because I do not think that they represent an altogether accurate estimate of the number of people who need to go into hospital. We need some more up-to-date statistics, but I quoted the latest we have.
    Sir K. Joseph: Is the Minister aware that we understood that pay beds were always made available to people, whether they could pay or not, in cases of urgency? If this is so, will not the Minister say that he thoroughly approves of pay beds where they are not urgently needed for people who cannot afford to pay?
    Mr. Robinson: I regret to say that it is not true that they are always used for patients who are non-paying if they are not occupied by paying patients. The advice which has always been tendered by my Department to hospital authorities is that this should be so, but this, in itself, is not an argument for pay beds.

    Hospital Accommodation, Kirkby Stephen
    Mr. Joplingasked the Minister of Health whether he is aware of the need for hospital accommodation at Kirkby Stephen; and why this development was not included in his 10-year plan.
    Mr. Loughlin: My right hon. Friend has not yet completed his review, nor published a plan, but the Newcastle Regional Hospital Board at present considers that other needs in the region have greater priority.
    Mr. Jopling: Is the Minister aware of the great local dissatisfaction over the delay in this matter? Is he aware that visiting in this area of Carlisle involves a round trip of about 80 miles? Will the Minister consider receiving a deputation from interested people from this area?
    Mr. Loughlin: The regional hospital board keeps its hospital building programme constantly under review. I assure the hon. Member that it is bearing in mind the needs of Kirkby Stephen. I intend to write more fully to the hon. Member on the whole problem. If, after he has received my letter, he feels that he ought to bring a deputation to see me, I will gladly see it.

    Hospitals, East and West Ridings (Investment Expenditure)
    Mr. Duffyasked the Minister of Health what investment expenditure took place on hospitals in the East and West Ridings of Yorkshire in 1963–64; and how this compares with the total for the United Kingdom expressed as a percentage.
    Mr. K. Robinson: A total of £6,636,000. This is 11·8 per cent of the expenditure in England and Wales.
    Mr. Duffy: Is my right hon. Friend aware that hospital investment in the East and West Ridings is in line with the population there and that this information will be received with great satisfaction? Is he further aware, however, that there are many health hazards peculiar to Yorkshire of a climatic and industrial nature? Will he bear these in mind in future consideration of the hospital investment programme.
    Mr. Robinson: We have all these considerations in mind. The population of the East and West Ridings is only 9 per cent. of that of England and Wales and in percentage terms they are getting more than their share.

    Hospitals, Leicester (Waiting Lists)
    Mr. Peelasked the Minister of Health what were the total numbers waiting for beds at the two general hospitals in Leicester in December, 1964, and December, 1965, respectively.
    Mr. K. Robinson: The numbers were 4,893 and 6,158.
    Mr. Peel: What plans has the right hon. Gentleman for alleviating this rapidly deteriorating situation? Does he not agree in the circumstances that it is a very great mistake that in the Government's five-year plan a decreasing amount, proportionately, of the gross national product is being spent on hospitals?
    Mr. Robinson: What is required in Leicester is more operating theatres rather than more beds. A scheme to provide two new theatres at the Leicester General Hospital is planned to start this April. Further developments have been proposed and are under consideration in my review of the Hospital Plan.

  MINISTRY OF HEALTH

    Cigarettes (Advertising)
    Mr. Francis Noel-Bakerasked the Minister of Health if he will now take steps to extend the prohibition of advertisements for cigarettes to the Press, poster-hoardings and other advertising media, in view of the dangers to health, including lung cancer, of cigarette smoking, and in view of the intention of many advertisements to extend the habit, particularly among young people.
    Mr. K. Robinson: I have nothing to add at present to the reply I gave on 29th November to my hon. Friend the Member for Renfrew, West (Mr. Buchan).
    Mr. Noel-Baker: Would my right hon. Friend say what significance we should attach to the emphasis he put on the words "at present"? Is he not aware that it is quite illogical to ban cigarette advertising from one medium but to allow it on the others? If it is dangerous, it is dangerous, and we should
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    take steps to deal with it on all media. Has he had any consultations with the Press Council—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. Hon. Members must put questions briefly.
    Mr. Robinson: I am not sure whether my views of logic are exactly those of my hon. Friend, but I would inform him that we have under review a study of matters connected with smoking and health, including advertising in media other than television. These are complex issues on which I am not in a position to make a statement.
    Mr. Wood: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when he is likely to be able to make a statement on this?
    Mr. Robinson: I would not like to guess at that.

    Immigrants (Medical Examination)
    Dr. Summerskillasked the Minister of Health what progress is being made to ensure that all immigrants to this country have a medical examination in their countries of origin or at their port of entry.
    Mr. K. Robinson: Commonwealth immigrants with labour vouchers and others coming to settle are already examined at the port of entry and arrangements are in train for their examination in the country of origin. Entitled Commonwealth dependants are under present powers exempt from medical examination, but voluntary examination is being encouraged. Aliens are already liable to be referred for medical examination at the port of entry.
    Dr. Summerskill: Would not my right hon. Friend agree that perhaps the compulsory medical examination of all immigrants would not only be a necessary public health measure but would relieve the overworked doctors in the areas where immigrants settle?
    Mr. Robinson: Under existing legislation this is not possible.
    Mr. Longbottom: Would not the Minister agree that it would be much more satisfactory if these examinations could be arranged in the countries of origin, but that some of those countries are very short of medical staff? If cases

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    of this kind arise, would the Ministry of Health be able to organise teams to help with the examinations in the countries of origin?
    Mr. Robinson: Arrangements are under discussion with the Commonwealth countries, concerned.

    Disabled Drivers (Vehicles)
    Mr. Martenasked the Minister of Health what progress is being made in providing cars as opposed to tricycles for disabled drivers.
    Lord Balnielasked the Minister of Health whether he will seek powers to make a grant equivalent to the value of a single-seater invalid car to a disabled National Health Service patient who is entitled to a single-seater invalid car but who wishes instead to buy a motor car with special controls so as to enable her to go out of the house with her children.
    Mr. Loughlin: My right hon. Friend does not propose to make any changes until he has completed his review of all our provisions of vehicles for the disabled.
    Mr. Marten: Can the hon. Gentleman say when that review, for which we have been waiting quite a long time, will be completed? As the Government have said that this whole matter is a question of the relative priority of money resources, does it not seem a little unfair that people who can afford, for example, to pay prescription charges should not do so, because if they did the money there from would provide many cars?
    Mr. Loughlin: We really have not been a long time waiting for the review. We have got nicely through the additional provisions made by the previous Administration and we hope to get the review completed sometime this year. That is as far as I can go. As to prescription charges, the extent of the services which it is suggested could be provided by prescription charges, ranging from the TSR2 to almost everything else, is amazing.
    Lord Balniel: On what grounds does the Minister resist the proposal for making a cash grant equivalent to the cost of a vehicle? It would not cost his Department a penny more than is being spent at present, and it would bring
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    great happiness to a number of crippled mothers who can never go outdoors with their children.
    Mr. Loughlin: The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that we want to examine the whole field. The question of making cash grants of this kind involves an enormous number of technical difficulties. In any event, we do not make cash grants. The question of ownership would also arise. I ask the hon. Member to examine the implications of the question.
    Mr. H. Hynd: Will my hon. Friend give an assurance that he will not delay this matter for 13 years, as the last Government did?
    Mr. Loughlin: The only assurance I want to give the House is that both my hon. Friend and I have the greatest possible sympathy with the category of patients for whom appeals have been made, and we will do our utmost to solve some of the problems.
    Mr. Longbottom: I hope that the Minister appreciates that his Answer is very unsatisfactory to a great number of hon. Members. From his personal knowledge of the cases which come before his Ministry, does he not appreciate the great amount of hardship that is caused to families by this provision and that it would not cost the Ministry a penny more to introduce this proposal? Cannot the hon. Gentleman speed up his review to make this possible?
    Mr. Loughlin: I cannot accept the hon. Member's statement that it would not cost a lot of money. It would cost some money. I assure the House that we are very sympathetic and are doing whatever we possibly can to resolve these problems.

    Caffeine Tablets (Advertising and Sale)
    Mr. Francis Noel-Bakerasked the Minister of Health what action he proposes to take in respect of the advertising and sale of caffeine tablets, details of which have been sent to him by the hon. Member for Swindon, in view of the possibility of the public being misled and of the health hazard involved in heavy dosage.
    Mr. Loughlin: The power to institute proceedings in respect of misleading drug

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    advertisements rests with the local food and drugs authorities under the Food and Drugs Act, 1955, and not with my right hon. Friend. I am advised that caffeine in tablets, though more concentrated, is pharmacologically no more active than in tea or coffee. Heavy dosage causes unpleasant effects which would discourage abuse.
    Mr. Noel-Baker: I understand my hon. Friend to say that this medicine is both ineffective and potentially dangerous. Is he aware that it is also expensive and that the advertisements are quite abominable? Will he do something to stir up the local authorities to prosecute these unscrupulous manufacturers?
    Mr. Loughlin: I would not like my hon. Friend to put words into my mouth. It is not quite as straightforward a matter as he suggests, but we are looking into the problem.

    Tetracycline
    Mr. Parkerasked the Minister of Health if he will state for each of the three years ended 31st December, 1965, the cost to the National Health Service of the drug tetracycline, specifying this expenditure in terms of supplies from patentees or licensees and the supplies from other sources.
    Mr. K. Robinson: As the Answer contains a number of figures, I will with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
    Following is the information:

    ENGLAND AND WALES

    Supplies from Patentee or Licensees (approximate)

    Supplies from other sources* (approximate)

    £

    £

    1963

    3,540,000

    118,000

    1964

    3,400,000

    102,000

    1965 (to 30th September)

    2,390,000

    72,000

    * The cost of supplies from other sources is subject to the negotiation of royalties.

    Mr. Parkerasked the Minister of Health if he will state in respect of supplies of tetracycline to the National Health Service why he has not continued to invoke Section 46 of the Patent Act in respect of patentees and licensees in
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    view of the fact that these patentees and licensees are supplying the drugs at approximately £45 per 1,000 tablets as compared with contractors to the Ministry of Health, who were supplying it at £4 per 1,000.
    Mr. K. Robinson: The patentee and the principal licensee offered to negotiate the prices to be charged for tetra cycline to hospitals concurrently with price negotiations under the voluntary price regulation scheme for supplies to the pharmaceutical service. Negotiations are proceeding.
    Mr. Parker: Would it not be possible for the drug manufacturers to offer their products at lower prices if they did not spend as much as £9 million on sales promotion?
    Mr. Robinson: The question of sales promotion is under consideration by the Sainsbury Committee. The negotiations take into account the cost of tetracycline to the National Health Service as a whole and I hope that this will lead to a satisfactory overall saving to the Exchequer.

    Teeth (Preservation)
    Mr. John Hallasked the Minister of Health what representations have been made to him that some effective and beneficial methods of preserving teeth are not available under the National Health Service because the present method of payment of general dental practitioners makes such work unremunerative; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. K. Robinson: None, Sir. I understand that a small minority of dentists are refusing to accept patients requiring certain types of treatment but the patient's remedy is to apply to another dentist.
    Mr. Hall: Would not the Minister agree that many of the recent advances in dental technology are being denied to National Health Service patients because the cost of treatment makes it unremunerative for dentists to undertake it at the present scale of fees? Does not this require some action by the Minister?
    Mr. Robinson: No, Sir; I would not accept the premise on which the hon. Member bases his supplementary question. To a very limited extent, there have been complaints about the fees for

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    crowns, inlays and certain other treatments, but the question of relativity of fees for different types of treatment is currently under review between the profession and my Department in the Dental Rates Study Group.

    Resomax X-Ray Therapy Machine
    Mr. Murrayasked the Minister of Health (1) what steps he is taking to improve the supply of tubes for the Resomax 300,000-volt X-Ray therapy machine; and if he will make a statement;
    (2) how many Resomax 300,000-volt X-Ray therapy machines are out of action clue to the delays in the supply of replacement tubes.
    Mr. Loughlin: Six Resomax units are temporarily out of action. We have already taken steps to replace two by alternative equipment and to have a replacement tube fitted to a third unit. The manufacturers are making every effort to speed the production of tubes for the remaining units.
    Mr. Murray: In thanking my hon. Friend for that reply, may I ask him to consider that the only manufacturers of these tubes have a complete monopoly and that not only have they increased the price, but they have not promised very speedy action? Will my hon. Friend investigate the whole position?
    Mr. Loughlin: We appreciate that there has been some difficulty in manufacture. This is because there has been a change from one manufacturer to another. I am not too sure what would be the correct answer concerning the alleged monopoly, but we hope that production will improve in May. The manufacturers have assured us that this will be the case.

    Ambulance Training and Equipment (Report)
    Mr. Dribergasked the Minister of Health how soon he intends to publish the Report of the working party on Ambulance Training and Equipment; and why there has been so much delay in the publication of this Report.
    Mr. Harold Walkerasked the Minister of Health when the Report of
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    the committee on training of ambulance personnel and the equipping of ambulances will be available.
    Mr. Loughlin: Part I of the Report, dealing with training, will be published next month, but the working party has not yet completed its work on equipment. There has been no avoidable delay.
    Mr. Driberg: Could my hon. Friend say whether it is now broadly accepted that ambulance men are entitled to the same treatment and recognition as are received by other life-saving services?
    Mr. Loughlin: I am not too sure precisely what my hon. Friend has in mind here. If he means recognition of their organisation to make representations on wages and conditions, that is a question for the Whitley Council.

    Health Services (Public Use)
    Mr. Hugh Jenkinsasked the Minister of Health in view of the facts that people under-estimate the seriousness of their illness and that they do not visit their doctor regularly, if he will take steps to ensure that the public make use of the health services as much as they should in their own interest.
    Mr. K. Robinson: I have no reason to believe that people generally fail to make use, as required, of the advice and treatment available to them under the National Health Service. I hope no one who is ill will hesitate to make proper use of these services.
    Mr. Jenkins: Has my right hon. Friend noted a recent survey which suggests that for every person who exploits doctors there are at least a dozen who fail to visit a doctor when they should? If my right hon. Friend has not seen this survey, will he accept a copy of it if I send it to him?
    Mr. Robinson: I shall be glad to receive any evidence which my hon. Friend cares to send me. Statistics indicate that people in this country consult their general practitioners on average about five times a year. This does not of itself suggest an under-use of the Service, but there is no doubt that some people who should see their doctors, for one reason or another refrain from doing so.
    Mr. Wood: Has the right hon. Gentleman no information to give the House which would enable us to establish objectively whether people go too much, or too little, or just right?
    Mr. Robinson: I think that it would be very difficult to establish that objectively, but I have sought from the profession itself evidence about workload and it has singularly little statistical evidence to offer on this.

    Doctors' Review Body (Report)
    Mr. Goodhewasked the Minister of Health when he expects to receive a report from the Doctors' Review Body.
    Mr. K. Robinson: I cannot yet say when the Review Body is likely to report to the Prime Minister.
    Mr. Goodhew: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is great discontent and unrest amongst doctors in the National Health Service, and is he really seized of the urgency to do something about this very quickly?
    Mr. Robinson: If I am not, I do not know who should be. The Review Body is very well aware of this, and it is hoped that the Report will be made in time for decisions to be reached, particularly on a new system of remuneration for general practitioners, before 1st April.
    Mr. Wood: Can the Minister say whether the Review Body's decision will be final?
    Mr. Robinson: I do not think that the Government can commit themselves to the Report until they have seen it.

    Doctors (Recruitment)
    Mr. Goodhewasked the Minister of Health what action he is taking to stimulate recruiting of doctors for the National Health Service.
    Mr. K. Robinson: There is no shortage of suitable applicants for places at medical schools. As regards expansion of medical schools I would refer the hon. Member to my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, West (Mr. William Hamilton) on 26th January.
    Mr. Goodhew: Is the Minister aware that the National Plan looks forward to
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    no improvement in the situation during the next five years? Is the right hon. Gentleman also aware that the information which he gave me in answer to a Question last week displays that there is an increasingly deteriorating position in the National Health Service, and what is he doing to put it right?
    Mr. Robinson: I think that the hon. Gentleman is slightly confused. His reference to the National Plan was in the context of general practice, when we said—and this is a realistic estimate—that we could not see any substantial increase in the number of general practitioners over the plan period; but in my reply to the Question to which I referred I announced that work would start in 1966–67 and the following year to increase the entry of students by 250, and this would bring the annual entry to more than 2,500; and that is what we are doing about it.

    Ambulance Services (Payment of Costs)
    Mr. Ioan L. Evansasked the Minister of Health what representations he has had from local authorities about payment for ambulance services; and if he will take steps to transfer the cost to regional, hospital boards.
    Mr. Loughlin: My right hon. Friend has received representations from Birmingham Corporation that the cost of the service should be borne by regional hospital boards. He is studying the arguments for and against a change, which would require legislation, in the responsibility for providing ambulance services and will bear these representations in mind.
    Mr. Evans: Does my hon. Friend realise that, while the city council operates the ambulance service, it has no say in the use of it? Would not this be better paid for from the Health Estimates, rather than from local rates?
    Mr. Loughlin: We appreciate that what my hon. Friend says is true, but this whole matter is now being reviewed in the light of representations from Birmingham and elsewhere, and from other organisations. I assure my hon. Friend that the representations which have been made by Birmingham will be taken into consideration in that review.

    Dental Decay (Zirconium)
    Mr. Rankinasked the Minister of Health what research he has authorised into the value of zirconium as a preventive to dental decay in children's teeth; and if he will make a statement on the results of the experiments.
    Mr. K. Robinson: None, Sir. No scientific report on the American research has yet been received and I have no evidence which would justify me in asking for research to be carried out in this country.
    Mr. Rankin: Is not my right hon. Friend aware that statistics have been published, and researches at the University of Indiana show that zirconium prevents decay not only of juvenile teeth, but also of adult teeth? If that be the case, would not it be rather difficult for my right hon. Friend to defend the system of compulsory mass medication to attain the same end?
    Mr. Robinson: Perhaps I can tell my hon. Friend that reports in the American and British Press were exaggerated, and were unauthorised by the research workers concerned. Until at least preliminary results are available, I have no evidence on which to judge the potentialities of the suggested method.

    Water Supplies (Fluoridation)
    Mr. Shepherdasked the Minister of Health if he is aware that in certain areas decisions against the fluoridation of water supplies are being taken; and if he will give an undertaking that he will take steps to ensure that children in these areas will not be allowed to suffer unnecessary damage to their dental health through any fluoride deficiency in their water supplies being allowed to continue.
    Mr. K. Robinson: I am hopeful that those local health authorities which have not yet resolved in favour of fluoridation will soon recognise it as an effective and completely safe means of preventing dental decay; but the responsibility for action to promote the dental health of children in their areas is theirs.
    Mr. Shepherd: Does the right hon. Gentleman realise that this has brought forth all the cranks in Christendom, and
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    that he has a responsibility beyond that which is stated, which is to see that the dental health of the nation does not suffer because of the ridiculous utterances of this bunch of cranks?
    Mr. Robinson: I would not altogether dissent from the general sentiments which the hon. Gentleman has expressed. I welcome the support which many hon. Members are giving in persuading the public to accept fluoridation, but I think that at this stage at any rate, persuasion and voluntary local action are the right way to proceed.
    Mr. Lubbock: What steps is the Minister taking to re-educate reactionary councillors in the local authorities who have rejected fluoridation?
    Mr. Rankin: Reactionary Members.
    Mr. Robinson: All steps of a persuasive nature.
    Mr. Rankin: Is not the word "fluoride" a disguise for the medical term "sodium fluoride", which is a well-known poison and cannot be good for anybody?
    Mr. Robinson: My hon. Friend's supplementary question is not untypical of the propaganda with which local authorities are being deluged.

    Drug Addiction (Committee's Report)
    Mr. Braineasked the Minister of Health what further progress has been made concerning his discussions with the medical profession on the recommendations of the Brain Committee on Drug Addiction; and whether he will make a statement.
    Mr. K. Robinson: The discussions referred to in my reply to the hon. Member on 31st January are continuing but I am not yet able to make a further statement.
    Mr. Braine: As the Brain Committee reported over two months ago and this is an urgent matter, could the Minister give some indication of when the discussions will be completed? Will he, in the meantime, bear in mind two suggestions, first, that the proposed central authority should keep a record of sources from which notified addicts get their supplies, and second, that all prescriptions containing heroin should be sent to

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    the authority immediately after dispensing?
    Mr. Robinson: The first of the two suggestions would be taken care of if the recommendations were fully implemented. I should like to look at the second. I am pressing on as quickly as possible with the discussions on the examination of outstanding points with my right hon. Friends the Home Secretary and the Secretary of State for Scotland with a view to the introduction of the necessary legislation as soon as Parliamentary time permits.

    Family Planning Services (Review)
    Dr. David Kerrasked the Minister of Health whether he has completed his review of family planning services; and when he will make a statement.
    Mr. K. Robinson: Yes, Sir. I propose to issue a circular of guidance to local health authorities later this week.
    Dr. Kerr: Will the Minister acknowledge that the interest which is now so extensive throughout the country reflects a rapidly-changing situation in this respect, a situation which would change more rapidly if the promise of contraceptive tablets for use by men is carried to fruition, as seems likely? Will the House have an opportunity of discussing this statement shortly?
    Mr. Robinson: It is not for me to say whether the House will be in a position to discuss the statement. Without wishing to anticipate the details of the circular before it is in the hands of local authorities, I will tell my hon. Friend that it will remind them of the importance of family planning advice and treatment and will encourage them to make use of their existing powers to the fullest possible extent.

    Cancer (Diagnosis and Treatment)
    Mr. Carter-Jonesasked the Minister of Health if he is satisfied with the existing facilities for publicising the importance of the early diagnosis and treatment of cancer; and if he will make a statement.
    Sir J. Edenasked the Minister of Health, in view of the importance of early treatment of cancer, what further
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    steps he now proposes to take to educate the public about the symptoms and nature of this disease.
    Mr. K. Robinson: I share the view that more education is needed to promote a truer understanding of cancer and of the importance of early detection. A number of local health authorities already undertake cancer health education, and I shall continue to seek ways to develop it in co-operation with them and other bodies, including the new Health Education Council when it is set up.
    Mr. Carter-Jones: While thanking my right hon. Friend for his Answer, I should like to add that I believe that the time is now opportune for a massive publicity campaign in this direction carried out quickly and forcibly. Would he not agree with that sentiment?
    Mr. Robinson: I am in favour of further education in this respect and I am sure that it is one of the things which the new Health Education Council will take very seriously as soon as it is in being.
    Sir J. Eden: Would not one of the ways of improving education in this respect be for the Minister to authorise the expenditure of a much larger sum of money? Could he say how much is currently being spent in the cancer campaign on educational work? Would he not agree that, when we are spending about £100 million on free prescriptions and school meals, it might be a more sensible priority to divert some of the money into this important work?
    Mr. Robinson: The Health Education Council will have its own budget. I cannot say, without notice, how much is currently being spent. It might be difficult to give an estimate because a great deal is spent by voluntary bodies.

    Chiropody (Auxiliaries)
    Dame Joan Vickersasked the Minister of Health whether he will state Her Majesty's Government's policy in regard to the employment of qualified auxiliaries in place of or in addition to the trained and registered professional chiropodists in National Health Service clinics.
    Mr. K. Robinson: With certain exceptions specified in the 1964 regulations

    913
    any person employed in the capacity of chiropodist in the National Health Service must be State registered. The employment of persons in other capacities in connection with the care of the feet is a matter for employing authorities.
    Dame Joan Vickers: Will the right hon. Gentleman look into this matter? Several local authorities are proposing to employ what they call "qualified" people. We had a very difficult time in getting professions supplementary to medicine to agree to come into the Act and it would be very detrimental to the profession and to the people in general if there were not compliance with the Act.
    Mr. Robinson: Local authorities have been advised that regulations do not prevent the employment of persons to carry out simple foot hygiene, especially for old people, of a kind which any active person might do for himself. But there is no recognised qualification or grade of auxiliary chiropodist.

    Drugs
    Mr. Garrowasked the Minister of Health if he is aware that drugs, which to children are often mistaken for sweets, are in wide circulation; and if he will consult manufacturers with a view to introducing legislation on standardisation of colour and shape.
    Mr. Loughlin: Some drugs look like sweets and some sweets look like drugs. In his review of medicines legislation my right hon. Friend is considering the need for powers to facilitate the identification of medicines by colour or shape or for example the tablets or capsules in which they are made up. But legislation in itself cannot be fully effective against accidents. The best safeguard is to keep all drugs out of the reach of children.
    Mr. Garrow: Is my hon. Friend aware that in recent months there has been at least one fatality and several cases of serious illness because of this mistake being made by young children? Does he not agree that some measures should be taken because the possible saving of human life is of paramount importance and should take precedence over every other consideration?
    Mr. Loughlin: Obviously the saving of human life is of paramount importance
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    but this is a question of how we can overcome the possibility of children eating drugs which may be harmful to them, and we consider that the only way in which this can possibly be done is by parents accepting their responsibility to see that drugs are not placed in such a position that children can get hold of them.

    Midwives
    Dame Irene Wardasked the Minister of Health whether the National Health Service is fully staffed with midwives; and whether part-time retired midwives are required and recruited to support the hospital and domiciliary services.
    Mr. K. Robinson: Some hospitals and local health authorities need more mid-wives. The number employed part-time by hospitals has risen by 70 per cent. in the last five years, but separate figures for part-time domiciliary midwives are not available. I expect that the midwifery service, like nursing, will become increasingly dependent on part-time staff.
    Dame Irene Ward: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman why in answer to Questions last week he put midwives at a disadvantage compared with State-registered nurses? Are they not both required to have skills? Why denigrate the midwives by reducing their allowances when training as midwives after having become State registered?
    Mr. Robinson: I did not denigrate midwives either directly or by implication in what I said last week. All I said was that if they are to work as midwives, then hospitals are allowed to second them for training without their having to be put on the normal training allowances.

    Influenza
    Mr. van Straubenzeeasked the Minister of Health whether he will make a statement on the present outbreak of influenza.
    Mr. K. Robinson: Outbreaks of influenza have been reported from many parts of England and Wales since the middle of January, principally in the northern half of the country. Illness among schoolchildren has been a conspicuous feature, but a substantial number of adults has also been involved. Illnesses have

    915
    generally been mild, lasting only a few days, but serious illnesses have occurred, particularly among the old. Over the country as a whole there is no evidence yet that the outbreak has begun to decline.
    Mr. van Straubenzee: While thanking the Minister for that reply, may I ask whether he is satisfied that the medical service has been able to stand up to the demands made upon it by the outbreak as he has described it?
    Mr. Robinson: Yes, Sir—I think that in general that is so.

    Medical Schools (Obstetric Training)
    Dame Irene Wardasked the Minister of Health what discussions he has had with the professional bodies on the need for a longer period of obstetric training in the general training at medical colleges; and if he will make a statement.
    Mr. Loughlin: None, Sir. The content of the medical curriculum is a matter for the individual medical school, subject to the statutory responsibilities of the General Medical Council.
    Dame Irene Ward: Is the hon. Gentleman aware of the report which I sent to his right hon. Friend some time ago, and the reply by the Minister to the effect that, if I liked, he would send it on to the Royal Commission which is at present looking into medical education? Why, then, is the Parliamentary Secretary taking an entirely different view from that of the Minister?
    Mr. Loughlin: I am not taking an entirely different view. The hon. Lady's letter referred to people attending refresher courses in obstetrics and also to clinical attachments. There is one of these at Chelmsford. The Royal Commission on Medical Education will, within its tems of reference, be considering the general content of medical education and I think that the hon. Lady will, on reflection, agree that it is not for my right hon. Friend to determine the content of medical education.
    Mr. Wood: Has the hon. Gentleman anything to say about setting up a postgraduate centre for general practice obstetricians?
    Mr. Loughlin: Not without notice.

  DUCHY OF LANCASTER

    Farm Rents, Whitewell and Bowland
    Mr. Draysonasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if he will make a statement on his proposal to raise the rents of farms administered by his Department in the Whitewell and Bow-land districts of Yorkshire; and what percentage of the existing rents the increase will represent.
    The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Douglas Houghton): No, Sir, not while my proposals to the tenants concerned are under negotiation. If the hon. Gentleman has any particular case or cases he would like to discuss with me, I am at his disposal.
    Mr. Drayson: Can the Minister confirm that some of the increases in rent which he is proposing amount to 30 per cent. of 33 per cent.? Does not he consider that these are very great increases, especially in view of the Government's prices and incomes policy? Can he tell me whether he has discussed these proposed increases in farm rents—some of which will rise from £600 to over £800—with the Minister of Agriculture, so that he can take them into account when fixing prices in the forthcoming Price Review?
    Mr. Houghton: That is not the only test that I have to apply in determining a fair rent. In 1949 Duchy farm rents were roughly at the same level, in money terms—not real terms—as in 1870. Since then they have risen, on average, by about 3 per cent. per annum. But I am quite ready to discuss with the hon. Gentleman any specific cases, if he will see me.
    Mr. Draysonasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster if, before the increase in rents are imposed on farms administered by the Duchy of Lancaster in the Whitewell and Bowland area of Yorkshire, he will submit such proposed increases to the National Board for Prices and Incomes.
    Mr. Houghton: No, Sir.
    Mr. Drayson: Why not?
    Hon. Members: Answer.
    Mr. Houghton: The hon. Member asked me whether I would. I said, "No, Sir".
    Hon. Members: Why not?
    Mr. Prior: Does not the right hon. Gentleman's Answer make absolute nonsense of what his right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture has said in the last few weeks about rent control on farms? Will the right hon. Gentleman talk to the Minister of Agriculture and try to get some sense into him?
    Hon. Members: Answer.
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I understood that the Minister was not answering.
    Sir K. Joseph: The right hon. Gentleman honours the House fairly rarely with his presence at Question Time. Surely he should not be so mean in his reply to my hon. Friend. It is not enough just to say "No". He is being asked why not, and the House hopes that he will answer.
    Mr. Houghton: Because, in the first instance, I offered all the tenants the opportunity of having an independent valuation at Duchy expense. If there is still no agreement, it is open to the tenant concerned to take advantage of the Agricultural Holdings Act of 1948, which enables a fair rent to be determined by arbitration.
    Mr. William Hamilton: Can my right hon. Friend tell the House where these rents go and whether the landowner is hard up?

VOLUNTARY SCHOOLS (GRANTS)
The Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Anthony Crosland): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I should like to make a statement concerning voluntary schools in England and Wales.
Representations were made to me jointly by the Church of England, the Roman Catholic hierarchy and the Free Church Federal Council, about the need to provide a further measure of financial help to voluntary aided schools if they are to play their full part in forthcoming developments in primary and secondary education.
918
These developments include the large increase in school building programmes envisaged by the National Plan and made necessary by the rapidly growing school population, the raising of the school-leaving age, and the provision of new housing. It is also the desire both of the Government and of the Churches that financial problems should not hamper cooperation on the part of voluntary schools in local plans for the reorganisation of secondary education.
The Government have, therefore, held discussions with the representatives of the Churches. They have also consulted the representatives of the Conservative and Liberal Parties. The Government have concluded that a further measure of Exchequer help for aided and special agreement schools is justified, and that this help should be provided as follows.
First, they propose an increase in the rate of grant to all approved aided and special agreement school presents from the present 75 per cent., which was fixed in 1959, to 80 per cent. Secondly, they propose to enlarge the scope of Exchequer grants and loans to cover projects providing "new places"—that is, completely new schools, or those enlargements of existing schools which are not at present eligible for grant.
Both these changes will require legislation which the Government hope to introduce as soon as practicable. The opportunity will also be taken to remove certain minor anomalies in the present law so that local education authorities can in a wider range of cases meet the cost of the enlargement of controlled schools where both the authority and the managers or governors agree that this should be done.
These proposals have been accepted by the Churches, although they fall short of what the Churches have asked.
Sir E. Boyle: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that, in general, my hon. Friends and I think that this decision to go for 80 per cent. across the board, to put it that way, is right, partly because the burden on the church schools has proved so much bigger than that which was envisaged at the time of the 1944 settlement, partly because of the administrative difficulty of distinguishing between new places and the provisions for displaced pupils, and partly because we consider it

919
right in itself that we should help those religious denominations which have done so much to help themselves? However, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman four questions arising out of the statement?
First, can he undertake that we will have legislation on this subject during this Session—in which case my hon. Friends and I will fully co-operate?
Secondly, would he confirm that the sentence about the National Plan in his statement does not exclude the possibility of replacement projects for the denominational schools? We feel anxious about the omission of any reference to replacement projects.
Thirdly, on the question of reorganisation, while we do not want to handicap and hamper co-operation where this is felt appropriate by school governors, will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that this extra grant will be available to improve aided schools, even when the governors feel, on educational grounds, that they should not co-operate with his circular?
Fourthly, does he agree, since we are doing so much for the voluntary schools, that with this 80 per cent. grant we should bear in mind sympathetically the legitimate concerns of those parents who do not subscribe to the tenets of any religious denomination?
Mr. Crosland: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his opening remarks and for the prompt and constructive way in which he responded to our representations on this matter.
We hope to introduce legislation as soon as practicable, although I cannot say precisely when. This is really a question for my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House.
On the question of the National Plan and the assurance he sought in his second point, if I understood that point correctly, I can give him that assurance.
The right hon. Gentleman asked what would happen in a case where the governors of a school were reluctant or disinclined to co-operate in a local comprehensive reorganisation scheme. At the moment, this looks to be a hypothetical question, because the attitude of all the Churches is that they are extremely anxious to co-operate with their own local education authorities.
920
The right hon. Gentleman's fourth question raises very much wider topics which will certainly be of interest to the House when we debate this subject, but I would prefer not to say anything specific now.
Mr. Grimond: While accepting these proposals, about which we were consulted, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he would answer two questions? First, while I appreciate that we must await legislation, can he say whether the new rate of grant will apply to contracts let immediately, otherwise is there not a danger that contracts will be held up until the new legislation is through? Secondly, does the 80 per cent. apply to primary and secondary schools?
Mr. Crosland: I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman not only for his remarks now, but also for the speed and promptness with which his party replied to the representations which were made.
The answer to the second part of his question is "Yes". The new rate applies equally to primary and secondary schools. The answer to the first part is "No". We cannot make these provisions retrospective. Nor can we give a blanket endorsement now, before legislation.
On the timing of this matter, we propose to follow precisely the methods laid down by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd), when he introduced the 1959 Act.
Mr. L. M. Lever: Is my right hon. Friend aware that the various denominations will be grateful for the improvements which are being made in the percentage of grant? Is he further aware that the various denominations are called on to bear a greater burden than they should be bearing as part of our educational system?
Mr. Crosland: On the general point, it is my view—which I think is shared generally in the House; certainly, by most people in all parties—that, although, of course, the denominations would like more than we are now suggesting, in the circumstances this represents a reasonable and responsible offer. My strong impression is that it is accepted truthfully on the part of the denominations themselves.
Mr. Hugh Fraser: As a Roman Catholic, I join in the general welcome which was given by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Handsworth (Sir E. Boyle). As the Minister said, the denominations would have liked more—indeed, we would have liked 85 per cent. It should be remembered that the Catholic community now spends, or is committed to spending, more than £40 million. Nevertheless, is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this is a considerable step forward, particularly from the point of view of new primary schools, and that this is especially welcome because I believe that the fiction, heartbreak and lottery of the displaced pupil will now—I certainly trust that it will—vanish under this arrangement?
Mr. Simon Mahon: May I, on behalf of the Catholic Educational Council, thank the Minister for his statement and for the important change which covers all school places on an 80 per cent. block, so to speak? May I also thank the Government, the Leader of the Opposition and his hon. Friends and the Leader of the Liberal Party and his hon. Friends for the manner in which these negotiations were carried out? May I also hope that the relationship between the Churches will be maintained and that this relationship will be fostered?
May I, like my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. L. M. Lever) also draw attention to the heavy burden which is placed on Church schools—in my constituency 50 per cent. of the children attend Church schools—and to the fact that we are extremely grateful to the Minister and all concerned for this great advance?
Mr. Doughty: I wish to thank the Minister, on behalf of all denominations, for the announcement that he has made and to ask two questions. First, will the grant be made irrespective of the views taken by the governors of schools to the right hon. Gentleman's Circular No. 10/65? Secondly, would the right hon. Gentleman approach his right hon. Friend the Minister of Public Building and Works to see that, where there are restrictions, licences are freely granted, remembering that many schools are held up not necessarily from lack of money, but from lack of building permission?
Mr. Crosland: I will take the hon. Gentleman's second point up with my right hon. Friend the Minister of Public Building and Works. To answer his first point, schools in this category, from the building plans point of view—whether or not they are comprehensive and whatever kind of comprehensive pattern into which they may fit—will fundamentally be in no different a position from local education authority schools, where, again, the same problem may or may not arise. This should not give rise to concern, given the good will which now exists.
Mr. Bishop: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this announcement will remove much anxiety from both diocesan and other authorities who are very keen to co-operate in the reorganisation of education? Is he also aware of the great need there is to expedite this arrangement as quickly as possible in order to make the co-operation more effective?
Mr. Geoffrey Lloyd: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there will be great satisfaction in the educational movement not only at the terms of his announcement, but also at the fact that it has been reached by the same method of consultation with the Churches and all parties that was used in regard to the church schools provisions of 1959? Will he also take note of the fact that it would be very much better were he to use the same spirit of conciliation in his approach to the comprehensive problem?
Mr. Crosland: Perhaps, on this occasion, I can ignore the tail-end of the right hon. Gentleman's remarks—[HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] Because I wish to preserve the general spirit of good will and amity on this issue. It was the right hon. Gentleman who was responsible for the 1959 Act, and when we came to decide the methods by which to approach the problem we tried to follow the good example that he has set in everything except the tail-end of his remarks.
Mr. Alfred Morris: Is my right hon. Friend aware that an improvement in this grant has been long-awaited, especially in the larger urban areas, where the problem is particularly serious? May I take it from the concluding sentence of his original statement that there will be a

923
further improvement in the grant as soon as economic circumstances permit?
Mr. Crosland: I do not think that I can commit myself to any future improvement on the very day we are announcing a considerable improvement now. Of course—and I want it on the record—although the Churches would have liked more, I believe that we are making what most reasonable people in all parties and denominations will consider to be the most generous settlement any Government could at this moment possibly have made.
Mr. Gurden: Is this settlement a direct recognition of the very high value the Minister places on these schools? Will he assure us that there will be no intention at any time of encroachment on the limited independence of these schools?
Mr. Crosland: The answer to the first part of that supplementary question is, "Yes, Sir." The answer to the second part is also "Yes, Sir." But is raises, when hon. Members say that the schools should have had a more generous settlement now, one argument against, which is that if we had accepted what most Roman Catholics had wanted namely, 85 per cent., it would have inevitably called into question that which the hon. Gentleman does not want called into question—the whole distinction between the controlled and the voluntary-aid school. None of us wants to reopen this major question now.
Mr. Fell: Will the Minister enlarge slightly on his answer to my right hon. Friend in so far as it affects denominational schools in an area where there is
924
a comprehensive scheme coming along? Will he state quite clearly that, whatever the attitude of the denominational schools to a comprehensive scheme, this will not affect the right to the 80 per cent.?
Mr. Crosland: No, Sir. As I said earlier, I do not expect this problem to arise in any acute form, because in almost all the instances I have heard of there will be co-operation between the denomination concerned and the authority introducing the scheme. I therefore think that this will turn out to be a hypothetical question, and as it is a hypothetical question at the moment, I would rather not get involved in giving an answer about a situation that may not arise. If this is not so, perhaps the hon. Member will write to me about it.
Several Hon. Members rose—
Mr. Speaker: Order. The ecumenical period is over. We must now get back to normal Parliament.

BILL PRESENTED
  PARLIAMENTARY COMMISSIONER
  Bill to make provision for the appointment and functions of a Parliamentary Commissioner for the investigation of administrative action taken on behalf of the Crown, and for purposes connected therewith, presented by the Prime Minister; supported by Mr. Herbert W. Bowden, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. William Ross, Mr. James Griffiths, Sir Frank Soskice, Mr. Douglas Houghton, and Mr. Niall MacDermot; read the First time; to be read a Second time Tomorrow and to be printed. [Bill 70.]
ORDERS OF THE DAY

  NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE [MONEY]
  Resolution reported,
  That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to facilitate the financing of premises and equipment used by practitioners providing general medical services, it is expedient to authorise—

  (a)the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of remuneration and allowances of members of any Corporation to be established under that Act and, in special circumstances, of compensation to a person ceasing to be such a member;

  (b)the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of pensions, allowances or gratuities, or of contributions towards the provision of pensions, allowances or gratuities to or in respect of such members on retirement or death;

  (c)any increase in the sums payable under any other Act out of moneys provided by Parliament which is attributable to the provision for or in respect of members or officers of the Corporation of benefits payable under regulations made under section 67(1) of the National Health Service Act 1946 or section 66(1) of the National Health Service (Scotland) Act 1947 or to the payment of transfer value in respect of such members or officers;

  (d)the issue out of the Consolidated Fund and repayment with interest into the Exchequer of any sum required for fulfilling any guarantee of the redemption or repayment of any stock issued or temporary loan raised by the Corporation or of the payment of interest on any such stock or loan, subject to the limitation that the aggregate of the amounts outstanding in respect of the principal of any such stock or loan does not exceed ten million pounds or such greater sum not exceeding twenty-five million pounds as may be specified by order, but excluding from that limit any sum raised for the redemption or repayment of any such stock or loan.

  Resolution agreed to.

  NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE BILL
  Considered in Committee.
  [Sir SAMUEL STOREY in the Chair]
  Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

  NATIONAL HEALTH SERVICE BILL

    Clause 2.—(FINANCING OF PREMISES USED FOR GENERAL PRACTICE.)
    3.45 p.m.
    Mr. Richard Wood: I beg to move Amendment No. 1, in page 2, line 1, after "loans" to insert:
    "with or without charging interest".
    During the Second Reading debate, the Minister of Health gave some information about the future of the existing system of interest-free loans. He said that 618 loans had been approved, amounting to something over £3½ million. He also told us:
    "The existence of the Finance Corporation need not affect in any way loans already made."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd February, 1966; Vol. 723, c. 1423.]
    The effectiveness of this scheme in the future is obviously reduced, as the right hon. Gentleman made clear later, by the agreement which he has been able to reach in his conversations with the British Medical Association.
    The report of those conversations was issued in June of last year, and paragraph 25 states:
    "The Government have said that they are prepared to consider with the profession a scheme providing in principle for 100 per cent. direct reimbursement of reasonable expenditure on rent (including, for the owner-occupier, an allowance representing a return on the capital invested in the practice) and rates."
    It is obvious that any system of direct reimbursement of reasonable expenditure on rent and rates, which would include the allowances I have mentioned for owner-occupiers, is bound to diminish the advantages which have previously been enjoyed by those who qualified for interest-free loans. The question whether or not these advantages will be extinguished obviously depends on the nature of the new system that is coming into being, and on the date on which it starts.
    The right hon. Gentleman explained to us, again in the Second Reading

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    debate, that there would be consequential adjustments resulting from this scheme of reimbursing practice expenses. I should like to know quite clearly from the Minister whether these consequential adjustments are designed exactly to neutralise the advantages which would otherwise accrue to doctors who have received, or who are at present receiving, loans under the group practice loan scheme.
    I should also like to know quite clearly how these adjustments will affect the general practitioner during the time he is repaying, or when he has completed the repayment of his loan. For instance, will the allowance for the owner-occupier, which represents a return on the capital invested, be gradually increased as he repays the loan, until it reaches the maximum when the loan is fully repaid and when, therefore, all the capital invested in the practice belongs to the doctor himself, or to a group of doctors?
    During our Second Reading debate, the Minister mentioned a transitional problem in regard to loans—which I believe may total about £600,000—which have been approved, but which will not have been issued by the time the General Practice Finance Corporation starts its operation. Is it the right hon. Gentleman's intention that the Corporation shall itself assume responsibility for this sum of £600,000, being loans already approved? Will it be in the power of the Corporation, as this Amendment aims to secure, to lend this £600,000 if the prospective recipients so wish, on exactly the terms already agreed, subject of course to the adjustments I have mentioned?
    I am anxious to secure that those to whom promises have already been made shall not be deprived by the Bill from access to finance on terms which they believe are suitable to their particular requirements. I have been encouraged by the promise which the right hon. Gentleman gave on Second Reading:
    "We would not withdraw from such doctors the option of an interest-free loan if that was what they preferred."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd February. 1966; Vol. 723, c. 1423.]
    I am encouraged to believe that he will either accept this Amendment or assure me that the Corporation not only has this power, but will be ready to use it if the doctors are anxious for it to do so.
    The Minister of Health (Mr. Kenneth Robinson): I can assure the right hon. Member for Bridlington (Mr. Wood) that the Corporation would not need to be specifically empowered to forgo interest on any loans it might make, but he will appreciate that it will have to operate on a sound commercial basis and break even financially over a period. Since it will have to pay the market rate of interest on its own borrowings, it will hardly be in a position itself to offer interest-free loans. It could do that to some doctors only if it charged an unreasonable and perhaps prohibitive rate to other doctors. I am sure that neither of us would want that to happen.
    I quite appreciate the right hon. Member's motives in putting down this Amendment. It is to probe further the position of the doctors who are in receipt of loans now interest-free in the group practice loans scheme and doctors to whom I referred on Second Reading whose loans will probably not have been finalised by the time the General Practice Finance Corporation comes into operation.
    The right hon. Member referred to what I said about the adjustments that might have to take place, or will have to take place, in connection with the reimbursement of notional rents to those doctors in receipt of group practice loans. He asked whether it was my intention completely to neutralise the advantages. It is perhaps a little early to say exactly how this will work out.
    The point I re-emphasise is that, one could not give a doctor a direct reimbursement of a sum of money from which he had already been exempted by the group practice loans scheme. There would have to be consequential adjustments to the notional rent which those doctors would receive. We have not yet worked out the basis of the notional rents in final detail with the profession, nor the way in which they will be adjusted when there is an interest-free loan outstanding.
    I think that I am right in saying that for this purpose the doctor would be treated as an owner-occupier and the fact that he is paying back capital over a long period would be reflected. It would be reflected in the interest he would pay and the interest would be reflected in the reimbursement he got because notional reimbursement covers actual rent paid and interest. I add one thing to our

    929
    intentions about the interest-free loan doctors. We envisage that the abatement will be reduced each year as the loan is gradually repaid.
    I come now to the question of doctors whose loans have been approved under the existing scheme. I have mentioned a possible total of £600,000. We are still in discussion with the profession as to the best way of handling this matter. One possible way would be for the Corporation to lend the money in the ordinary way, but, since it would be inappropriate for it to lend on an interest-free basis, no doubt the executive council might pay the interest on the loan, thereby relieving the receiving doctors from having to pay interest. I should not like to commit myself to a particular solution of this problem because we are still in discussion with the profession.
    Dr. David Kerr: Will my right hon. Friend explain this? If the executive council is to repay interest, from which fund will it do so? Is there a possibility that this might diminish the amount of money for practitioners in contract with the executive council?
    Mr. Robinson: No, it would not diminish it. Arrangements would be made, if that hypothetical solution were adopted, for the executive council to pay. I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Wandsworth, Central (Dr. David Kerr) will not continue to think in terms of the old central pool. I had a feeling that that idea was in his mind when he made that intervention.
    The right hon. Member talked about completely neutralising the advantages which a group practice received under the old loans scheme. I reiterate that we are envisaging a wholly new method under the new contract of encouraging group practice. Those groups which qualified under the group practice loans scheme will equally qualify for the additional payment proposed under the new contract to pay for groups. In this connection, groups are defined in the same way as they were for the old scheme.
    In view of this information, I hope the right hon. Member will not feel that he wishes to press the Amendment.
    Mr. Wood: I have listened with in-interest to what the Minister said. He assured us that the General Practice Finance Corporation would not need this specific power if it wishes to make interest-free loans. He pointed out that to meet loans free of interest it would have to charge higher rates in order to fulfil its obligations under the Act.
    What I was anxious to elucidate was the position under these transitional loans. I take it that the right hon. Gentleman has assured us that either by means of the Finance Corporation, or as a cooperative exercise between the Corporation and executive councils, this position will be dealt with and, therefore, the promise already entered into will be met in some way or other by these arrangements.
    In view of the explanation, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    4.0 p.m.
    Dr. Wyndham Davies: I beg to move Amendment No. 2, in page 2, line 1, after "loans", to insert "or grants".
    The Chairman: With this Amendment we can discuss Amendment No. 4, in page 2, line 13, leave out subsections (2) and (3); Amendment No. 6, in Clause 3, page 2, line 22, after "loans", insert "or grants"; and Amendment No. 7, in page 2, line 26, leave out paragraph (b).
    Dr. Wyndham Davies: I move this Amendment because of the promises made by the Minister, as reported in HANSARD for 27th July, 1964, when he pressed the then Minister of Health and said:
    "A system of loans must be replaced by one of grants. That is what a Labour Government would be prepared to do."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 27th July, 1964; Vol. 699, c. 1017.]
    I am sure that the Minister would not wish to go back on that, although he will no doubt point out that on Second. Reading he said this:
    "The profession did not ask for grants from the Government; it asked for an independent corporation."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd February, 1966; Vol. 723, c. 1424.]
    I contend that whoever has been advising the Minister on the matter of grants has not been listening to the profession very carefully. He must have been meeting a very small selection of the

    931
    profession who do not seem to be at all representative of the general views of general practitioners. He seems to have entirely ignored the view of a body to whose views the Labour Party has attached great weight over many years.
    I refer to the Medical Practitioners' Union which, since the early days of the conception of the National Health Service, has done much to aid the Labour Party in these matters. Many years ago the union set up a working party which pressed on the Conservative Government of the day the need for a £100 million total grant as a minimum to aid surgery premises and help the general practitioner service to go ahead and be something of which everyone could be proud.
    It seems ironic that it is a Labour Minister of Health who has presented this inadequate Bill which, essentially, is asking the moneylenders of Threadneedle Street and the gnomes of Zurich to come to the rescue of himself and his Government and provide loans, which must be on a commercial basis, I understand, at a rate of interest which will be entirely commercial.
    This seems a very strange way for the Minister to try to get the Service going effectively. It is strange, because under this Government we have the highest Bank Rate the country has ever known, lasting for the longest period. The poor general practitioner who is trying to set up his surgery is likely to have to pay the commercial rate of 7 per cent. I know that the Minister will argue that the doctor will get some rebate, but it seems hardly fair that in some cases general practitioners will receive only 2¾ per cent. on the value of their premises which were taken over at the inception of the Service, but their sons will perhaps have to borrow at 7 per cent., or even more, to set up practice. I hope that some hon. Members opposite will spring to their feet and say their little piece about this, but I fear that they will remain silent.
    So we have not the magnificent aid to general practice which we were promised by the right hon. Gentleman and his Friends in the run-up to the General Election. We have a rather pettifogging, miserable Bill which will allow only a maximum sum of £25 million, which will be on loan, and the whole splendid conception
    932
    of a grant of £100 million to get surgery premises of the standard that patients expect from the Service will not be realised.
    I ask the right hon. Gentleman to think again about his decision not to introduce grants in addition to loans. I ask, further, that some of the original commitments of grants on an interest-free basis entered into under the previous Government—a very satisfactory scheme which only requires extending by the provision of Government money—should not be abolished by this pettifogging measure.
    Mr. Raymond Gower: Though it appears that the Minister has somewhat modified the views he held a few years ago, he might deem it an advantage to have this additional power reserved for the Corporation. My reading of the Bill as it stands is that the power to grant loans is not mandatory; the word "may" preserves a discretion. It would be a manifest advantage for the Corporation to have the additional power to make grants in suitable circumstances. I say this merely to supplement the very pertinent points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Dr. Wyndham Davies).
    Dr. M. S. Miller: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that at present executive councils have the power to make interest-free loans repayable over a very long period? The Bill is merely an additional procedure by which doctors can obtain money which otherwise they would not be able to obtain.
    Mr. Gower: I am aware of that. I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Perry Barr made an oblique reference to that power, which is exercised more in theory than in practice.
    Dr. Miller: This is not true.
    Mr. Gower: My point, which I hope that I did not express too extravagantly, is that it would be an obvious advantage for the new Corporation to possess the additional power of making grants as well as loans.
    Dr. David Kerr: Very rashly, a challenge is something I cannot resist. The hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Dr. Wyndham Davies) suggested that one or two hon. Members on this side

    933
    might leap to their feet—to support him, I presume he meant. I hasten to disillusion the hon. Gentleman. I also hasten to correct an error he made, which I should have thought any doctor would be ashamed to admit.
    The group practice loan scheme was nothing to do with Government money. It was part of a settlement between the profession and the Ministry of Health—it was not the present Ministry of Health—under which a certain sum of money out of the now discredited pool was set aside for group practice loans.
    The hon. Gentleman should also know that this sum of money is augmented year by year by the repayments of those practitioners who have been able to take advantage of the loans. There is no question of shortage of money. I know of no case in which an application for a group practice loan has been made and refused. Therefore, the hon. Gentleman's argument on that score does not begin to hold water.
    I do not think that it would be tactful or wise of me to attempt to pull my right hon. Friend's chestnuts out of the fire, because he is so expert at pulling them out himself that he would not do anything but resent any offered hand from me. I feel bound to say, however, that this suggestion that a Finance Corporation should be set up under an Act of Parliament to make grants would be such an upside-down way of approaching any method to assist general practitioners to improve their circumstances, that I can only regard the Amendment as a rather spiteful and derisory sort of act.
    We all know that the most effective way of assisting the development of general practice would be through health centres, and this is something which we on this side of the Committee continue to regard as the best method. I look forward to seeing the hon. Member for Perry Barr with all flags flying, demanding an extension of health centre practice.
    Mr. K. Robinson: I do not think that I ought to start by apologising to the Committee for the miserable and pettifogging sum of £25 million which the Teasury is prepared to guarantee to set up a corporation which has not, I hasten to assure the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Dr. Wyndham Davies),
    934
    come to the rescue of the Government. It is to be established to help the medical profession. It helps those members of the medical profession who prefer to own their own premises, but who want the money loaned by an independent corporation. It is in deference to the wishes of the profession, as expressed to me through their representatives, that we have adopted this method of modernising general practitioner premises.
    Dr. Wyndham Davies: Is the right hon. Gentleman entirely satisfied that the gentlemen whom he has met on 40 occasions during the past year are representative of the profession in this country?
    Mr. Robinson: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will give me a few minutes in which to deal with the few points that he has raised before assuming that I intend to dodge any of them.
    From the very start the profession showed no interest in direct Government grants, presumably because they felt that this would give Government a control over their practice premises, which those who felt like this and did not wish to practise from health centres would not want to see. Therefore, we were willing to adopt what I think I can say is the chosen method of the profession.
    Of course, they get direct reimbursement of notional rents, and, therefore, even though the rate of interest that the Corporation has to charge in the early stages while interest rates remain high may be more than some of us would like to see, I think this will be a very much smaller burden on the family doctor under the new contract which I hope shortly will be in operation, than it would ever have been under the old average method of reimbursing practice expenses out of the pool.
    I did not quite understand what the hon. Member for Perry Barr meant by saying that it would have been very much better if we had merely extended the existing scheme of grants which was set up under the previous Government. It was not a scheme of grants at all. It was a scheme of loans, and this is exactly what the Corporation is to do. In the debate on the last Amendment I assured the right hon. Member for Bridlington (Mr. Wood) that doctors would not be disadvantaged under the new

    935
    arrangements. I should perhaps have said that they will be advantaged in that they will be able to borrow over a much longer period than under the existing group practice loan scheme. From every point of view I think it is better that the outstanding loans not yet taken up should be channelled through the Finance Corporation.
    4.15 p.m.
    The hon. Gentleman cast some doubts on the representative nature of those general practitioners with whom I and my officials have been negotiating. I can only say that these were the chosen negotiators of the General Medical Services Committee, which is the chosen instrument through which I carry on negotiations with general practitioners. There is provision for the Medical Practitioners Union to be represented on the General Medical Services Committee. I believe there is a representative on the English committee at this moment.
    The hon. Gentleman sang the praises of the Medical Practitioners Union and said that it had done a great deal to aid the Health Service in the past. As long as the emphasis is on the past, I would not dissent from what the hon. Gentleman has said. I cannot say that some of the observations which have been made in recent months and weeks by that organisation have been exactly designed to assist a satisfactory solution of the difficulties through which we have been going.
    I think that, as the hon. Gentleman said, I dealt in the course of my winding-up speech in the Second Reading debate with the point that I made about grants when we were in opposition, when the whole situation in general practice was very different from what it is today. I repeat that we have adopted the instrument which the profession itself chose through the only representative machinery of which I am aware, and I feel that in those circumstances the hon. Member, as a member of his profession, ought not to cast doubt on the representative nature of the negotiators.
    Mr. Wood: I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman must be longing for the end of this debate on this question of grants in relation to the loans that he is now suggesting in the Bill. In his Second Reading speech, as he has made clear to
    936
    us, he pointed out to me that although he had suggested that grants were the right method before the election, the profession had not asked for grants and he said rather plaintively to me towards the end of the debate that it did not seem to him that there was any useful purpose in asking them to have grants instead of loans.
    I happen to believe—and, unlike the right hon. Gentleman, I have always believed—that loans are, in fact, the right method of providing finance. I do not take the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Dr. Wyndham Davies) that a system of grants instead of these loans would be an advantage.
    However, before we decently bury this rather unfortunate promise of the right hon. Gentleman, I should like to make two remarks. First, the medical profession itself is to be warmly congratulated on its long-sighted preference for a loan-producing finance corporation over the carrot which the right hon. Gentleman rather seductively dangled before the medical profession during the season of promises in the high summer of 1964.
    Secondly, when we think back to that speech of the right hon. Gentleman our minds really boggle at his munificence. He put all the past benefactors in this country to shame and made them seem like miserable Scrooges. Luckily, I think that he has now learned wisdom at the hands of the medical profession who, if I may say so, saved him from a very awkward dilemma—either a very awkward hour together with the Chancellor of the Exchequer in Treasury Chambers when I think the right hon. Gentleman might have had quite an unpleasant time, or a succession of awkward hours at Question Time trying to justify his escape from this promise which he made in July, 1964.
    Therefore, for the right hon. Gentleman's sake as much as for anyone else's, I am very glad at the wisdom of the medical profession in preferring this method which I believe is right. I do not know what my hon. Friend will now decide to do, but I think it right to concentrate on a system of loans, and I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on at last reaching the wisdom which he has put into the Bill.
    Mr. K. Robinson: I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Bridlington (Mr. Wood) for his sympathy for the possible difficulties which he thinks I might have found myself in with the Chancellor, but I ask him to cast his mind back to the situation of general practice at the time when I made that speech. It was clear that unless a radical change was made there was danger of a breakdown in general practice. We have made, or are about to make, more radical changes than I had in mind then and of a different character from the solution which I then propounded.
    I would add the one point to help the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Dr. Wyndham Davies) make up his mind on how to proceed, that the Amendment would not be possible within the framework of the financial provisions of the Bill.
    Amendment negatived.
    The Temporary Chairman (Mr. Grant-Ferris): The remaining Amendments are either out of order or have already been discussed.
    Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.
    Dr. David Kerr: I appreciate the decision not to call the Amendments on the Notice Paper standing in my name and in the names of two other honourable and qualified Members, but before we move on to the next Clause I feel bound to remind the Minister of what he said on Second Reading, when his attention was called to this particular lacuna. He undertook then if possible to extend the Bill. It has clearly not proved possible, but I place on record the fact that the dental profession—
    The Temporary Chairman: I am sorry to interrupt, but discussion on dentists is not in order. It is outside the scope of the Bill and I must ask the hon. Member to move on to another subject.
    Dr. Kerr: I accept your Ruling, Mr. Grant-Ferris, with a certain amount of regret, and pass to the other Amendments which you have not called and to emphasise another point which came up on Second Reading. I hope that in this case I shall not be transgressing your Ruling.
    938
    This refers to the interpretation of the words in the Clause:
    "…of medical practitioners undertaking to provide general medical services…".
    This line clearly relates to the provision of general medical services under the National Health Service Acts.
    The Temporary Chairman: I am sorry to interrupt again, but this, also, is outside the scope of the Bill and I must ask the hon. Member to leave dental matters alone.
    Dr. Kerr: I am not talking about dental matters. I refer specifically to general medical services in line 4 of the Clause. In accordance with your instructions I have abandoned the dentists to their fate.
    "General medical services" ought to relate to a reference in two lines of the two National Health Service Acts. I ask the Minister to make quite clear that it is the intention of the Clause always to relate the provision in those lines to doctors, the majority of whose work is undertaken in those terms. If the General Practice Finance Corporation were to find itself in a position to make loans to practitioners whose work was predominantly outside the Health Service this might look a little odd.
    This leads me to another matter—the question of doctors who having obtained a loan under the Clause decide to alter the terms so that they would no longer provide a general medical service under the Acts. I ask for the Minister's assurance that this problem will be looked at in those terms.
    Mr. W. A. Wilkins: apologise in advance to you, Mr. Grant-Ferris, and to my right hon. Friend if I am on a false point, but I did not have the advantage of hearing the Second Reading debate. I should like to ask how the financial provisions of the Clause would apply in two particular instances. The Clause says that the Corporation may make loans
    "to provide, or acquire a share in, premises used or to be used, in whole or in part, for the provision of such services"
    referring to medical services.
    I take it that essentially the idea is that a group practice of doctors desirous of erecting or taking over some premises and of adapting them for their practice could

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    obtain a loan. What would happen where a group of doctors, such as the Minister will recollect when he visited the clinic at Belle Vue Road, St. George, Bristol, wanted to establish their group practice and were permitted to do so by the local health authority in a new clinic? Can they do so? Would the cost be apportioned in such a way that they could take up a loan on the portion of the premises they were using?
    How would this apply in other circumstances, which happen to be taking place in Bristol, where, in a certain place where new blocks of flats have been erected, a portion of the premises on the ground floor is offered to doctors for group practice? Is this covered by the financial provisions? Could they have a loan from the Corporation to provide, or, what is more interesting, "acquire a share in" a block of flats for the purposes of carrying on medical practice there?
    I put this matter to my right hon. Friend because it has been represented very strongly to me by a doctor speaking for a group of doctors in my constituency. There seems to be a reluctance to accept premises from the local housing department which are on the ground floor of a block of flats. Generally speaking, doctors seem to prefer separate premises, but does the Clause apply in cases such as I have cited? Would the doctors be financially helped if they wanted a place for their clinic, and how would the authority be reimbursed for such accommodation?
    Dr. Miller: May I have your guidance, Mr. Grant-Ferris? I should like to know what might happen in the case of a doctor providing general medical services who wished to reconstruct his premises and to apply for a loan and who might have a dentist occupying a part of the premises. Would the provisions of the Clause apply to the dentist? I am certain that it is the intention of a future Labour Government to abolish completely all Health Service charges, and this would include dental charges. It would appear, therefore, that dentists would come within the scope of any future legislation in this connection.
    We are, perhaps, the only nation that would specifically exclude dentists from a discussion of general medical services, but the services which dentists provide
    940
    are, in effect, part of the general medical set-up. Does the Bill apply to a doctor, or two doctors, or a group of doctors who ask for a loan for the purposes of building, extending or renovating their premises in order to supply a general medical service when a dentist is included in their medical set-up? Would their rights be denied in this instance merely because the dentist was there with them? Would they still get a loan, or would the dental part of the medical and dental set up have entirely different provisions applied to it?
    4.30 p.m.
    Dr. Wyndham Davies: For your guidance, Mr. Grant-Ferris, and for the confusion of the Minister, perhaps it might be as well if hon. and qualified Members on both sides were to point out that many doctors are qualified in dentistry also, and many dentists are qualified in medicine and ultimately practise it. For example, I recently called for a dental appointment at my own dentist's surgery and found that he was away ill, but there was my general practitioner doing his work.
    With respect, Mr. Grant-Ferris, may I suggest that we might hear what the hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central (Dr. David Kerr) has to say about dentists, and perhaps the Minister could give us an answer on the drafting point which has been raised.
    The Temporary Chairman: No. I am afraid that we may not hear the hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central in the sense in which he wished to address us. He seeks to extend the Clause. The hon. Member for Glasgow, Kelvingrove (Dr. Miller), on the other hand, does not seek to do that, but asks the Minister whether he thinks that dentists are covered by certain provisions of the Clause, which is quite another matter.
    Mr. K. Robinson: Fortunately, the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Dr. Wyndham Davies) cannot add to the confusion because general dental services and general medical services are really terms of art under the National Health Service Act, 1946, and are quite separate.
    The short answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Kelvingrove (Dr. Miller) is that he has raised a detailed point which one could not attempt

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    to answer now, certainly not in advance of the scheme of the Corporation being submitted and approved. Even then, perhaps, that sort of case might not be dealt with in the scheme but might be a matter for administrative decision by the Corporation itself.
    I call my hon. Friend's attention to the actual phrase in subsection (1) paragraph little (a),
    "premises used or to be used, in whole or in part, for the provision of such services"
    that is, general medical services. Whether the fact that part of the premises was used by a dentist would modify the amount of the loan which would otherwise have been made is, I think, a matter which we must leave to the Corporation itself when it considers the particular point.
    I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Wandsworth, Central (Dr. David Kerr) that it is our intention that practitioners whose practice is substantially private shall not; be eligible for loans. It would not, in any event, be appropriate to spell this out in the Bill. This also is something which could be adequately covered by the scheme which the Corporation has to make and submit for the approval of Ministers, or, if necessary, it could be dealt with in directions. I can do no more than assure my hon. Friend of our intention on that point.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South (Mr. Wilkins) raised matters which would not normally be within the scope of the Bill. I think that I am right in saying that the St. George Health Centre, in Bristol, which, I agree, is an excellent example of a health centre, is in local authority premises and there is, therefore, no question of ownership by the doctors who practise there. They pay a rent. I think that this is equally true in the ordinary case of a local authority letting part of a block of flats in a new housing estate to a group of doctors to provide family doctor services for the area. It is usual that the ownership remains in the local authority, which then charges a rent to the doctors. In both those cases, of course, the new arrangement for direct reimbursement of rents would assist the doctors.
    In the rare case of part of a block of fiats being sold off, so to speak, to doctors, I would see no reason why a doctor should not be able to apply to the Corporation for a loan in order to purchase
    942
    what would, in fact, be one flat in a block. It is becoming not unknown for people to purchase flats in a block nowadays, although it was very rare in this country up to about ten years ago. In this circumstance, I think that the Corporation could function, but in all the other cases mentioned by my hon. Friend it would be a question of reimbursement of rent rather than of loan for the purchase of premises.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 3.—(EQUIPMENT FOR GENERAL PRACTICE.)
    Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.
    Mr. Wilkins: May I put the same question to my right hon. Friend on this Clause, which does not apply to the premises as such, accepting that in the normal case an agreement might be reached for premises to be rented. In this connection, I draw attention to the wording of subsection (1,a). But, before coming to that, I must point out to my right hon. Friend that it is not paragraph little (a). It is italic (a). As a printer, I am often irritated when I hear these things incorrectly described in the House. It is either lower case (a) or italic (a). In this instance, it is italic (a).
    The words of the paragraph are:
    "for the purpose of enabling them to purchase any equipment or furniture needed by them…".
    Even in premises rented from a local authority, doctors might well need to put in a fair amount of equipment and furniture—equipment rather more than furniture perhaps—and I should like to know whether that would qualify for a loan from the Corporation.
    Mr. K. Robinson: I stand corrected by my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, South (Mr. Wilkins), who, I know, is an expert in all matters typographical, but I must point out that, although having rightly drawn attention to the wording of subsection (1) paragraph italic (a), he has failed to read the first two lines of the Clause:
    "If the Minister and the Secretary of State by order made by statutory instrument provide that…"

    943
    These powers will not be in operation when the Bill comes into effect. They will come into operation only by Order made by Statutory Instrument, and it is not the present intention that the Corporation shall lend for equipment.
    This is a reserve power. But, on the assumption that the reserve powers is exercised by regulation at some future date, I should not imagine that doctors in health centres would be precluded from borrowing money for equipment or furniture of a kind not normally provided by the local authority.
    Mr. Charles Longbottom: We noted what the Minister said in Clause 3 during the Second Reading, that this was a reserve power which would be exercised at some time in the future only if there was evidence that practitioners were generally failing to obtain the assistance they needed for the purchase of equipment from existing sources. The right hon. Gentleman added that he had no evidence that this was so at present. I appreciate this, but will he agree that there may come a time in the not too distant future when this power may be needed?
    I am inclined to agree with what the hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central (Dr. David Kerr) said on Second Reading—it was reiterated by several of us—that, as one casts one's mind about, one has the feeling that we are not, perhaps, doing enough at present to encourage group practice. If we did more and saw to it that within group practices doctors had all the modern facilities needed to make their medical practice really effective, it might well be that there would be need for extra finance for those practices.
    I am not sure, and I take it that the Minister is not sure, quite how far the present market goes in being able to provide hire-purchase facilities for pieces of equipment of this kind, but, in so far as the market does function for this purpose, the rate of interest is fairly high at present and the agreements will run for only a small number of years.
    Would I not be right in assuming that if one wants to encourage group practice one wants the groups to be able to have modern X-ray equipment, perhaps the latest type of electrocardiograph equipment
    944
    and facilities for performing minor surgery on the premises? If so, one is talking about very heavy items of equipment which under the present hire-purchase regulations or under banking provisions have to be bought over a short period.
    I appreciate that there may not be—I accept what the Minister says—this burden at the moment, but if one is to encourage group practices to go in for these types of medical treatment as one way of easing the present burdens on hospitals and for providing as far as one can a full relationship between the doctor and his patient in the circumstances, there may in the not-too-distant future be a case where finance will become more difficult.
    I hope that the Minister will not hesitate to use this power if the need is shown.
    Dr. Wyndham Davies: This provision is of great interest for two reasons. First, there is no evidence at the moment—I do not think that the Minister has been able to suggest any—that the existing organisations which serve general practitioners—the Medical Sickness Finance Corporation and the Medical Insurance Agency—have declined any loans to doctors for equipment. Cannot we leave the Clause alone and not interfere with them by Government action?
    Secondly, I am not aware of any other Ministry which has power to set up a hire-purchase finance company. This seems to be a most peculiar trading activity for an organisation set up by the Government. I have heard from hon. Members opposite many criticisms of hire-purchase companies, but now it looks as though we have a proposition for a hire-purchase company to be set up by a Labour Government. I consider this rather peculiar, and I hope that the Minister will give us some sensible answers to our questions.
    Mr. Gower: I am surprised that the Minister has retained for himself and the Secretary of State for Scotland the decision whether the powers under the Clause should become operative. In many comparable instances Ministers have preferred—I think particularly of powers given to the Board of Trade, for example—to reserve such a decision to a committee.

    945
    I should have thought that there might be a case for this power to be left to the Corporation or an advisory committee. I should be glad if the Minister would comment on that.
    4.45 p.m.
    Mr. K. Robinson: The power has to be reserved to Ministers because the funds of the Corporation may well be guaranteed by the Treasury. Therefore, it will be for Ministers, on behalf of the Government, to say whether the funds shall be used for an additional purpose. But there would, as in all cases, be full consultation with the profession before the powers of the Corporation were extended in this way.
    The hon. Member for York (Mr. Long-bottom) asked me, in effect, to keep an open mind on this. If the situation which he envisaged were to arise at some future date, that would produce exactly the circumstance in which one would consider implementing the reserve power contained in the subsection. I would not want to commit myself to going quite so far in encouraging the range of equipment which I thought he had in mind. One would want group practices to have all reasonable diagnostic and medical treatment facilities, but I do not think one wants to find group practice centres doing a large proportion of what would normally be done in a hospital out-patient department.
    The answer to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Dr. Wyndham Davies) is that I am not sure whether there is any other finance corporation set up by Statute which has the powers which this Corporation—though it will not have them to start with—may conceivably have at some future date. I thought that the Agricultural Mortgage Corporation could do this. I am not sure. It can make "other loans for agricultural purposes". One might say that that could mean loans for the purchase of agricultural equipment, but I am not certain that we have a precedent there.
    At any rate, I do not think that the Committee as a whole shares the hon. Member's congenital hostility to Government action of all kinds, particularly when it is action by a Socialist Government, and I am sure that the greater part of the medical profession, unlike the hon.
    946
    Member, fully welcomes the provisions in the Bill and would welcome the reserve powers given under the Clause if a situation arose in which they could properly be implemented.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 4.—(SCHEMES AND DIRECTIONS.)
    Dr. David Kerr: I beg to move Amendment No. 8, in page 2, line 40, at the end to insert:
    (3) Every scheme under this section shall be submitted to the appropriate local authority or authorities for their approval and, if such approval is not given, the schemes shall thereupon be submitted to the Minister or the Secretary of State, whose decision shall be final.
    The Clause lays down the way in which the Corporation shall devise these schemes. I am not clear whether the scheme referred to in subsection (1) and thereafter is a scheme covering the entire future working of the General Practice Finance Corporation, or whether a scheme, particularly as it is, referred to rather ambiguously in subsection (2), is specific for every proposal for a loan from the Corporation. It may well be that the terms of my Amendment would be out of order if the entire scheme were one laid down and subsequently acted under by the Corporation.
    However, I think that the substance of my Amendment remains apposite because of the, we hope, growing tendency of local authorities to implement a programme of health centres. We have heard recently from my right hon. Friend of the very encouraging growth of this facility, but this is not the whole story. There is also a growing demand, when local authorities are rebuilding large areas and creating new housing estates, for premises for general practice to be made available in those areas.
    I confess that I am not wholly in favour of this method of progression, but this is what is happening. It is easy to conceive of a difficult situation arising where a group of general practitioners have one scheme in mind for promoting their group practice with the help of the Corporation while the local health authority has an alternative scheme the merits of which, of course, have to be weighed carefully against the other.

    947
    Where circumstances would allow for only one scheme to be effectively promoted, it is at least conceivable that the Corporation, lacking any further powers at its disposal, such as those disposed by the local health authority, would then find itself in some difficulty—a situation which might lead to embarrassment. The aim of the Amendment is to assist towards a satisfactory solution of any conflict which might arise where these alternatives are posed.
    Mr. Gower: In such a case, could not a similar conflict arise at present? For example, if a group of general practitioners have certain premises in mind, they still have to obtain planning permission and to that extent, surely, an element of approval has to be given by the planning authority.
    Dr. Kerr: Local health authorities are not necessarily also the local planning authorities. It is because the two have differing powers that this situation arises.
    Dr. Miller: I support the Amendment, because, in these proposals, two authorities are involved—the Minister of Health, or, in the case of Scotland, the Secretary of State, and the General Practice Finance Corporation. Already, there is a sufficiently big gulf between the local authorities and those health services which are not under their control. Anything that can be done to bridge that gulf and bring closer together the local authorities, with their health services, and the general practitioner services, would be a very great advantage.
    The Amendment would make it possible for local authorities to have a say in the way in which future developments were to take place in general practice. That would be of great advantage to the whole of the local medical services.
    At present, there is a tendency towards too much power to be vested in the health executive councils which in turn, are dominated by local medical committees. The Amendment would provide a method whereby the local authorities would at least have some say in promoting general practice facilities in their own areas. The most important aspect is that it would lead to something eminently desirable in general practice in any area—closer co-operation between the local authorities and the local doctors.
    Mr. Wood: I share the doubts of the hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central (Dr. David Kerr). I am not at all clear exactly what is meant by the scheme that the Minister of Health has in mind. No doubt, the right hon. Gentleman will explain what it is. The purpose of the Amendment seems not only reasonable, but essential. I can hardly see the right hon. Gentleman disagreeing with the necessity for the individual health authority's views to be consulted in an effort to gain its agreement. If that were not forthcoming, it would be for him to decide whether the site chosen by a group of doctors was in all respects the right place for the premises to be. Whether the scheme is a small one or a large one, the machinery to be setup—and I have read the report of his discussions with the B.M.A. interests—will, presumably, decide exactly this question of siting and priorities after consultations.
    But the right hon. Gentleman may feel that, rather than go the roundabout way of various consultations with the health authorities and the central committee, if the scheme he has in mind is a small scheme it would be best directly to adopt the wording of the Amendment. Surely there would be a certain advantage in going directly to the local health authority and obtaining its approval before any of the rest of the machinery that he has in mind begins to operate.
    Mr. K. Robinson: My hon. Friend the Member for Wandsworth, Central (Dr. David Kerr) said that perhaps the Amendment would be out of order if he had misunderstood the purpose of the Bill. It is not out of order. Had it been so, I am sure that it would not have been selected. But the Amendment is based on a misunderstanding which, I think, derives from the use of the word "scheme" and I welcome the opportunity to try to clear up any confusion that there may be.
    When we say, in Clause 4, that
    "The Corporation shall perform its functions in accordance with a scheme…"
    we are talking about a general scheme of operations.
    As I tried to explain on Second Reading, this is to avoid a whole series of separate directions on different aspects of the Corporation's functions. We want

    949
    to get the general scheme of operations, particularly operations by Ministers, clear at the very start so that all parties know where they stand. When that one general scheme is approved, the Corporation can go right ahead without any undue day-to-day interference by Ministers trying to give directions on this or that. That is the purpose of having a scheme approved in advance. It does not refer to what I might call individual "projects" for group practice centres, or anything like that.
    Perhaps I can reiterate, or, at any rate, clarify, what our intentions are about the processes of consultation that should take place over a particular project—and I hope that I may continue to use the word "project" in this short debate to distinguish it from the scheme, which is a general one. On Second Reading, I said:
    "It is, therefore, intended…that the Corporation should ascertain from Health Ministers that premises are suitably sited and are of a suitable standard before making advances and that Ministers should look for advice to the Health Service authorities concerned."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd February, 1966; Vol. 723, c. 1380.]
    These words were very close to those in a paragraph in the first report of the discussions with representative of the general practitioners. We are working out plans for consultation at local level.
    Before coming to any final conclusion on the nature of the consultations, we would first like to have the views of the central advisory committee to be set up. But I assure the hon. Members that it is fully intended that the local health authority as well as the executive council and local medical committee should be brought fully into the picture where a particular project is being considered.
    Of course, this is of great importance, although possibly of not quite so much relevance in Scotland where, particularly in Glasgow, such considerable development of health centre provision is envisaged. Obviously, one would need to think of group practice centres as fitting in with the pattern of health centres which the Secretary of State intends to establish in the City of Glasgow.
    But, quite clearly, it is most important that both the authorities, the executive council and the local health authority, should be consulted about the siting and
    950
    the nature of the premises. That is certainly our intention, although we see no need whatever to write these detailed provisions into the Bill itself. With this assurance, I hope that my hon. Friend will feel able to withdraw the Amendment.
    5.0 p.m.
    Dr. David Kerr: May I begin by withdrawing any unintended imputation on the Chair? I am sure that my use of the words "out of order" was quite wrong; I should have said "inappropriate". I hope that I shall be forgiven.
    I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend for the assurance he has given us. I, personally, find it perfectly satisfactory, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.
    Mr. Wood: I should like to begin by relieving the right hon. Gentleman of any anxiety I may have caused him—by suggesting, in an Amendment you have rightly not called, Mr. Grant-Ferris, to leave out this Clause—by saying that I do not intend to ask my hon. Friends to vote against it because I fully appreciate that, constitutionally, he and the Secretary of State for Scotland must preserve a final authority, and, therefore, it would, I think, be quite impossible to disagree with the powers which are here suggested to approve or modify any scheme suggested by the General Practice Finance Corporation, and it would be impossible to disagree, I think, that the Minister and his right hon. Friend should have ultimate power of direction.
    My reason for raising the matter now is to ask whether the balance between the independence of the Corporation and Government control has been properly struck. On Second Reading, I asked a number of questions which the right hon. Gentleman, probably rightly, forbore to answer because, he said, they were matters for the Corporation to decide for itself. I find it perfectly reasonable that he should say so, and, indeed, I should like to see the Corporation given a very substantial degree of independence, and the question which I am raising now is whether, apart from purely commercial

    951
    decisions, the Corporation will enjoy any real independence.
    The right hon. Gentleman has told us before, and in the last short debate we had, that it could not be expected to form views on the siting of premises, and therefore, I understand that it would consult the Health Ministers, who would consult the Health Service Authorities concerned, and the real arbiter, the final adviser, would be the Central Committee, on which the medical profession would be represented.
    Mr. K. Robinson: It would only be the real arbiter in case of any serious dispute and would obviously be giving its advice on matters of general policy.
    Mr. Wood: I see. This would be the final adviser in a dispute. This system seems to me to be generally wise, because the Central Committee, and, indeed, the other authorities the right hon. Gentleman would consult, are likely to know more about siting and the priorities than the Finance Corporation itself even though it were to have members, as, I believe, is the intention of the Minister, who would themselves be general practitioners.
    I am, however, still left with doubt whether all this does not make a rather empty shell of the Corporation. It seems to me that, if the right hon. Gentleman wants—I am disposed to agree that he is right to want—to keep a tight control of the new system, there might be something to be said for the loans to be administered by his Department itself, advised, as necessary, by perhaps two committees, the first committee giving advice on the kind of commercial decisions which it is now proposed the Corporation would itself take, and a second, a siting and priorities committee, or whatever machinery would be right to give advice on that sort of question.
    I am prepared to believe the right hon. Gentleman has unanswerable reasons for the provisions he has proposed, and, in particular, he may be able to convince us that, although the Corporation appears to us to be somewhat pinioned, it will be able to fly strongly and freely over the heads of himself and his right hon. Friend. We are ready to be convinced that only the Corporation can adequately discharge the function of financing general practice, and that under the right
    952
    hon. Gentleman's proposals the Corporation has sufficient independence to do so, but at the moment I do not know enough of what is in the right hon. Gentleman's mind to be so convinced. Therefore, I shall listen carefully to the reasons which the right hon. Gentleman will tell us have persuaded him to choose the particular method he has proposed in the Bill.
    Mr. K. Robinson: I hope that I can convince the right hon. Gentleman both that this is the best method of proceeding and, also, that I am as concerned as he is that this shall be a genuinely independent Corporation.
    Perhaps I could just give him an idea of the sort of directions which we might give to the Corporation after receiving advice from the central committee, provided, of course, that these things are not dealt with in the scheme itself. They would be directions about priorities—for example, purpose-built premises for improved practice, generally in groups, would I think, by general consent, have the first claim on resources; and loans for new premises and improvements. Similarly, a loan to a doctor taking over a practice would, for example, have priority over a loan to an established doctor to enable him to repay an existing loan for his present premises. These are just examples of the sorts of priorities I have in mind. Then, we should ask the Corporation, in making loans, to give special consideration to the needs of the under-doctored areas.
    These are indications of what we have in mind, but of course, it is necessary to have a general power of direction under the Bill because one cannot anticipate the eventualities which may arise.
    The right hon. Gentleman said he wants to be assured that the balance between independence, on the one hand, and control by the Ministers, on the other, is about right, and he thought that possibly under the proposed arrangements the Corporation might be something of an empty shell. He said I wanted to keep tight control of the new system, and he thought I was probably right to want tight control. I do not want to have tight control of the Corporation. I want Ministers to have as loose a control as is consistent with safeguarding the Treasury interest, which has to be safeguarded, and consistent also with the

    953
    development of a proper pattern of provision for general medical services. As long as we can be assured of that, I want the Corporation to have as free a hand as it can, and I am sure that this is the desire of the profession also.
    Equally, the profession—certainly the representatives with whom I have negotiated—recognise that the degree of control or direction which is proposed in the Bill is the minimum that the Government, in considering the responsibilities of the Treasury in a matter of this kind, could reasonably ask. I hope, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman will accept that we want to give the Corporation reasonable freedom.
    The right hon. Gentleman asked whether I could consider setting up a siting and priorities committee. The purpose of the proposal which I put to the House and which we shall put to the Corporation is to get local decisions. If we were to have a siting and priorities committee, however, the decisions would become centralised again. We already have the net work of local health authorities and executive councils, who know the conditions, who know the sort of place where a doctor's surgery or group practice premises are particularly needed and, equally, who would know where they would be inappropriate when considered alongside existing premises or premises to be planned—perhaps a local authority health centre—of which the applicant for the loan might be unaware. This is why it is important that the advice on siting should be decentralised and that there should be reference back to the central advisory committee only if there is a dispute which cannot be settled at local level.
    Subject to that, however, the questions of how the Corporation borrows in accordance with the provisions of the Bill, the rate of interest which it charges and how it decides to interpret the provisions that it shall break even
    "taking one year with another"
    are commercial matters about which I am anxious that the Corporation should take its own decision.
    I hope that what I have said has gone some way at least to reassure the right hon. Gentleman.
    Mr. Wood: As I explained to the Minister earlier, I am only too ready to be convinced that the Corporation has adequate independence to do its job. I am still not clear exactly how the right hon. Gentleman envisages that it will work. He told us a few minutes ago that the scheme which we are discussing in the Clause would be a general scheme; and, presumably, the general scheme will contain certain lines of approach for the Corporation to follow.
    It seems to me, however, that directly the general scheme begins to be particularly applied by the Corporation, the Corporation has immediately to go to one adviser or another concerning particular priorities in relation to the general needs in an area and certainly on the question of siting. This was why I raised the question of whether, in the carrying out of its general scheme, for which the Minister and his right hon. Friend will have given approval, the Corporation will have any degree of freedom or, because of its lack of knowledge on these questions, it will apply continually to the Minister and to other advisers about how to exercise its power in each individual case.
    Mr. K. Robinson: The best analogy I can put forward in trying to convince the right hon. Gentleman further is that of a building society. The Corporation will be a money-lending body and all decisions about the creditworthiness of applicants and the like, which a building society would consider in the normal course of business, would be for the Corporation to settle. A building society is not, however, required to take decisions on whether, say, a new house on which it lends money is appropriately sited. That can be safely left to the planning authorities. It is, however, important that general practice premises should be in the right place. If the central body which was lending the money had to make judgments of that kind also, it would need to be a very different kind of organisation.
    5.15 p.m.
    I imagine that there will be a fairly simple and routine procedure whereby an application which is made for premises at a certain site will be automatically referred for advice on siting to either my right hon. Friend the Secretary of

    955
    State or to myself, who will immediately get in touch with the local health authorities and the executive council in the area in question. Normally, they would probably say that there was no objection to the development in the area where it was proposed and within a short time we would be able to tell the Corporation that there was no objection from the planning and siting aspects. There would be no need to hold up the application on those aspects unless there were a dispute in an individual case.
    The point which I am trying to make is that the Corporation would be a totally different kind of body if it were to be called upon to make that kind of judgment. I do not think that the procedures which are proposed will be unduly cumbersome or time-consuming. If they are, we can always reconsider them. This is not spelt out in the Bill. It would, no doubt, be part of the scheme to lay down the procedures which the Corporation would be expected to follow. As the right hon. Gentleman will see from the Bill, the scheme can be modified at any time.
    I suggest that the right hon. Gentleman has faith and at least agrees with us that the scheme should be tried out and that if we find that any of the difficulties which he envisages are real, we can always consider modifying it. For my part, I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman's fears will prove to be well founded.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 5.—(FINANCIAL DUTY OF CORPORATION.)
    Mr. Longbottom: I beg to move Amendment No. 10, in page 3, line 17, to leave out: "taking one year with another."
    The purpose of the Amendment is to probe with the Minister a point of principle concerning interest rates. I listened carefully to what the right hon. Gentleman said on Clause 4 and I accept entirely the way in which he sees the Corporation developing, that it should be independent and that it should not be subject to Ministerial interference, except in laying down general points of principle. We entirely endorse the need for
    956
    the Corporation to be self-financing. It is, therefore, right that if it is asked to be self-financing, it should be responsible for making up its mind how it looks after its fund, when it raises money, and so on.
    What I am interested to know is the meaning of the words
    "taking one year with another."
    Does the Minister intend that the Corporation should consider the position over a number of years, yearly or biennially? The Minister has made the point that the attraction of the Corporation—and we accept this—is that it will be able to offer advantageous terms of finance that are not at present readily available on the market. I entirely accept the truth of this concerning the term of years, because finance is not normally available over as long a term as it is envisaged that the Corporation will provide it. As the Minister said on Second Reading, it might go so far as to cover the whole of a doctor's working life. That is admirable.
    The Minister must, however, accept that one of the other facts of finance is the rate of interest which is to be paid. If it is to be paid over a person's lifetime as opposed to merely 10 or 15 years, the rate of interest will be very much more a matter of concern.
    The Minister will accept that the Corporation is likely to be beginning its career in a period of high interest rates. Not for a long time have interest rates been as high as they have been over the past year. It will be attractive for people to take advantage of the Corporation when it starts its work only if they can feel that they are not taking a set rate of interest over the whole of their working lives but that, like most other forms of borrowing, it will be a flexible rate determinable by the amount of money which the Corporation is able to borrow from time to time at differing rates.
    I am delighted to see that under subsection (2) the Corporation will have reserve powers so that it can borrow money at a low rate of interest to put into its reserves if we ever get back to the period of a decent low rate of interest. I appreciate to the full what the Minister said about the Corporation being independent, but I think that it would be wise for him to say something about this question of the rate of interest, and to give some guidance.

    957
    A moment ago the right hon. Gentleman talked about building societies. There are some independent building societies, but most of them—not all—respond to the wishes of the Building Societies Association. This Corporation, unlike building societies, is not a profit-making venture, and, therefore, it should be able to keep its rates of interest lower, but if the Minister envisages that the rate of interest will be flexible according to market circumstances we will be satisfied.
    Mr. K. Robinson: The Clause as it stands enables the Corporation to set a deficit in one year against a surplus in another, provided that it breaks even over a period. If the Amendment were (accepted, the Clause would be very much more restrictive, and it would require the Corporation to avoid a deficit in any one year.
    As I explained on Second Reading, it is the intention that the Corporation should operate on a sound commercial basis, and except to the extent that member's fees and expenses may be met by the Exchequer, it will not be directly subsidised. It will have to raise its funds by borrowing, and it will have to pay the full appropriate market rate of interest. Thus, in fixing its lending rates, the Corporation will have to take into account not only the interest which it has to pay on the borrowed capital, but also its administrative overheads and the need to cover any capital losses which it may incur, although we hope that these will be very small. Both its income and expenses are bound to vary from year to year, and it seems reasonable therefore that the Corporation should be allowed to achieve a balance over a period of years.
    The hon. Member for York (Mr. Longbottom) will, I am sure, appreciate that that is especially important in the early years, not only because of current interest rates, but because to begin with the Corporation's administrative overheads will inevitably be higher in relation to the total volume of business that it does than they will be later on when the business has considerably grown. Therefore, if the Corporation were required to avoid a deficit in each of the first few years it would, I think, be obliged to charge a rate of interest which would be wholly prohibitive. This would
    958
    nullify the purpose of the Bill, and, I think, prejudice the improvements in general practice which we all want to see.
    I think that, on reflection, the hon. Gentleman will agree that it is undesirable to require the Corporation to break even over a particular year. The phrase
    "taking one year with another"
    may not be an ideal one, but it is hallowed in Statute after Statute, and this is one of those situations where nobody has thought of a better phrase. It is to give the Corporation that degree of flexibility which the hon. Gentleman wants it to have that this has been put into the Bill. In default of it, the obligation for the Corporation to function on a commercial basis would I think make it an instrument of very dubious value to the profession. I hope that in the light of that explanation the hon. Gentleman will not press the Amendment.
    I do not intend to fall for the hon. Gentleman's blandishments and try to guess at what might be the rate of interest, because this must be a matter for the Corporation itself. Its rate of interest will to some extent depend on its borrowing pattern, and its borrowing pattern is essentially a matter which the Board of the Corporation itself must determine. In the light of that explanation, I hope the hon. Gentleman will withdraw the Amendment.
    Mr. Longbottom: I am grateful to the Minister for the clarity of his statement. I had not realised that the words
    "taking one year with another"
    were so hallowed on the Statute Book. I am surprised that Parliament has not found a better way of expressing itself.
    As I said when I introduced the Amendment, it is a probing one, and I accept that we do not want to restrict the Corporation by making it balance its books every year. I also accept what the Minister said about the need for flexibility, particularly when one is operating in a period of high interest rates, because one hopes that it will be possible to take advantage of low interest rates when they come along and thus average them out.
    I was not trying to trap the Minister into setting an interest rate. So many of his colleagues on the benches opposite

    959
    have talked so many times, and set so many patterns of interest rates in the past, that I am sure neither the Minister nor any of his colleagues will start talking about exact rates of interest in the future, but I think that it is useful to discover that there is likely to be flexibility, because if we are to make the Corporation attractive it must be able to build up its funds as quickly as possible so that the administrative expenses are more widely shared, and it must be able to assure those who borrow money that their rates of interest will depend only and entirely on the rate at which the Corporation itself is able to borrow the money.
    Having been satisfied by what the Minister said, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Clause 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Clauses 6 to 9 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 10.—(MODIFICATION OF PROHIBITION OF FULL-TIME SALARIED PRACTITIONER SERVICE.)
    5.30 p.m.
    Dr. Wyndham Davies: I beg to move, Amendment No. 13, in page 6, line 44, to leave out from "circumstances" to the end of line 44 and to insert:
    "that all practice, ancillary and building expenses are borne from Exchequer funds".
    I regard this as a vital part of the Bill, in that we are likely to have some spirited opposition to these provisions from the medical profession, and the Minister may find that some of his propositions in this Measure will founder on that opposition. The Minister said that he regards the Bill as an important part of the reform of the National Health Service. I want to draw attention to the almost complete lack of interest on the Labour and Liberal benches. It may be pointed out that there are only two Conservative back benchers present—but we have heard so much from the Labour Party over the years to the effect that it is the great creator and reformer of the National Health Service that we would have expected a better attendance today.
    Mr. K. Robinson: Surely this is due simply to the excellent drafting of the
    960
    Bill. None of my hon. Friends feels that it is necessary to try to improve it.
    Dr. Wyndham Davies: It is my intention to indicate how badly the Bill has been drafted. That is one purpose of the Amendment.
    The Amendment seeks to do something for the ordinary members of the public who have suffered under an inferior Health Service for so long. One of the things that I, as a young doctor and medical student, was attracted to in the Health Service—and this is true of the many idealists that we have in the medical profession—was the concept of the health centre. By that I mean a practice the costs of which, together with those of the ancillary and building expenses, are borne on Exchequer funds. Here we go back to the original concept beloved by the former right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale, Mr. Aneurin Bevan. I am sorry that his successor is not here at the moment.
    Even 46 years ago the Dawson Committee, in 1920, put forward the idea of health centres as something around which a Health Service should be created. In 1944, a White Paper was brought out on the subject and this formed the basis for the provisions of the 1946 National Health Service Act. Later, the whole conception was cautiously accepted by the Porritt Committee. No serious evidence has been put forward to discredit the idea, although there have been difficulties in finding sites for planning and negotiating in relation to health centres. We must regard health centres as a generally accepted idea in local curative and preventive medicine.
    One of the big problems facing the Minister at the moment arises from the fact that in certain parts of the country great difficulty is experienced in manning the service. The Minister knows that this situation exists in the valleys of South-West Wales, including the Rhondda Valley, and in the North, and this Bill would seem to provide an ideal opportunity for giving Exchequer aid to create health centres and to put forward his own ideas. Although I am a Conservative I believe that a salaried service for this type of medical practice could be of great value.
    In France, out of 28,000 general practitioners and 16,000 specialists, there are

    961
    2,400 salaried doctors. That seems to be about the right proportion. However, we must bear in mind that because of our Anglo-Saxon nature there may be some resistance to any idea of a salary. This resistance probably exists mainly among the older members of the profession, although many young doctors would also indignantly reject such a scheme.
    The New Zealand Government instituted a salaried scheme, but had to withdraw it and replace it by a fee-for-service scheme, or a refund scheme, according to choice. The result has been a very attractive socialised medical practice, with lists varying between 1,000 and 1,200 patients, which has provided an incentive for many English doctors to emigate to New Zealand. Australia's 1938 Insurance Act failed completely in providing an extensive salaried service, although 17 per cent. of doctors in special areas are still salaried. There is also a shortage of doctors in Sweden, so that salaried district medical officers have to be employed in the under-rewarding districts. But we can show that, generally, the great majority of doctors do not wish to be salaried. They have no desire to be directly rewarded in that manner. Only by Exchequer provision of the services and facilities that I have referred to can we attract any of our young doctors into an area that desperately needs medical services. This may be occurring in my City of Birmingham before long, in certain areas where doctors are withdrawing from the Service.
    The late Aneurin Bevan thought it was desirable to have flexibility in remuneration in the Health Service. The Clause was originally drafted to assure the British Medical Association that a totally salaried service would not be enforced at any time, but if the Minister insists on going ahead with the Clause without providing any specific assurances that it will be enforced only where the Exchequer is paying the whole bill and providing facilities for the doctor, he will eventually run into trouble.
    Mr. K. Robinson: There is no question of its being enforced. The hon. Member was not present in the Second Reading debate, but if he will read the report of my speech he will see that all
    962
    the assurances for which he has asked were specifically given.
    Dr. Wyndham Davies: I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that I read the report of his speech several times and dissected it, but I found it singularly lacking in detail. He was very general about many issues. I regret that I was not able to be present during the Second Reading debate, but that does not mean that I do not know what he said.
    In every discussion of general practice the argument concerning the isolation of the general practitioner continually comes up. This isolation was emphasised 46 years ago by Lord Dawson. His report pointed out that the general practitioner needs to remain in contact with intellectual and technical advances in medicine, and this principle is even more important today. To encourage the general practitioner to improve his knowledge and conditions of practice a good Health Service has a duty to persuade him to improve his premises and to attend post-graduate courses. If general practitioners are financially unable to implement this policy—as is often the case at the moment—this should be regarded as a fault of administration and not a fault of the general practitioner himself.
    Today, there has been some confusion of thought between two social concepts—the health centre and group practice. The National Health Service Act, 1946, gave local authorities and the Secretary of State for Scotland the duty of providing health centres, and required their acceptance of the principle of the White Paper of 1944. The group practice is a simpler concept, based on the theory that doctors can organise their hours of work and ancillary help better when grouped together
    Groups can be formed quite independently of the Health Service. Health centres offer doctors the same advantages, but they present difficulties in planning. Where are they to be sited, for example? Should they be near a hospital and should one wait until such a site presents itself? Should they be staffed with new doctors, or should the local general practitioners somehow be persuaded to use them? What if the general practitioners are content with their present premises? What sort of priority does a health centre

    963
    have in the allocation of local funds to the welfare services in general?
    An important basic answer is that the local authority services should be combined with group practice in health centres. The Report of the Medical Planning Commission of the British Medical Association, in 1942, which preceded the White Paper, recommended that antenatal and post-natal services, infant welfare and school medical services should be based on the health centres. There were fears about the working of a combination of these services with practices based on an uneasy coupling of ignorance and theory.
    In 1962, the Porritt Report reflected a picture of the growth of health centres as veering between failure and suspicion. Few have been built and one recalls that the Minister specifically mentioned that some activity is now going on in the creation of new health centres. However, it is quite inadequate, so we are in a situation between failure of Government policy in creating health centres and suspicion of what the centres might mean by the general practitioners in the area.
    Even where they have been created, there has been little fusing of the branches of medical care as laid down in the original 1946 Act, although they have been housed in the same building. The Porritt Report of 1962 said that a great deal more experience was necessary, whereas it endorsed Government support of group practice with enthusiasm.
    Mr. Gower: My hon. Friend will probably recognise better than I the geographical problems in many parts of the country in setting up centres of this kind.
    Dr. Wyndham Davies: I agree.
    Regular contact between doctors is undoubtedly valuable, but a question mark hangs over the fusion of general practitioners and the local authority services in the same building. I hope that the Minister will give some indication of the plans that he has in mind for this.
    The way to the Gillie Report picture of general practitioners taking over some of the preventive work of the medical officer of health is not clearly envisaged, nor can a process be rushed along. This idea has to be combined with the
    964
    theory that group practices, by being able to afford and locate such equipment as X-rays and small operating theatres under staff nurses can cream off an increasing number of patients from the hospitals. Integration of preventive health services with family doctors, which was envisaged by Gillie and Porritt as well as by many humbler members of the medical profession, should be allowed to proceed at its own pace in the framework of area health administration, redesigned to unite the present tripartite division of the service.
    The idea of health centres is one which I can wholeheartedly support. I am sorry to see that the hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central (Dr. David Kerr) is not present, as he directly challenged my views and said that he would like to hear what they were on health centres and salaried service. This encouraged me to give them at some length. I hope that something constructive has emerged from my speech and that the Minister will give us a glimpse into the workings of his mind and say what he intends to do with the salaried doctors for whom he is now asking permission from this Committee to to include provision in the Bill.
    5.45 p.m.
    Finally, I should like to quote from an open letter to general practitioners from the President of the Medical Practitioners' Union. In an issue of the Medical Practitioners' Newsletter, dated 25th January, 1966, he wrote:
    "The issue"—
    he refers to the reform of the National Health Service—
    "remains simple. Is the Government prepared to provide the money needed for an increasingly complex, comprehensive service for the nation? The future of general practice as we know it depends on the answer to this question."
    Mr. Kenneth Lewis: I am not sure whether I can support the Amendment technically, but I can at least support its spirit. Whether I can support it technically depends on whether I accept that the Bill does nothing to provide a disincentive to group practice. We have the Minister's assurance that it does not and I think that that is true: the Bill does nothing to provide a disincentive to group practice.

    965
    Most of us who support the Bill do so because it provides further opportunities in the Health Service for greater scope and variety. Perhaps one point which has concerned some of us in the last few years is that the Service has, in many ways, got into a groove. The variety which ought to be there does not exist. This is one of the reasons that we criticise the policies of the right hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friends in their outlook on private medicine. We think that there is scope within the service for the development of private medicine apart from the free service provided by the stamp. I hope that the Conservative Party will, in the future, extend the scope of private medicine. However, I must not get out of order, so I will not pursue the matter on this Amendment.
    The advantage of group practice is that it enables the doctor to give his patients a service—it is service to the patient which matters most—without his becoming overtired. It has been interesting, in the last few years, to see the way in which the young doctor has come to like group practice The older doctor who has always been used to the old type of family practice clings to it. The result is that there is now the opportunity to build up, alongside one another, group practices run by younger doctors with the practices of old family doctors.
    At present, when it is so difficult to get staff and, indeed, to get doctors, there is something to be said for group practice. The staff who can serve two or three doctors are probably the same staff who can serve one. Certainly, the staff who serve three doctors are no more than would be required for two. This is most needed in the Health Service as a whole, because not only are doctors finding it difficult to get the kind of staff they need, but so are the health centres and the hospitals.
    It must help from a staffing point of view and it certainly helps to give the doctor more leisure, because it means that he can have a weekend off without having to be on the end of the telephone or without feeling that he is duty bound to stay at home because there might be a call which would take him out to a patient. It helps in operating an appointments system, which is not so easy to do in a family practice. Where there is more than one doctor, one can be out while
    966
    the other is in the surgery meeting people by appointment.
    We encouraged the development of group practices and I hope that the right hon. Gentleman intends to encourage it. Together with the development of health centres it can add to the variety of services, which is of benefit to the patient—and it is the patient who matters. He will thus have a choice of the kind of doctor he wants to meet his own health needs, and that is a factor which should concern us when we are passing the Bill.
    I support the spirit of the Amendment, and I hope to hear the Minister say that he is in favour of the spirit of it, if not of the technicality of it.
    Mr. Gower: I echo the sentiments expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Kenneth Lewis), but I am not satisfied that the exact wording of the Amendment would put into practice exactly what my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Dr. Wyndham Davies) seeks, although he is moving in the right direction.
    The Minister has asserted on a number of occasions that he has no desire to impose a salaried service. On the other hand, I recollect a few of his words on Second Reading which could give rise to some possible misunderstanding. He reminded the House that half the doctors in the Health Service are already on salary and he gave the example of doctors in the hospital service, from consultants downwards. He did not think that the fact that they were salaried meant that their relationship with patients was in any way less satisfactory than the relationship with patients of doctors paid on a capitation basis. Hon. Members will find that in column 1426 of HANSARD of 3rd February.
    One need not dissent from those comments, but they seem to be attempting to justify an extension of the principle of a salaried service. Saying that the fact that some people were on a salary did not affect their personal relationships seemed to suggest that it would be a good idea to extend this system. As I understand it, that is not the object of the Clause; it is based not on the idea of extending a salaried service but on the idea of introducing a more flexible arrangement which would

    967
    include a salaried element. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary or the Minister will make it clear that those remarks on Second Reading were not intended to suggest that there should be a wide extension of the salaried principle.
    The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Mr. Charles Loughlin): I do not know whether the hon. Member intends to develop this point, but perhaps we ought to clear it up now. Those remarks were made in connection with the question whether a salaried service necessarily interfered with the patient-doctor relationship, and they can be read only in that context. There is no question of any other meaning. It was simply a question whether the fact that a doctor was salaried impaired in any way his relationship with the patient. My right hon. Friend said it did not.
    Mr. Gower: I accept that, but I am not sure that it is a valid comparison. The fact that a consultant has a satisfactory relationship with a patient in the hospital service does not demonstrate that a similar salaried service for general practitioners would not be injurious. A consultant is in a very different position. But I accept what the hon. Member said.
    Both my hon. Friends have emphasised the great advantages of group practice. It was my experience in the recent malaise in the profession, when speaking to doctors in and around my constituency, that those who were most uneasy and unhappy, and perhaps most stretched, and who found their work getting beyond them were single-handed doctors, in practice on their own and without the extra help available to those who work in group practice. Those who were more optimistic were the younger doctors and those who were associated in groups, group partnerships or larger practices. Those doctors had an economy of administration, often with the employment of only one secretary, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Perry Barr pointed out, they were not constantly on call. All these were advantages.
    To this extent my hon. Friend's suggestion that these ancillary services should be available under the conditions envisaged in the Clause appears to have a good deal of substance. I am not quite
    968
    satisfied about the form of the Amendment, but I am sure that the Minister will agree that there is substance in some of the points which have been made.
    6.0 p.m.
    Mr. Loughlin: I do not know whether I should be wholly in order if I followed the hon. Member for Barry (Mr. Gower) in his closing argument, because there is an essential difference between group practices and health centres and the Amendment relates to health centres and not to group practices.
    First, may I repeat what I said earlier about my right hon. Friend's remarks on the question of the number of doctors employed in the Service on a salaried basis. Those remarks bore relation only to the doctor-patient relationship.
    We have had three contributions in this limited debate. The hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Kenneth Lewis) supported the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Dr. Wyndham Davies) on the issue of health centres. I am delighted to see the enthusiasm with which both hon. Members paid tribute to "Nye" Bevan's original concept.
    Dr. Wyndham Davies: The hon. Member does not seem to have listened to my speech. I explained that this conception was 46 years old, from the Dawson Committee in 1920, being put forward again in 1938 by the British Medical Association and brought out by the wartime Coalition Government in 1944 in their White Paper and merely continued by certain Socialists thereafter.
    Mr. Loughlin: I suggest that we might find ourselves in some difficulty if we begin arguing about the origins of the Health Service. I was referring to "Nye" Bevan merely by way of taking up the hon. Gentleman's reference to him. I had not intended to devote a great deal of time to this matter; only to remind the hon. Gentleman that "Nye" Bevan would have been pleased to find the hon. Gentleman referring to him in such glowing terms.
    We want to see an extension of health centres—as far and as quickly as possible. However, it would not seem that this will follow from adopting the Amendment. I think that the hon. Member for Barry twigged that something had gone wrong. Something has gone wrong, because the

    969
    Amendment, if accepted, might interfere with the extension of health centres because such centres are, to a large extent, paid for by local authorities. Amendment No. 13 states' that
    "all practice, ancillary and building expenses are borne from Exchequer funds".
    Whatever glowing tributes the hon. Member for Perry Barr might pay to health centres, the Amendment would not assist an extension of these centres.
    My right hon. Friend the Minister of Health went out of his way, on Second Reading, to make the position clear when dealing with the canard that we were trying to impose a salaried service on the private practitioner. I do not know whether hon. Gentlemen opposite have read and digested my right hon. Friend's remarks, but it is worth reminding the House of what my right hon. Friend said. Speaking about the circumstances in which family doctors should be paid, he referred to the National Health Service Act, 1946, which was amended in 1949, and said:
    "The amendment was introduced to fulfil an undertaking given by the Government of the day shortly before the Health Service came into being in 1948 to meet the fears of the medical profession that a full-time salaried State medical service might be imposed upon them. Those fears were as groundless then as they are now."
    Dr. Wyndham Davies rose—
    Mr. Loughlin: The hon. Gentleman must not be so impetuous.
    My right hon. Friend added:
    "I recognise that there are still misgivings in the minds of many general practitioners on the subject of payment by salary, and the Government would certainly not wish to force it on doctors against their will."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd February, 1966; Vol. 723, c. 1381–2.]
    If a more categorical assurance could have been given to any section of the community, I would like to know what my right hon. Friend might have said.
    Dr. Wyndham Davies: I read the right hon. Gentleman's remarks and I hope that that is what the Minister really means and that he will bind his successor to those words. We have already drawn attention to the specific assurances given by the Minister in July, 1964, to the effect that he was all in favour of grants for general practice premises. We have seen him reverse his ideas of 1964 in
    970
    1965. Will the right hon. Gentleman reverse his ideas of 1966 in 1967?
    Mr. Loughlin: I appreciate that the hon. Member has not been in the House for very long. One of the most dangerous things for any hon. Member to do is to impute an ulterior motive to any other hon. or right hon. Gentleman. I trust that the hon. Gentleman will not do that. If he is saying that he has read my right hon. Friend's speech, but is not convinced that my right hon. Friend means what he says—which is what the hon. Gentleman said; he will be able to read his words in the OFFICIAL REPORT tomorrow—then he is doubting the integrity of my right hon. Friend. I wish the hon. Gentleman would get out of the habit of doing that. Suffice to say that no other hon. Member of the Committee doubts my right hon. Friend's words, because the Minister, in dealing with this issue of the salaried service, has made his position clear, and is absolutely honest in his intentions.
    The hon. Member for Perry Barr began by saying that the Bill was badly drafted. That was a most unfortunate remark for him to make, because when I was in opposition I indulged in pieces of private enterprise parliamentary draftsmanship and, like the hon. Gentleman, often came unstuck. There is nothing wrong in that. We must learn by our mistakes. Often a badly drafted Amendment is a peg on which to hang an important discussion.
    The hon. Gentleman has come unstuck on this occasion, because the Amendment would, because of the way it is worded, have different results from those envisaged in his speech. It would, first, remove the need to make any regulations at all, and, secondly, it would remove the special protection offered to doctors by ensuring that the payment of salary could not be enforced on them. I appreciate that that was not the hon. Gentleman's intention, although that would be the effect of the Amendment.
    On the very question on which the hon. Member for Perry Barr spent so much of his speech—the suspicion among general practitioners towards payment by salary—the Amendment would make the position even more difficult than it is now because the Clause already gives absolute protection in relation to doctors giving their consent. While I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman hoped that the

    971
    Amendment would achieve the objects outlined in his remarks, it would do precisely the opposite. I therefore ask him to withdraw the Amendment.
    Amendment negatived.
    Dr. Wyndham Davies: I beg to move Amendment No. 14, in page 7, line 3, to leave out from "with" to the end of line 5 and to insert:
    "representatives of the British Medical Association, the Medical Practitioners Union, and the General Practitioners Association, or such bodies as suitably represent the wishes of all the practitioners concerned".
    I am very concerned that those whom the Minister, or a future Minister, may have to consult shall be proper representatives of the medical practitioners concerned. It might well be that when the representatives of the British Medical Association have finished their negotiations with the Minister and have reported back to their own members in their most democratic procedure—it is, I think, one of the most democratic procedures of any organisation—the members may not choose to re-elect them in the subsequent year, and many of those members may resign and join a body that may be far more active in looking after their interests.
    For example, a few years ago when problems of general practice arose in the National Health Service, a large body of general practitioners joined together to form what was called the General Practitioners' Association. This Association has worked very hard. It has received money and effort from many general practitioners. It has engaged the highest form of legal opinion, and has carried out valuable general practice surveys which I hope the Minister and his Parliamentary Secretary have read most carefully. I am sure that many people in the Ministry have done so.
    Further, the General Practitioners' Association went to a very respected Member of this House—the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Sir B. Stross)—and presented a Petition signed, I believe, by 7,000 or 8,000 general practitioners, bemoaning the state of the National Health Service way back in 1962, with particular reference to general practice. I should like to see such a body consulted by the Minister.
    The Medical Practitioners' Union was set up in the late 'twenties or early
    972
    'thirties by keen full-time workers in the health service of that time. Many of them were members of the Socialist Medical Association. The Medical Practitioners' Union is the only medical organisation that has direct representation in the Trades Union Congress. For years it has worked hard to put forward the views of many of our doctors. Last year it rid itself of an attempted take-over by Communist elements, and since then, with the appointment of new officers, it has served the profession well.
    I understand that a week or two ago, for example, representatives went to a meeting of white-collar workers' unions with the intention of putting the case for various reforms in general practice. The meeting was supposed to last for three hours, but I believe that the First Secretary of State spoke for one hour and 50 minutes of the three hours and thereby prevented any useful statement on the problems of general practice being made.
    My plea to the Minister is, therefore, that he should not choose just whoever he likes to consult, but should take into account the wishes of general practitioners through whichever body they choose to represent them, whether it be a newly-created body, or such existing organisations as the General Practitioners' Association, the Medical Practitioners' Union, or the body that has been so well known for so many years and which still represents the great mass of practitioners—the British Medical Association.
    6.15 p.m.
    Mr. Gower: I wonder whether my hon. Friend might not consider that the present wording of the Bill achieves most of the objects he has outlined. It states that
    "…the Minister…shall consult with such organisations as appear to him to be representative of the medical profession."
    How the Minister could then fail to consult the British Medical Association and the other bodies, I cannot imagine. I think it undesirable to tie the Minister or his successors down in this way; and that the words in the Bill are reasonably satisfactory.
    Mr. Loughlin: In due course I shall ask the hon. Member to withdraw his Amendment. I cannot see that it is necessary to list in the Bill a whole host of organisations and then add a reference

    973
    to such bodies as are suitable, because that would mean that the Minister could, if he wished, consult the bodies referred to by name, or ignore them and consult someone else. Again, the Amendment is one of those bits of private enterprise work to which I have already referred, which does not get the hon. Member very far.
    I shall not argue which organisation the general practitioners should belong to or attempt to say whether it should be the General Practitioners' Union, or any other. That is their business wholly and solely. But if hon. Members look at the present trade union structure in industry and commerce, they will appreciate the many difficulties that would face any Government that attempted to legislate on the basis of the possibility of a union's leadership losing the confidence of the members, and those members either not joining another union—which is always possible—or joining a different body altogether. The simple situation is that all Ministers have hitherto recognised as representative of G.P.s the two General Medical Services Committees, one for England and one for Scotland, because they are not only Committees of the B.M.A. but also the central organisations of the local medical committees recognised under Section 32 of the 1946 Act and Section 33 of the 1947 Act.
    Bearing in mind what I said about the wording of the Amendment, hon. Members will see that this leaves it entirely in the hands of the Minister whether he should consult or not. Bearing in mind the place held by the General Medical Services Committees, one can assume that if we continue the practice which has been followed by successive Administrations we should have consultations with organisations representative of the general practitioners as at present. We have to ensure that the Bill will give an opportunity for fully consulting representatives of the general practitioners. The Bill as it stands does that. It certainly would not guarantee it if the words submitted by the hon. Member were adopted. I plead with him to withdraw the Amendment.
    Mr. Laurence Pavitt: Without wishing to support the case put by the hon. Member for Birmingham,
    974
    Perry Barr (Dr. Wyndham Davies) I wonder if in further consideration of the Bill the Parliamentary Secretary might look again at the rôle which the General Medical Services Committees play.
    There is an anomaly that as the Committees were constituted under the Act they are part and parcel of the British Medical Association. We have the anomalous position when a Minister is engaged in discussions with the profession that there is the annual conference of local medical committees representative of the general medical services, and then—perhaps a few days later—the annual conference of the British. Medical Association of which each G.M.S.C. is a part. This constitutes a difficult position for a Minister seeking to negotiate, because it may be that the annual conference of the local medical committees can consist of some who are not members of the British Medical Association. The time has arrived when this anomaly should be cleared up.
    I recognise that this is not a job for the Minister but for the profession. When negotiations are going on he might perhaps use his influence with the profession to look at the possibility of there being only one annual conference representing the profession, which would have at its head the General Medical Services Committee of the British Medical Association, or the British Medical Guild—which is the only association permitted by law to negotiate for doctors—or the Medical Practitioners' Union. It would be in the general interest of medical practitioners if it did not happen, as last year, that one organisation came to a decision and then another organisation—in which there were some doctors, as it were wearing other hats—came to an entirely different conclusion.
    I do not support this Amendment, because I do not think it would have the effect desired.
    Amendment negatived.
    Mr. Wood: I beg to move Amendment No. 16, in page 7, line 8, at the end to add:
    (4) No regulations shall be made under this section unless a draft of the regulations has been laid before Parliament, and has been approved by resolution of each House of Parliament.

    975
    The Minister on Second Reading, as reported in the OFFICIAL REPORT at col. 1426, described the safeguards which would exist in this experiment for the payment of salaries. He said:
    "We shall consult the medical profession."
    Which is what we have been discussing.
    "We shall make it clear that this payment will only be made with the consent of the doctors concerned. The appropriate order will be subject to annulment Prayers can be tabled against it if any hon. Member thinks that consultation with the doctors has been ignored."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd February, 1966; Vol. 723, c. 1426–7.]
    I was surprised, because the language the Minister has used in Clause 10(2) is very different from the language used in Clause 3(2). It may be that there is a very good reason for this difference which at the moment has escaped me. I take it from the right hon. Gentleman's clear statement that the appropriate Order will be subject to annulment, that the only difference between us on the basis of the Bill as it stands is as between the affirmative and the negative procedure.
    I have no wish to cause difficulties, particularly on St. Valentine's Day, but the wisdom of choosing the affirmative or the negative procedure seems to depend largely on whether the hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central (Dr. David Kerr) or I was right in our reading of the Bill. After I made the suggestion that the affirmative procedure might be adopted, the hon. Member said in his speech:
    "I resist that suggestion, in the hope, however optimistic it may be, that as time passes and pressures grow the number of occasions on which the Minister will want to make orders for the determination of salary payments will increase,…"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd February, 1966; Vol. 723, c. 1389.]
    I certainly did not visualise that the Minister would have to ask the House for approval whenever a doctor or group of doctors consented to be paid by salary. I cannot believe that that is the intention. I assume that the intention would be to prescribe certain circumstances and then, perhaps a year or two later, the right hon. Gentleman, or whoever by that time may have replaced him, would prescribe new circumstances to take account of any changes which had taken place in the intervening period.
    If this interpretation is correct I should have thought it reasonable to suggest that there will not be many occasions on
    976
    which the right hon. Gentleman will be bringing Regulations before the House to afford Parliament an opportunity to give its formal approval. On the other hand, if the hon. Member for Wandsworth, Central is correct and the right hon. Gentleman intends to issue a flood of Regulations—perhaps in this medical connection "cascade" would be the proper word—we might have to think about the matter again. I should like to hear the right hon. Gentleman's explanation of whether my interpretation about what kind of Regulations these would be or the interpretation of his hon. Friend is correct, because it appears that on this will depend ultimately the procedure we ought to adopt for discussion and examination of Regulations in this House.
    6.30 p.m.
    Mr. K. Robinson: The right hon. Gentleman's interpretation in the last part of his remarks was perfectly correct. It is a fact that we do not envisage a whole series of Regulations, but in the first instance one Regulation prescribing a set of circumstances in which we would consider it appropriate that there should be the option of payment by salary; and until the circumstances materially change and we want a new set of circumstances, presumably that Regulation would stand.
    Perhaps I can explain to the right hon. Gentleman why there is a difference in the wording compared with Clause 3(2). Under the Bill as it stands, Regulations on salary would be subject to the negative procedure pretty well automatically, because I am informed that, by virtue of Clause 11, the Regulations would be made under the National Health Service Acts, which provide for all Regulations under those Acts to be subject to the negative procedure, with the exception of those made under two Sections dealing with superannuation and transfer and compensation of officers. Therefore, Regulations would not be, in the wording of the Amendment, "made under this section". They would in fact be Regulations under the main Act.
    The difficulties in the way of the affirmative procedure are several. First, I do not think that there is any need to provide an additional safeguard. There is adequate protection, since the Regulations could not be implemented unless the doctor concerned agreed to be paid by salary.

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    As to Parliament and the public in general, any issue of principle as to the wider use of payment by salary with consent will have been settled by the passage of the Bill itself. The Regulations will merely specify the administrative details. In those circumstances, we believe that the negative procedure ought to be enough.
    The Regulations will be similar in general character to a number for which the negative procedure is already provided in the 1946 and 1947 Acts, and in particular the Regulations under Section 33 of the 1946 Act and Section 34 of the 1947 Scottish Act regarding arrangements for general medical services. Further, the Regulations are likely to be made in conjunction with other Regulations made under these two Sections. If different parts of such joint Regulations were subject to different procedures, we should run into very considerable complications. In any event, consolidation of all Regulations relating to family doctors is carried out periodically so that the doctor can have easy access to the terms of his contract laid down by Statute.
    Because of the procedural differences between the negative and affirmative procedures, any attempt to present a consolidated version to Parliament, involving as it does laying in draft also the Regulations that need not be so laid, and distinguishing them by italics, would be extremely complex and would not, on past experience, be attempted. As a result, the Regulations governing the family doctor would be divided inevitably into two distinct parts.
    I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will agree that there will be every opportunity for Parliamentary scrutiny of these Regulations if the House of Commons so desires; and since provision is made in the Bill itself, both for full consultation with the profession before Regulations are drawn up and also for the prior consent of any individual doctor who is to receive payment by salary, I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will feel that he is not obliged to press the Amendment.
    Mr. Wood: It is evident from what the Minister has said that if my hon. Friends and I pressed the Amendment it might cause the whole machine to
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    break down. As there is nothing that we should like to do less than interfere with the smooth running of the machine, I must ask my hon. Friends to be satisfied with the assurance that we have had from the right hon. Gentleman that these Regulations made under the Acts he mentioned will come before Parliament to be prayed against, if necessary; but before that stage is reached we shall have had the automatic assurance, not only that the profession will have been consulted, but also that the individual practitioner or practitioners will have agreed to be paid by this method. If we have any doubt about those built-in assurances, we shall be able to pray that the Regulations be annulled.
    In view of what the Minister has said, I myself would be satisfied with that assurance. Therefore, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.
    Dr. Miller: Will my right hon. Friend indicate whether the Clause envisages the possibility of encouraging more doctors to opt for salaried service? I do not believe that doctors should be forced into a salaried service if they do not want it. However, I believe that they should be encouraged to do so, and it should be obvious to them that salaried service is available if they wish to join it.
    I am thinking particularly of areas which have been mentioned already, where local authorities are embarking upon fairly large schemes of health centre development. Would it be possible under the Clause to indicate clearly to the doctors in such areas that there is the possibility, if they wish, to enter into some form of agreement with their executive council which will administer a salaried service for them? I believe that many more doctors than previously would now willingly accept a salaried service. It is incumbent upon the Minister to make it clear to doctors that this possibility exists. Is the Clause as it stands strong enough and specific enough to permit this to be done?
    Mr. Pavitt: I want to raise a further point arising from the part of the Clause which reaffirms the original Act, which refers to the medical services being paid

    979
    wholly or mainly by salary. As I understand it, the Clause makes it possible for a general practitioner to opt wholly for a salary under the provisions of the Bill. Would this permit a very large portion of the remuneration of a general practitioner working in a health centre to be paid on a salary basis, beyond the basic practice allowance?
    I have in mind a situation where an endeavour is being made to persuade local general practitioners to come together in a health centre provided by the local health authority. These doctors know that, as they stand in their present circumstances and with their present branch surgeries, they attract a certain number of patients to their lists. If eight general practitioners are consolidated in one centre, they do not know how many patients they are likely to lose in the process and what their resultant capitation payment will be.
    A local health authority seeking to promote a health centre might be prepared to say to a general practitioner, "Providing that you are prepared to join this scheme, we will guarantee that the amount of your remuneration will be no less than that which you at present earn". Under the Clause it would not mean someone being wholly paid by salary, but he would be mainly so paid, because, with the basic practice allowance, plus some kind of subvention from the local health authority, his main remuneration would be in the nature of a salary. Would my right hon. Friend explain exactly how this will work out in practice? Is this the kind of thing that the Ministry envisages in the development of more health centres and group practices?
    Mr. K. Robinson: May I answer, first of all, the last point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Willesden, West (Mr. Pavitt). The kind of circumstance which he described, of a group of doctors coming together to operate in a health centre, is the kind of circumstance in which it would be, one hopes, possible and appropriate to pay those doctors by salary if they so wished. But, of course, this would not be paid by the local health authority; it would be paid by the Executive Council because, as my hon. Friend knows, the local health authority is not empowered to provide general
    980
    medical services but is empowered merely to provide premises where those services can take place.
    I do not think it would be a question of the local authority giving a sort of guaranteed minimum. The doctors could continue on a capitation basis, or a modified capitation basis, or opt for salary, as they wish, under the proposals in this Clause.
    Dr. Wyndham Davies: Can we be entirely clear from the right hon. Gentleman that the term "health centre" is not being used just as a title merely for a group of rooms where a receptionist and a nurse may be provided, but that it is to be a health centre along the original lines of the 1946 Act with all ancillary services? We do not, and many doctors do not, want just groups of rooms called health centres and then to be asked to practise there for a salary. They want something created which will be a real health centre in every meaning of the word.
    Mr. Robinson: That, of course, is what I, too, would like to see. The hon. Gentleman should not approach this subject as if it were something which has got to be done for doctors by a benevolent local health authority. This is something in which we want to see doctors themselves taking the initiative, going to the local health authority and demanding facilities of this kind if that is what they want. When I talk of health centres in this connection I am thinking about publicly-provided premises. Naturally, one wants to see those premises as comprehensive and well-equipped as possible, with full accommodation for ancillary help and the rest. I do not think that there is anything between us on this issue.
    Dr. Wyndham Davies: Surely what we are after is something for the good of the patients, not for the good of the doctors?
    Mr. Robinson: Exactly. But this was not implicit in the hon. Gentleman's first intervention.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Kelvingrove (Dr. Miller) asked me whether I thought this Clause would encourage doctors to choose payment by salary. The important thing about the Clause is that it makes it possible, for

    981
    the first time, for those who want to be paid by salary to be so paid. This is really the significant step forward.
    For my part, I would want to give as many as possible of those doctors who wished to be paid by salary the opportunity of salaried service, but I would not want to mislead my hon. Friend into thinking that we should, at any rate in the initial stages, find it possible to offer a completely free option to every doctor. There are all sorts of complications which arise from a salaried service and a capitation, or modified capitation, system of payment co-existing side by side. I repeat that I myself would like to see as many doctors as possible who wished to be paid this way have the opportunity to be so paid.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Clause 11 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    Clause 12.—(CITATION, COMMENCEMENT AND EXTENT.)
    Question proposed, That the Clause stand part of the Bill.
    Mr. Pavitt: I should like briefly to refer to subsection (4) and ask why the Bill does not extend to Northern Ireland.
    Mr. K. Robinson: It is up to the Government of Northern Ireland to decide whether they want to make their own provisions, or to take advantage of the provisions in the Bill. In the circumstances, the Northern Ireland Government are considering making their own arrangements.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.

    New Clause.—(GROUP PRACTICE FINANCE LOANS.)
    Nothing in this Act shall be deemed to cancel any existing arrangements designed to provide grants to set up group practice long-term loans.—[Dr. Wyndham Davies.]
    Brought up, and read the First time.
    6.45 p.m.
    Dr. Wyndham Davies: I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
    982
    This Bill is miserly and disappointing. I do not wish to go over the arguments that I have used in saying that, in my opinion, £100 million as a Government grant spread over 10 years was far nearer what was required to inject some new life and activity into the Health Service general practice. This was merely for surgery premises and equipment alone.
    Perhaps I may ask the right hon. Gentleman to clarify his remarks in the Second Reading debate, reported in column 1423, when he said:
    "There is a transitional problem of the loans"—
    those are the loans to which I am referring—
    "which I believe may total about £600,000, which have been approved but which will not be issued by the time the Corporation starts its operations. We shall have to work out in detail with the profession what is to happen in these cases, but I do not myself foresee any serious difficulties here."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd February, 1966; Vol. 723, c. 1423.]
    I am asking that this Committee should be informed what sort of arrangement the right hon. Gentleman has in mind for this existing £600,000, which is quite a considerable sum of money, under an arrangement which seemed quite satisfactory to many of these young doctors who are asking for help with their surgery premises, and whether somehow they can receive help and not be saddled with high interest payments on the subsequent loans which they may get under the Bill.
    Mr. K. Lewis: Sometimes when one goes to the cinema, if one has time to go—that is to say, if one is not a Member of Parliament—one sees the film round a second time. I have already made a speech on this Clause in your absence, Mr. Bowen, on an Amendment which I thought related to the question of group practice. I have no intention, therefore, of repeating that speech, but I hope that when the Minister replies he will have regard to what I said in my previous speech and will say something to assure us that there is nothing in the Bill that does other than encourage group practice.
    Mr. K. Robinson: I think there is something in what the hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Mr. Kenneth Lewis) said in another connection. The debate seems to have gone full circle,

    983
    because I dealt extensively with this point in the course of our first debate in the Committee this afternoon.
    The hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Dr. Wyndham Davies) asked again about this transitional problem of the loans and said that he thought the Committee was entitled to know what is in my mind. I have already told the Committee, in reply to a previous Amendment, the sort of solution I thought might be appropriate. Briefly, it was that the loan should come from the Corporation and that instead of the Corporation lending the money interest-free, the interest would be met by the executive council rather than by the individual practitioner. This is one possible solution, but I would not want to tie myself to any particular solution until we have concluded our discussions with the representatives of the profession.
    I can assure the hon. Gentleman that it is not our intention that anybody shall be in any way disadvantaged. There is, in fact, the added advantage that the Corporation will be enabled to lend money over a substantially longer period than the period under the group practice loan scheme. But it is our intention to wind up that scheme as soon as the Corporation is in business and I think that there will be no difficulty whatever in reaching mutually acceptable arrangements to deal with this one transitional problem.
    Question put and negatived.
    Schedule agreed to.
    Bill reported, without Amendment; read the Third time and passed.

  UNIVERSITIES (SCOTLAND) BILL
  As amended (in the Standing Committee), considered.
  UNIVERSITIES (SCOTLAND) BILL

    New Clause.—(STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS ACT 1946 NOT TO APPLY TO ORDERS IN COUNCIL.)
    The Statutory Instruments Act 1946 shall not apply to an Order in Council under this Act.—[Mrs. Hart.]
    Brought up, and read the First time.
    6.51 p.m.
    The Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mrs. Judith Hart): I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
    This Clause takes into account the implications of the Statutory Instruments Act, 1946, in reference to this Bill. The Bill confers on Her Majesty a power exercisable by Order in Council to confirm or approve charters or ordinances. In the terms of Section 1 of the Statutory Instruments Act, 1946 such an Order in Council approving an ordinance would be a Statutory Instrument. Up to now any ordinances affecting the four Scottish Universities have been governed by the 1889 Act but now in the Bill we have to take account of the Statutory Instruments Act, 1946, and it is not intended or even thought appropriate that a new series of Statutory Instruments should be started, to run for what is thought will be only a temporary period.
    Therefore, the Clause will disapply the Statutory Instruments Act, 1946. Orders in Council approving ordinances made under the Bill will be in exactly the same position as those orders approving existing ordinances or indeed, in the same position as the statutes of chartered universities. This will affect in no way powers of Parliament to consider this. It does not change the situation. It continues the existing situation by simply disapplying the 1946 Act. It is intended that the new Clause should be inserted in the Bill after Clause 14.
    Question put and agreed to.
    Clause read a Second time and added to the Bill.

    Clause 1.—(RECONSTITUTION OF OLDER UNIVERSITIES.)
    Mr. William Hannan: I beg to move Amendment No. 1, in

    985
    page 1, line 9, to leave out "may" and to insert
    "shall within a period of five years from the passing of this Act".
    We debated a similar Amendment to this in Committee at some length. I quite understand that we are circumscribed in our debate today, but I wonder whether, in addition to the arguments which we then adduced, my hon. Friend, in the light of the recent incident at Glasgow University in the case of the expelled students, has had any reason to change her mind.
    My hon. Friend will know from the arguments then put forward that some of us were not quite satisfied with the wording of the Clause, in that the word "may" appears, making it permissive for the older universities to apply for a charter. Some of us thought that this should be mandatory and that they "shall" apply for a charter within a period of five years from the passing of the Bill.
    I do not think that there is any great need to expand or to go over the same argument, except to point out to my hon. Friend that she, in reply to that Amendment, said that it was desirable that the constitution of a university should be set out clearly in one acceptable document rather than in a mass of enactments spanning a century. Perhaps it should be explained that the 1889 Act, which governs the four traditional universities in Scotland, was itself an amending Act of those of 1825 and 1823.
    My hon. Friend went on to say that it was equally desirable even from the universities' own point of view that the power of each component of a university should be explicitly stated and that from the Government's point of view it was clear that it would be a good thing for future relationships between the Government and the traditional universities that the relationships between the Secretary of State and all universities in Scotland should be on a par. My hon. Friend made it quite clear that this was not to suggest uniformity in what was taught within the universities, but that the relationship between the Secretary of State and the universities should not be, as it were, divided into two classes with some universities based on the 1889 Act and the newer universities based on charters.
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    The present Bill governs the internal government of St. Andrews, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen, while the newer universities of Strathclyde and Herriot Watt and the university to be at Stirling are and will be under charters. But the one big question at Glasgow University has drawn into relief serious defects in the Bill, in the sense that much of the machinery, as we have said before, is archaic whereas charters would afford the traditional universities the opportunity to have a new look at this matter, instead of going on building on past laws and organisations. They would be able to review their procedures and bring them up to date in accordance with opportunities which charters are affording to their younger brethen.
    The church hymnary is described as "Hymns Ancient and Modern", but we have no desire in Scotland to have universities ancient and modern. By means of the Amendment we wish to bring the older universities into line. We believe that sufficient reasons can be adduced—although I shall not go into them now—to suggest that the older universities should now be asked to take their place along with the newer ones.
    My hon. Friend advanced in Committee as one of the arguments for not accepting the Amendment the question of what would be done if the older universities did not move and what sanction we proposed. She said that the only one that seemed open to her was the withholding of money, but I suggest that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State on Second Reading proposed the sanction that if no move was made by the older universities the Government could introduce a Bill at a later stage. It seemed to me that, if that was merely a promise deferred for the bringing in of a Bill at a future date, it might well be done now in this Bill when we have the opportunity.
    As my hon. Friend knows, it is only the Bill that matters. Whatever the intentions of the universities may be, and whatever their promises, it is very difficult for some of us to accept that they will, in fact, move. They intended the Bill to be, as it were, a substitute for charters. They meant the Bill to go on for 60, 70 or 80 years, if need be. We think that the times are moving too fast.

    987
    In view of the new circumstances in Glasgow recently, can my hon. Friend give me a further assurance to substantiate the statement which she made in reply to the Amendment in Committee?
    7.0 p.m.
    Mr. Michael Clark Hutchison: I do not support the Amendment and I hope that the hon. Lady will resist it. I have no personal views on whether a charter is better for the Scottish universities than the present system by which they operate under Acts of Parliament. There is something to be said for both systems. My objection is based on the conviction that, in a matter such as this, Government interference is not welcome and the choice should be for the universities themselves. This is eminently a case in which the universities should make up their own minds in the light of their experience and the circumstances of the day. They are by far the best judges of what is best in each individual instance.
    As a subsidiary objection, I am opposed to writing a time limit into a Bill of this nature. Legislation in general should be kept to the minimum, where possible, and it certainly should not be detailed. None of us can foresee the future, and it would be bad practice in a case like this to put in a time limit.
    While on the question of charters, I should like the hon. Lady to clear up a point which arose in Committee, but which was never satisfactorily explained. It concerns the Church of Scotland and the Church chairs in the universities. At present, these chairs and the arrangements with the Church are protected under the Universities (Scotland) Act, 1932 and under the present Bill, if it becomes law. But, if a university seeks a charter, neither the 1932 Act nor this Bill will apply. What, then, will be the position of the Church of Scotland and the chairs? What is the Church to do? I realise that it has powers and will have every opportunity of appealing to the Privy Council, but, supposing that the Privy Council does not heed its representations or does not agree with them, what then? Can the hon. Lady say why a provision cannot be written into the Bill—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. I let the hon. Gentleman make the point briefly, in
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    passing, but we are discussing now whether the word in the Clause is to be "may" or "shall", with a time limit. The hon. Gentleman must link what he has to say to that now.
    Mr. Clark Hutchison: Yes, Sir. May I just complete the point by asking what would happen if the Church's representations were not needed?
    On the question whether there may be or there shall be a charter, if the word is "shall", the Church is put at a great disadvantage. I want to hear the Government's answer on this point. Again, on the same question, the hon. Lady will know that there is the agreement of 1951 between the Church of Scotland and the universities. If a charter is made compulsory, will this agreement override the charter? Will it have to be accepted? I want an answer "Yes" or "No" to this question.
    Mr. Edward M. Taylor: I hope that the Under-Secretary of State will reject the Amendment, for three reasons. First, it would be wrong to lay down in a Bill such as this that universities must have charters although this might well be against their wishes. It would be most dangerous to make it mandatory. The success of our Scottish universities over the past few years has largely stemmed from the fact that in academic matters and matters of organisation neither the Government nor any outside body has tried to force on the universities something which might be against their wishes. I hope that there will be no question of insisting that charters be adopted.
    The most objectionable feature of the Amendment is the time limit. As the hon. Lady herself said, it would be very difficult to enforce such a provision. What sanction could be brought to bear on them? One possible sanction here would be something approximating to a period of direct rule, in other words, the Secretary of State insisting that a constitution be prepared and that a charter be brought in for all universities. This would be thoroughly dangerous. The other possibility is the withholding of grants or some way of detracting from the academic progress of a university. This, also, would be highly objectionable.
    I was not much impressed in Committee by the arguments for the five-year

    989
    time limit. The hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) has tonight adduced the argument that the events spotlighted in the recent individual case of Glasgow University should be used as a ground for general revision. To base any legislation, and particularly a Measure of this significance, on an individual case would be very dangerous. We ought not to countenance any attempt to interfere with the freedom of action of the universities in such matters.
    When I think of my own University of Glasgow, the enormous progress which has been made there and the wonderful reputation it has throughout the world, I am utterly opposed to any such dangerous step as attempting to make changes for Glasgow and other universities arising out of what took place in one individual case within that university.
    I hope that there will be no question of introducing charters for any of the Scottish universities until such time as the Government have created a situation in which the universities can see the advantages and will co-operate fully. No good can come from imposing charters on the universities, and I hope that, before pursuing the matter further, the Secretary of State will ensure that our universities are ready for such a change, can see the advantages of it and are prepared to co-operate in any new arrangements which are proposed.
    Mr. Ian MacArthur: I endorse the observations of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor) when commenting on the new argument put forward tonight by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) in support of his Amendment. I realise that the hon. Gentleman is deeply and sincerely concerned about the Glasgow University incident, but I join with my hon. Friend in hoping that the hon. Lady will not accept that as sufficient reason for adopting the Amendment. We are later to consider several Amendments which deal with the problem of discipline to which the Glasgow University case called attention, and I hope that that question can be left until then and not be brought forward as an argument for accepting this Amendment.
    When we debated this Amendment in Committee, there was some disagreement between the hon. Lady and me about
    990
    the time that would be required by one of the older universities for the proper preparation of a charter. I do not propose to open that argument again. I think that we can both be in agreement that the preparation of a charter is a large task—it may take one year or two or three years, perhaps—probably a greater task than the preparation of the ground for the present Bill, which has occupied the minds of the older universities for a considerable time.
    The older universities in Scotland are only now emerging from a long period of discussions about the Bill. I am sure that they are now looking forward to a period of freedom from constitutional debate so that they can concentrate on more pressing problems, the administrative and other problems which accompany their rapid expansion.
    I appreciate the point made by the hon. Member for Maryhill—the hon. Lady made it previously—that if the four older universities were to proceed to charters, that would then put all the Scottish universities into the same relationship with the Secretary of State for Scotland. But I suggest that this is not an argument for pushing the universities back into the constitutional swamp, particularly as we are approaching the final stages of a Bill which modernises the constitutions of the older universities and brings them more into line than before with present conditions.
    One might well ask what a charter could do for the universities that the present Bill, and particularly its Schedules, would not do. Surely, if there is a large movement for charters within the four older universities, it is unthinkable that any university court would oppose the demand for charters.
    I think it right to say that a purpose of the Bill is to improve the freedom of action of the universities, and it would be contrary to the spirit of the Bill to introduce a time limit, as the hon. Member for Maryhill suggests. If a time limit were introduced, what sanctions—my hon. Friend the Member for Cathcart made this point—would there be if one of the universities failed to observe it? We have had some indication already of the difficulties which are encountered in consultations within a university. What would happen if a university court was unable,

    991
    as the closing date approached, to obtain the agreement of the various elements in the university which Clause 1 requires the court to consult? I remember asking the hon. Member for Maryhill during the Committee stage if he would then put the principals and the courts into the tolbooth. If the Amendment makes sense, there must be some sanction. I cannot believe that it is right that we should introduce into the Bill a provision which might well require a future Government to introduce sanctions because the older universities had not been able, with the best will in the world, to meet a completely arbitrary time limit.
    I suspect that some of the reasoning behind the Amendment is a feeling that there is some deep academic resistance in the older universities to the idea of introducing charters. I do not believe that that is the case. Certainly, the information that I have is to the contrary. I believe that the older universities will move towards charters—certainly before the 60 years or so which the hon. Gentleman suggests—when they themselves judge it to be necessary. I suggest that it would be right for us to wait and see how the older universities progress under the new and extensive freedoms of the Bill. Let them now get on with their task of expansion free from the preoccupation of further constitutional worry, and in the light of that experience themselves determine whether and when to proceed with charters.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Clark Hutchison) referred to the position of the Church of Scotland in these matters. If I am in order, I should like to make a passing reference to this. As was pointed out, if a charter goes through the previous enactments will be abolished. I understand that the position in regard to the Church of Scotland will be continued under the Bill, but—whether we use "may" or "shall" about the time limit—what will be the position of the Church of Scotland in future in relation to its rights under the Act of 1932 and the agreement of 1951 to which my hon. Friend referred? I am sure that the hon. Lady recognises that there is deep concern in the Church of Scotland about tins question, and I hope that she will be able to put our doubts to rest when she replies.
    992
    Returning to the Amendment, I recall that when we debated this previously in Standing Committee we had a long debate, and at the end the hon. Lady made it clear that she did not propose to introduce any compulsion whatsoever on the older Scottish universities. I hope that that is still her position, and that she will resist the Amendment.
    7.15 p.m.
    Mrs. Hart: First, I want to clear up any doubts that remain about the position of the Church of Scotland in relation to any possible future move towards charters. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Clark Hutchison) raised the subject, and the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur) has just alluded to it.
    The position has been discussed with officials of the Church of Scotland, and I think that we have allayed any anxieties they might have had. It is a quite straightforward position, that should the Bill be replaced by charter, the formal agreement between the universities and the Church which deals with theological chairs and is incorporated in ordinance will remain in force. The agreement will remain in force until it is altered or revoked by the parties to it even though the Act under which the ordinance was made and the ordinance itself ceased to have effect. So there is no reason for the Church to feel anxious about it. The agreement which it has at the moment, which governs the appointment of boards of nomination to certain chairs, will remain whether or not there is a charter.
    Mr. Clark Hutchison: Is the hon. Lady referring to the 1951 agreement between the Church of Scotland and the universities?
    Mrs. Hart: Yes, Sir. This is an agreement which would apply under whatever constitution the university was promulgating its ordinances. I believe that that clarifies the point.
    On the question of charters, I appreciate why my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) has again tabled his Amendment. He is anxious to explore all the possible repercussions on the issue that there might be from the disciplinary case in Glasgow recently. The charters—whether or not the universities go towards charters—and

    993
    the statutes which form part of them are unlikely to include detailed provisions governing disciplinary procedures. Matters of discipline are normally dealt with in fairly general terms, leaving the details to be spelt out in ordinances. So from that point of view, whether we are dealing with charters or with the Bill, there is very little effect upon the matter about which my hon. Friend is concerned.
    I think that we have to understand that, whereas there may have been concern in the last few weeks about one instance, we cannot in this Bill legislate on that ground alone. We have to consider the general point that is arising.
    Mr. Norman Buchan: Would not my hon. Friend agree that there are many other very valid arguments for charters quite apart from the one so far mentioned?
    Mrs. Hart: I am just beginning to reply. I was trying to deal specifically with the new point raised since Committee by my hon. Friend the Member for Maryhill. I hope that he is satisfied that there is no great advantage in a charter as against the Bill.
    I turn now to the general issues. In Committee, one hon. Member suggested that a possible sanction might be the withholding of money from the universities by the Government. I want to disclaim any suggestion that it was I who put that out even as a remote possibility.
    The hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor) talked about the wishes of the universities. Those hon. Members who served on the Standing Committee will remember that I dealt very fully with "the university" and what "the university" meant. We are all clear that when we talk about "the university", we mean everybody in it—the principals, the staff, the students and everyone concerned with running it and with its functions. If we talk, therefore, about the wishes of "the university" we are talking about the wishes of all those people who compose its various elements.
    Of course, as I emphasised in Committee, we are anxious to give complete freedom to the universities to choose what they should do—whether to go forward to charters or not and at what stage they should do so. I said in Committee that
    994
    we expected the universities to be taking their first steps towards charters in the next three or four years. I pointed to the discussions within the universities of the shape their future constitutions and the charters were likely to have.
    I rejected, as I must continue to reject, any question of writing a time limit into the Bill. It is not our intention to compel the universities if their members do not want charters. The situation can be summarised as follows: that we know that there is, within the universities as I have defined them, an opinion which would seek for the universities to move towards charters fairly soon. It will depend on what course that opinion takes. Just as many minds in this House have been somewhat urgently considering these matters in the last few weeks on this Bill, so also opinion outside has been moving.
    It is my impression that there is no disinclination or great reluctance on the part of the universities to think of opening up discussions on charters. It would be a mistake to suppose that there is any hostility to the idea of charters in the minds of most of the people in the four universities. So it will be a question of opinion in the universities, in freedom of choice, deciding when they go towards charters.
    The point I sought to make in Committee, and which I make again, is that, if there should be any profound disagreements within the universities about whether or not there should be a move in the direction of charters, the Government would feel it appropriate to take the advice offered by the Robbins Committee, when it pointed to other examples of dissension within universities on vital issues, and set up an inquiry into what should be the future of the universities. But it is clear that they have total freedom to choose—and one defines "them" as meaning all the people in the universities.
    Thinking, as we do, that they will wish to move towards charters within the next three or four years, should there be—and I do not expect it—any disagreements within universities, clearly the Government would need to consider what inquiry they should set up to clarify the position for the future. But I do not expect such a situation and I think it is clear that this is the right attitude to safeguard

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    the academic freedom of the universities and, indeed, their freedom of decision in this matter.
    I believe that, as I said in Committee, there is some advantage to this House in the universities proceeding towards charters. I pointed out then that we are giving some time of this Session to the Bill. I think that perhaps the experience of recent weeks would reinforce what I said on that occasion—that the amount of time and mental skill that many people here have devoted to considering what should or should not be in the Bill intensifies the conclusion that it would be in the interests of Parliament itself if the four older universities were on the same footing in this regard as the newer universities.
    I trust I have made it clear to my hon. Friend that I hope that the universities will move towards charters. I believe that the thinking within them is in that direction. But they have freedom to choose. It is only if there should be dissension within them about the step they should take that any further Government consideration of the matter will be involved. In these circumstances, perhaps my hon. Friend will agree that it is best that we do not attempt to circumscribe this by writing in any time limit.
    Mr. Hannan: My hon. Friends and, I am sure, hon. Members opposite, know that other reasons were given by me upstairs for seeking this Amendment. It is not quite correct of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor) to say that there was really only one reason—the one isolated incident at Glasgow.
    For some time, it has been obvious that, in various aspects, the 1889 Act gives all the powers to the universities while the Secretary of State has no powers at all. It is only in Clause 1 of the Bill that it is suggested that permissive powers should continue to be given to the universities. I am seeking to have this in statutory form because one of the principal recommendations of the Robbins Committee was:
    "We have no hesitation, therefore, in recommending that the Act be repealed…"
    It would have been a big enough sanction simply to have had one Clause in the Bill saying that the 1889 Act "shall
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    be repealed in five years", or words to that effect.
    There are other reasons for wanting, in this Bill, to put legitimate pressure on the universities to do something. We are all in sympathy with the hard work of the administrators of the universities. They have done very hard work on the 10-year expansion programme, and that sort of thing makes one hesitate to enforce discipline on them. But, even taking that into account, we should remember that their policy avoids inconvenience now perhaps at the cost of a succession of intractable problems over the next 15 years or more.
    The labour of having to find a new constitution or charter in three or four or five years' time would at least get them to think about it and afford them an opportunity to look at themselves. The Robbins Committee suggested that Oxford, London and, I think, Cambridge should look at their futures, as should the Scottish universities. But the only universities of those mentioned by the Committee which are not doing so are the Scottish universities. That is the principal reason for the Amendment.
    Mrs. Hart: Would not my hon. Friend agree that there has been some change in attitude since the publication of the Bill, and as a result of the reflections upon it? Is not opinion in the older universities moving definitely in favour of going for charters?
    7.30 p.m.
    Mr. Hannan: I will say this to my hon. Friend, that if it had not been for the explosion in this House and many of the criticisms made prior to 6th January and what happened in Glasgow, there would have been no attention paid to some of them. There is a later Amendment on the Paper as a consequence of that.
    Sir Myer Galpern: I wonder if my hon. Friend could give us some real, solid facts to confirm the statement he has just made?
    Mr. Speaker: He would be out of order if he did so, unless it were to have something to do with the Amendment he is seeking to make to the Bill.
    Mr. Hannan: In any case, I was about to conclude by saying that we know that

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    the attitude of my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, both on Second Reading and in Committee, was perfectly fair on this point. I accept her statement of principle tonight. My purpose was to elicit whether, in the aftermath of what has occurred, there was a new move. I am satisfied with the spirit and purpose which animate the Government proposing this Clause. They satisfy me, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Mrs. Hart: I beg to move Amendment No. 2, in page 1, line 17, after "Council," to insert "the Students' Representative Council."
    Mr. Speaker: I think that it will be convenient to discuss with this Amendment, Amendment No. 3, in the name of the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur), in page 1, line 19, after "staff", insert "and students".
    Mrs. Hart: The Government accepted in Committee the principle of this Amendment subject to drafting adjustment. This Amendment gives effect to the substance of the one which was moved in Committee and lists the students' representative council in its proper place among the statutory bodies of the universities.
    Mr. MacArthur: I am sure that it would be the wish of the House to thank the hon. Lady for considering this point as successfully as she has done, and I am sure that it would be right, above all, to congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) who proposed this point of view with such success, with the support of hon. Members on this side.
    The point which our own Amendment, No. 3, tries to meet, and which, of course, we are happy to debate with the Government Amendment, is simply that in Scotland students have a particular rôle in university life, a rôle which is different from that of students in English universities. Indeed, their position in the universities is emphasised by a statutory recognition which is given to the students' representative councils.
    Clearly, any move to a charter would affect the students intimately. Indeed, it
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    would affect them as closely as any other part of university structure. It is right, in our view, that they should have the right of consultation as now proposed to be provided for in Clause 1. We welcome the Amendment and thank the hon. Lady for considering it as she has done.
    Amendment agreed to.

    Clause 4.—(MAKING OF ORDINANCES.)
    Mr. Speaker: I think it will be for the convenience of the House if, with the next Amendment, No. 4, we take the hon. Member's Amendments, Nos. 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29 and 30.
    Mr. Hannan: I beg to move Amendment No. 4, in page 3, line 18, to leave out "and to".
    Rapidly looking over the Amendments you have enumerated, Mr. Speaker, I can agree, I think, that all of the Amendments pertain to the insertion of the words "the Students' Representative Council" at various points in Clause 4 and Clause 6.
    Mr. Speaker: That is why I thought it would be convenient to take them all together.
    Mr. Hannan: I wanted to get this clear because there is a distinction later on in another Amendment to Clause 6.
    However, the purpose of these Amendments is obvious. It follows on what has just been said by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary and the Amendment she herself proposed to Clause 1, that the students' representative council should be consulted on charters. What I am asking for is that by Clause 4 the students' representative council should receive a copy of the ordinance, to have the opportunity of considering it and the further opportunity of making amendments to it. I think my hon. Friend said in Committee that one of the reasons for accepting such an Amendment to Clause 1 was to have the representative council placed as a statutory body.
    I have re-read the arguments, and I cannot accept her point of view on Clause 4 and Clause 6. I should have thought that the students' representative council now loomed larger than ever, its name and title being used, and that in view of the representations which all of us are receiving now it should have greater consultation and should at the very least

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    have a copy of an ordinance, under Clause 4, or, under Clause 6, a copy of a resolution, if for no other purpose than that of receiving information. Even if it should be argued that an ordinance or a resolution may not particularly concern the students' representative council, at least the council would be informed of it. If it were to concern the council, then the council would thus have the benefit of being able to consider it, if it were to have a copy of the ordinance or resolution, and it ought to be accorded this courtesy.
    Moreover, as I have mentioned before, there is the matter of public relations. To that end, it will improve matters if the students' representative council has a greater standing and enhanced reputation amongst the students themselves. I know there are varying opinions as to what a students' representative council is worth among the students themselves. However, I should not have thought that acceptance of this Amendment would create any great difficulty.
    I do not propose to labour the point any longer. Hon. Members will, no doubt, have seen the article in the Scotsman of Friday, 28th January, posing the question, "More representation for students?". It then compares what happens in the older universities with what happens in some of the newer ones—Strathclyde, for example; and Dundee, I believe.
    The Amendment and the associated ones would do something to restore healthier and better relations with the other university bodies, following the recent incident, as the days and the weeks elapse since it occurred.
    Sir M. Galpern: I wonder if I may remind my hon. Friend of the fact that Clause 4 states that notices of the drafting of an ordinance shall be displayed publicly within the university precincts.
    Mr. Hannan: That point had not escaped me.
    Mr. David Steel: I very warmly support the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) and I hope that the hon. Lady will accept this series of Amendments. As the hon. Member for Glasgow, Shettleston (Sir M. Galpern) has just pointed out, there is already in the Bill
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    provision whereby resolutions and ordinances may be posted and drafts can be placed within the university, and since, under the 1889 Act, students' representatives councils already have authority to make representations on matters affecting students' interests, we appear to be in the situation, if we leave the Bill as it is, where a students' representative council, a statutory body representing students, is expected to make representations on the basis only of a draft which it finds stuck in a public place in the university. It would be a useful and satisfactory improvement if they were to receive as of right a copy of any such draft ordinance or resolution.
    As I said in Committee, the position of the students' representative council at the older Scottish universities is quite different from that of student bodies and the attitude to students at other universities. Printed on the matriculation card, certainly at Edinburgh University and, it may well be, at the other Scottish universities, are the words "citizen of Edinburgh University". The word used is civis; it is not "pupil", but "citizen". The student at these universities has always been held in quite different regard from a student at Oxford, Cambridge, or any other university.
    It is a matter of opinion whether that is good or bad. In Committee, the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Clark Hutchison) indicated that he thought it was a bad thing. Nevertheless, I consider that it has been a good Scottish tradition and that it could be usefully upheld by accepting the various Amendments put forward by the hon. Member for Maryhill.
    Mr. Buchan: I support what has been said by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) and the hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel). This is an extremely important Amendment. One is loth to refer the discussion continually to the recent incident in Glasgow. But, undoubtedly, the aspect which has emerged and the accusations which were made have been on the basis of irresponsibility at the time of the initial acts. Surely one of the best methods of producing the right kind of responsibility is to make the students feel that they are part of the university body as a whole.

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    It seems to me to be quite improper merely to post notices in various parts of the quadrangle and to expect students to understand or to feel that they are responsible. The need to have an informed student body lies at the back of this discussion. I hope that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary will relent somewhat from her attitude in Committee and will show a little of the generosity which she displayed on the previous Amendment and accept this one. It would be for the health of all the Scottish universities.
    Mrs. Hart: I hope that in what I say I shall not be thought to be setting up any barriers in our consideration of this matter. We are up against a problem which has arisen more than once in our consideration of the Bill. We all share the same objective. In the debate on the General Teaching Council, which my hon. Friend the Member for Renfrew, West (Mr. Buchan) initiated, and on other occasions we have agreed in principle and the question at issue has been a procedural one about what was or was not correct or suitable for insertion at various points in the Bill.
    I share the view of hon. Members who have spoken that the students must be regarded as part of the university. There must be a spirit of partnership; they must not be left out of anything in which it is proper and appropriate for them to be concerned. I want, however, to explain to those who have spoken, recognising their concern and sharing it with them, why it would not be appropriate for the Amendments to be accepted. To do this, I must go into a little detail. I ask the House to bear with me.
    Let us consider, first, the matters with which students are likely to feel themselves to be concerned. In all the representations that the students' representative councils and the Scottish Union of Students have made to hon. Members, they have made the point that they do not want to be included in everything but that they want to be included on the matters in which they feel that they are rightly concerned. They say that they are happy to be left out of matters in which they are not concerned, relating, for example to university management.
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    Let us consider the matters in which it is proper that the students should feel themselves to be concerned. The first of these is the constitution and functions of the Students' Representative Council. We discussed this in Committee. It is clear that the constitution and functions of the Council are totally safeguarded by the Bill.
    Paragraph 3 of Part I of Schedule 2 of the Bill insists that the court must proceed by ordinance in these matters. Clause 5 provides that any existing ordinances can be changed only by new ordinances, and we know from Clause 4 that new ordinances must be approved by the Privy Council. We know that the Privy Council is open to receive representations from the students' representative council on matters of this kind which concern it. Thus, there is no question of the students having any anxiety concerning constitution and functions. There is every reason for them to understand clearly that the Bill completely safeguards their rights.
    7.45 p.m.
    I now come to matters which do not concern the constitution and functions of the students' representative council, but on which, nevertheless, the students might rightly feel that they have an interest and that they are concerned. It is difficult to refer in detail to a point which has not been taken into account by those who have spoken, because a later Amendment is involved, but a later Amendment to Clause 4 refers to other bodies and persons which have an interest and to the need for the court to consider representations from such a body which has an interest in forming any ordinance and before making a decision about a proposed ordinance.
    This means that the court would, as a matter of course—this is such an enimently reasonable assumption to make that it would be absurd not to make it—consider representations about proposed ordinances not only from the Senate and General Council, who are specifically written into Clause 4, but from the students' representative council as a body with an interest where the subject is of concern to it.
    Here again, as in matters relating to the constitution and functions of the students' representative council, the Council having made representations as a body which

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    feels itself to have an interest, if the court, having heard those representations, does not take full acocunt of them in drafting its ordinances the students' representative council can make representations to the Privy Council and thus safeguard its interests in this way. It has direct access to the Privy Council in considering any ordinance even though it has already made representation to the court.
    It is, however, clear, and it is understood by the students themselves, that some ordinances will not concern them. In Part I of Schedule 2 for example, paragraph 4 relates to the manner of election of readers and lecturers to the Senate and their term of office. This is a matter correctly for the staff and for other bodies which will be interested—the university teachers, for example—but not so much for the students.
    Mr. David Steel: Would the hon. Lady concede that that is a good example that it is a matter which is not of particular concern to the General Council, yet the General Council is specifically included for consultation?
    Mrs. Hart: Yes, but only in the sense that the General Council is consulted in the same way as the Senate. Indeed, it includes people who are graduates of the university, whereas a student is not yet a graduate of the university.
    In Part II of Schedule 2, one sees that the powers exercisable by resolution as against ordinance in paragraph 4 include such matters as the abolition or alteration of the title of professorships and readerships. Paragraph 5 includes the power
    "to make regulations for the granting of recognition to the teaching of any college or individual teacher for the purposes of graduation"
    and paragraph 6 contains power
    "to prescribe the limitations in respect of age on the tenure of office of the principal or a professor".
    The students would, I think, be the first to agree that these are not matters on which they consider that they have anything to contribute. They might feel that they would like to make some comments on the age of a professor, but I do not think they feel that this is appropriately a matter for them constitutionally to be brought into consultation. We are,
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    therefore, up against the difficulty of drafting an Amendment which would bring the Students' Representative Council into formal consultation on matters which concern it, and correctly leaving it out on matters which do not, and where the students recognise that they do not concern them.
    On the question of resolutions, if a later Amendment is accepted, Clause 6 will provide for representations to be considered from "any body having an interest" in the resolution. Again, as a result of the efforts of my hon. Friend the Member for Maryhill in Committee, when a university proceeds to charter we have agreed that under Clause 1 the students' representative council shall be consulted. We are taking students' rights very seriously in the Bill, and we are giving them full recognition. This means that within the Bill there will be the partnership which the students want on all matters in which it is right for them to be interested, and right for their views to be considered, quite apart from, and in addition to, the part which the rector and his assessor play.
    To accept the Amendments would be to introduce a requirement or formal consultation with the student body on all matters concerned with purely academic questions, and with aspects of running the university which do not, and here I quote from the Memorandum from the Students' Representatives Council at St Andrew's "affect the student population". I think that we have struck the right balance. I am not criticising the motives which have led my hon. Friends to table these Amendments, but I hope they will see that although I am opposing the Amendments, I share their intentions. I am anxious that we should do what is appropriate and what is good legislation in the Bill, and not seek so to enlarge the matter that we make inappropriate provisions in the Bill.
    Mr. David Steel: Before the hon. Lady sits down, may I ask whether she will change her mind about the statement that this would require consultations with the students' representative council? It would do nothing of the sort. It would require the sending of a draft ordinance or resolution to the S.R.C. and would require the court to take into consideration any representations which that body might choose to make if appropriate. I

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    would prefer, as I am sure the hon. Member for Maryhill would, to leave this to the judgment of the S.R.C., and not to the university court.
    Mrs. Hart: The point is that representions are considered from the Senate or General Council, and if we accept a later Amendment, from "any body having an interest". The question is whether it is appropriate for the court to consider whether the students are involved and to send them notices of resolutions or draft ordinances on matters which are totally outside their sphere of interest. That is why I say that if it were possible to draft an Amendment which said that the court should send the S.R.C. notice of draft ordinances or resolutions on matters which were of concern to it, but not on matters which were not, that would be fine, but it is not possible to draft that kind of Amendment. The correct procedure is therefore to say that we will bring the students into the picture by saying that they are a body which has an interest in certain matters which the university will wish to do, and to provide, by the use of the words "body having an interest" that they shall have their views considered.
    Mr. Buchan: Is not the point here that matters of interest to students may vary from year to year? A particular point which may not appear to affect them in one period may be vitally important in another. This is one of the lessons which we have learned. If Edinburgh had the right to make representations and the right to receive documents, it would use that right in the kind of situation which was relevant to it.
    My hon. Friend says that if she could draft an Amendment which would take in those aspects which were of value, and leave out those which were not, the problem would be solved, but if she accepted our open Amendments the situation would solve itself, because the S.R.C. would raise this point only where it was relevant. I cannot see the danger of accepting these Amendments.
    Mrs. Hart: I think that my hon. Friends are asking for something for which the students themselves are not asking. In their Memorandum the students ask to be brought into the picture where they feel it is relevant for them to be brought in, and not to be brought in where it is not. I have made it clear that if a situation arises where
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    they have sent representations on the draft ordinance to the court, and the court proceeds to make its ordinance, or submit it to the Privy Council without fully taking into account the representations of the S.R.C., the S.R.C. has a way open to it to go to the Privy Council, and say, "we sent representations to the court, but the court has taken no notice of them, and it is wrong that our views should not be embodied in the ordinance". Students' interests are, therefore, fully safeguarded.
    Under the resolution procedure in Part II of Schedule 2, a considerable proportion of the matters in Part II of Schedule 2 on which the resolution procedure will be adopted are matters in respect of which it is not appropriate for the students to be sent draft resolutions. An example of that is when retirement of a professor is being considered. I do not think that when considering a matter of that kind it is appropriate that the students should be sent a copy of such a draft resolution in advance of the matter being fully considered. What is more, I do not think that the students believe that it is necessary for them to be involved in such a matter.
    I think that when students study the Bill in detail, and when they study what I have said on this matter, they will see that we have achieved the right balance. They are in the picture where they want to be, with every right to make representations through to the Privy Council on ordinance matters, and they are not in the picture only on this point, where they would be the first to agree that it is not appropriate they should be.
    Mr. Hannam: With the permission of the House, I should like to reply to my hon. Friend. I have listened with greater disappointment than usual to what she said. I am sure that there is some other answer which she may feel she cannot give us, but I must ask the House to consider the terms of the proposed Amendments.
    Paragraph (a) says:
    "a draft of the ordinance shall be sent to the Senatus Academicus and to the General Council",
    and the first Amendment proposes that a draft of that ordinance shall be sent to the students' representative council. There seems to be no harm in that.

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    The next operation is in paragraph (b), which deals with sending a notice to the Senatus Academicus and to the General Council, and telling them where a draft of it may be inspected. All that we are suggesting is that that information should be sent to the S.R.C. What possible harm can there be in that?
    The next operation is in paragraph (c) which says:
    "The University Court shall take into consideration any representations from the Senatus Academicus or the General Council…"
    Why should not the S.R.C. be able to make representations? I ask this bearing in mind the point made earlier in the debate about the difference in status of Scottish students vis-à-vis English students. How can any harm come from accepting this proposal?
    I differ from my hon. Friend when she says that students' representatives have made it clear that they are interested only in students' affairs. I wonder whether she has seen a copy of the memorandum which has been sent to me? On the question of prior consultation it calls for the effective representation of student opinion at all levels, and it says:
    "We base all the Amendments that we have made on two main assumptions…We on the Students' Representative Councils of the four ancient Scottish Universities believe we should play a full part in helping to govern our Universities. We reject the view that students are in the main irresponsible; and also the attitude that we are, on the Students' Representative Council, only here to concern outselves with student affairs."
    I do not know what could be clearer. That is what the students want. I have noted all the other arguments which have been adduced, and I put it to my hon. Friend that even at this late stage we might have a promise from her that she will agree to have one more look at the matter before it goes to another place.
    Mr. David Steel: I am sorry to rise again on this matter—
    Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Roderic Bowen): Order. The hon. Member has already spoken on the Amendment. He is not in order in speaking again.
    8.0 p.m.
    Mrs. Hart: Yes, Mr. Deputy Speaker. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) was replying
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    to the Amendment. I will consider whether it is possible to bring forward an Amendment which will allow things to be sent to the S.R.C. where it seems that it ought to be concerned, while not allowing things to go to it when it is not concerned, but the draftsmen will have to come up with something very clever if such an Amendment is to be found.
    Mr. David Steel: Before the hon. Lady sits down: it is quite unsatisfactory to look for any such Amendment. The present Amendment is an eminently reasonable one. It is important that the S.R.C. should decide on what it wishes to make representations, and it ought not to be the university court which decides what is appropriate. That is the difference. I hope that the hon. Lady will not look for a weird Amendment, but will be able to accept this one. She questions the fact that the subject of the age of retirement of a professor is of no concern to the S.R.C.
    I remember that in my student days we were very interested in such matters—
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Member is not entitled to make a speech in the guise of an interjection.
    Mrs. Hart: We all have strong views, but it does not follow that our views are relevant to the making of decisions. I want to quote from a Press statement from the Scottish Union of Students which says:
    "The Scottish Union of Students Executive Committee supports the Presidents of the S.R.C.s of the older Scottish Universities in their Memorandum on the Universities (Scotland) Bill particularly with respect to the necessity of prior consultation with the S.R.C. by the university authorities on all matters affecting students."
    It does not say "on all matters".
    The second quotation is from the St. Andrews students. Some incorrect assumptions have been made by the S.R.C.s in Scotland as a result of the limited Press reporting of our earlier debates. Hon. Members will remember that when this matter was reported generally in the Scottish Press—and not everybody can have a copy of the relevant OFFICIAL REPORT available—the discussion was concerned with rectorships and

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    the appointment of rectors' assessors and it appeared from the reports that I had put forward the students' rights as being represented entirely through the rector's assessor. Hon. Members will recall that that was only one point that I made. The rest of my argument was concerned with the other points that I have made tonight.
    In view of that, the students felt that it was necessary to write again, and they said:
    "We should point out at this point that we well appreciate that by no means all Court business, and not all Senate business, affects our respective student populations."
    That is quite right. There are matters which affect them and matters which do not.
    There may be borderline questions on which it would be right for the students to be the ones to decide, but there are equally borderline cases where it would be right for the court to decide that a certain matter was not one in respect of which it should put out a broad resolution which would go to all the students on the university. There may be some confidential matters, such as appointments to chairs, in respect of which it would not be appropriate for the students to know anything in advance of the event.
    Mr. Neil Carmichael: Surely my hon. Friend agrees that the notice will be displayed. There is no secrecy about it. The students can examine it in the appropriate place. I cannot see why there should be any difficulty about merely making one more copy for the S.R.C.s.
    Mrs. Hart: That is one point. The other concerns the Bill itself. Under Clause 4(b) the question of displaying resolutions or ordinances is dealt with, but there is also the question of taking into consideration representations. We have written into the Bill provisions concerning representations from the Senatus Academicus and the General Council and "other bodies having an interest." By this provision we are referring, in the case of students, for instance, to matters which are relevant to them as students. But there would be matters which were relevant to the Association of University Teachers, and other matters which would be relevant to other bodies. The moment we write in the words "Students Representative
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    Council" we must consider how many other bodies which have an interest should be written in. This would be really difficult in terms of drafting.
    What I have said to my hon. Friend is that, recognising the point that is being made, very forcibly, by my hon. Friends and the hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel), I will see whether it is possible to devise anything during the further consideration of the Bill. But I would not like my hon. Friends to believe that I hold out any high hopes of being able to do so.
    Mr. Edward M. Taylor: Throughout these proceedings I have found myself almost completely in agreement with the hon. Lady. I thought that she was very fair and reasonable. But on this Amendment I find it difficult to see how she can justify her objection. The only thing that I can think is that there is some other reason, which has not been mentioned in the House, for the rejection of the Amendment. If this is so, it would help if we had a general indication of the real reason.
    The main argument advanced for rejecting the Amendment is that some of these matters are not the proper concern of students. I was not greatly impressed by some of the hon. Lady's examples. She referred to the question of the age of retiral for professors. In my opinion, this matter greatly affects students. If a student is sitting in a class day after day, hearing lectures from an elderly professor, he can form very decided views, and I suggest that no one is more able to offer an authoritative point of view than a student. This is a matter in which students can put forward very relevant points of view, which should be listened to.
    The real reason for not accepting the Amendment may be a general fear on the part of universities that once these ordinances are issued to the student body and all and sundry it might cause the students to become obsessed with constitutional matters, and cause them to make representations on some items of administration and constitutional Government which would be of no real assistance because they did not know all the implications involved in any change of the constitution. I suggest that in the kind of case mentioned by the Robbins Committee ordinances

    1011
    brought forward by the Scottish universities concerning changes in curricula or the establishment of new Chairs are matters in which students' views would be be as important as any others.
    The other argument put forward is that if we bring in the S.R.C.s we shall find difficulty in not taking into account the points of view of other people who might have a remote interest in the kind of things covered by these ordinances. But surely the people who are directly involved are the students, the General Council and the Senate. I cannot think of any other organisation which would have a direct interest in the matters covered by these ordinances. I feel that the real fear is that the S.R.C.s will take an unfair and unreasonable interest in constitutional matters. This is something which must be discovered on the basis of experience. I should be very worried if, on the one hand, we said that it was right for these ordinances to be displayed publicly for everyone to see if they wanted, and, nevertheless, not to provide for a copy to be sent to the S.R.C.s. Is it reasonable that we should expect people in the S.R.C. to take shorthand notes from a notice board and not to be sent copies in due course?
    The result will be that ordinances might be brought in of which the students would not be aware. They might miss one in which they had a vital interest. I have not been impressed by the arguments in this case. I am sorry about this because, in every other case, the Under-Secretary has adopted a very fair and reasonable point of view. I feel strongly about this and I hope that she can accept the Amendment as it is.
    I hope, for these reasons, that the hon. Member for Maryhill will not withdraw the Amendment.
    Sir M. Galpern: I support my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State in her rejection of the Amendment. She has stated the case clearly and, I hope, in a manner acceptable to the student body itself. Throughout this argument, I detected an attempt to create another governing body of the universities. It seems that, in addition to the university court and the senatus, we are now to have the students' representative council also governing the university according
    1012
    to their desires and to their likes and dislikes.
    That seems to be the tenor of the argument of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylors)—
    Mr. David Steel: Will the hon. Member accept that the difference between what we are proposing and the powers of the other bodies is that the other bodies actually have powers in these matters? The S.R.C.s would be able to make submissions but would have no powers and there would be no question of their becoming a governing body.
    Sir M. Galpern: I would not accept that, because the hon. Member for Cathcart has indicated that the students might want to poke their noses into constitutional matters, too. No one will prevent it and no one will say where to draw the line. I know the student body and some of their pranks. If we carried out this exercise, it would create great difficulties for the university authorities. This situation could arise quite easily. The Under-Secretary has used probably a bad example in referring to the retirement of a professor, because there is no statutory retiring age. A man of 85, 95, or 100 might be a far better professor than when he was a younger man because he has had greater experience.
    I think that the student body will be quite content with the many assurances which have been given this evening and which were given some time ago, that they will have ample opportunity to make representations in their proper sphere of activity, namely, in matters directly affecting the student body. It would be interesting to see what happened if we elevated the students' representative councils to the position in which some hon. Members would like to see them.
    I do not know the exact figures, but it would be interesting to know how many students in each of the universities take part in the election of the members of their students' representative council—
    Mr. David Steel: How many citizens of Glasgow take part in the election of the Lord Provost and the other members of the council?
    Sir M. Galpern: Not a single member, thank goodness, takes part in the election of the Provost and this is entirely due to

    1013
    the wisdom, understanding, experience and maturity of the elected members of the local council.
    I was hoping that the hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel) would give me some indication of the percentage who actually take part. My recollection is that out of a student body in Glasgow of about 6,000, no more than 1,000, which would be putting it very high—
    Mr. Edward M. Taylor: Would the hon. Member agree that, while the figures in Glasgow are very low indeed and very disappointing and, to that extent, the students' representative council is not honestly representative, in other universities in Scotland the situation is very different? In Aberdeen, there is a good union and the students have a very representative council.
    8.15 p.m.
    Sir M. Galpern: I am glad that the hon. Member has been honest enough to admit that there is some validity in my argument that, at least in Glasgow, the small group which runs the representative council is not representative of the whole student body.
    The point is that, if we were to yield to the demands made on this point—I can understand the reasons for them—we should create a very dangerous situation for the universities. As a former member of a university court, I know that there could be many items upon which the student body could easily claim, depending on the composition as determined from year to year, that they have an interest, just for the fun of it, in offering views upon matters which are wholly out-with their concern.
    Therefore, with the assurances which have been given and which meet the real desires of the students' representative council, which, after all, should be a very important and responsible body, which should be knowledgeable in the statutory powers which are vested in it and which should know its rights, I think that they should make a study of the rights which are presently open to them. One has been mentioned by the Under-Secretary—that they can go right to the Privy Council to make their ultimate representation against anything which the University Court does. Therefore, I think
    1014
    that the Under-Secretary has done very well in explaining the position and I would appeal to my hon. Friends to withdraw the Amendment.
    Mr. Hannan: I have listened to the arguments and we have had a good debate on this point. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Shettleston (Sir M. Galpern) insisted, as, I think, did my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary, that the students are content with the assurances which have been given. I hold in my hand a memorandum from the S.R.C. presidents of the four ancient Scottish universities—not just one, but all four—in which they say:
    "We submit that this Sub-section should be amended to read: 'A draft of the ordinance shall be sent to the Senatus Academicus, and to General Council and to the Students' Representative Council.'"
    The last six words are underlined. This goes right through to Clause 6.
    Sir M. Galpern: I am prepared to accept that there is a conflict of opinion about what the students' representative councils, representing the student body, actually desire, but if we are prepared to accept, as I am, what my hon. Friend has just read, surely it shows the irresponsibility of the student body itself in making such wholesale demands.
    Mr. Hannan: I take the opposite view. I think that those who do not recognise the facts and come up to date with modern times have to ask themselves whether they are not being a little irresponsible. It seems to be thought that authority is being challenged here and this is resented. Of course, I have maintained for years that there is a resentment against any challenge which is being made. If young people are to act responsibly, they have to be treated responsibly—
    Mrs. Hart: I think my hon. Friend knows that he and I share the same point of view on the need for partnership in the universities between the university authorities and the students. Would he not agree that perhaps we in this House are better at drafting legislation that the best S.R.C.?
    Mr. Hannan: If that is a reflection on anyone, it is a reflection on me. These Amendments were put down before the Christmas Recess and before the students'

    1015
    representative councils had made any representations at all. If hon. Members care to look at the Order Paper before the Christmas Recess, they will see that the Amendments were there. It is no reflection on the students' representative council. If anyone has to carry the can, I am prepared to carry it.
    My hon. Friend said that she will consider whether she can find a place for this proposal in the Bill at a later stage. In view of what she said, knowing her

    Division No. 25.]

    AYES

    [8.21 p.m.

    Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)

    Harper, Joseph

    Palmer, Arthur

    Armstrong, Ernest

    Harrison, Walter (Wakefield)

    Parker, John

    Atkinson, Norman

    Hart, Mrs. Judith

    Peart, Rt. Hn. Fred

    Bacon, Rt. Hn. Alice

    Harvie Anderson, Miss

    Popplewell, Ernest

    Barnett, Joel

    Hazell, Bert

    Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)

    Bence, Cyril

    Houghton, Rt. Hn. Douglas

    Probert, Arthur

    Benn, Rt. Hn. Anthony Wedgwood

    Howarth, Harry (Wellingborough)

    Rankin, John

    Bennett, J. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

    Hoy, James

    Redhead, Edward

    Bishop, E. S.

    Hunter, Adam (Dunfermline)

    Rees, Merlyn

    Blackburn, F.

    Hunter, A. E. (Feltham)

    Rhodes, Geoffrey

    Blenkinsop, Arthur

    Hutchison, Michael Clark

    Rose, Paul B.

    Boardman, H.

    Hynd, John (Attercliffe)

    Ross, Rt. Hn. William

    Braddock, Mrs. E. M.

    Irving, Sydney (Dartford)

    Sheldon, Robert

    Bray, Dr. Jeremy

    Jackson, Colin

    Silkin, John (Deptford)

    Broughton, Dr. A. D. D.

    Jenkins, Hugh (Putney)

    Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)

    Brown, Rt. Hn. George (Belper)

    Jones, Dan (Burnley)

    Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)

    Buchanan-Smith, Alick

    Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)

    Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)

    Callaghan, Rt. Hn. James

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

    Snow, Julian

    Carter-Jones, Lewis

    Leadbitter, Ted

    Spriggs, Leslie

    Coleman, Donald

    Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)

    Steele, Thomas (Dunbartonshire, W.)

    Conlan, Bernard

    Lewis, Ron (Carlisle)

    Stones, William

    Cousins, Rt. Hn. Frank

    Lipton, Marcus

    Swingler, Stephen

    Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)

    Lomas, Kenneth

    Symonds, J. B.

    Crawshaw, Richard

    Loughlin, Charles

    Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)

    Crosland, Rt. Hn. Anthony

    MacColl, James

    Thomas, George (Cardiff, W.)

    Cullen, Mrs. Alice

    MacDermot, Niall

    Thornton, Ernest

    Dalyell, Tam

    McGuire, Michael

    Urwin, T. W.

    Darling, George

    Mackenzie, Gregor (Rutherglen)

    Varley, Eric G.

    Doig, Peter

    McNamara, Kevin

    Wainwright, Edwin

    Duffy, Dr. A. E. P.

    Mahon, Peter (Preston, S.)

    Walker, Harold (Doncaster)

    Dunn, James A.

    Mahon, Simon (Bootle)

    Wallace, George

    Dunnett, Jack

    Mallalieu, E. L. (Brigg)

    Watkins, Tudor

    Ensor, David

    Manuel, Archie

    Wells, William (Walsall, N.)

    Evans, Ioan (Birmingham, Yardley)

    Mapp, Charles

    Whitlock, William

    Fernyhough, E.

    Mason, Roy

    Wigg, Rt. Hn. George

    Fitch, Alan (Wigan)

    Millan, Bruce

    Wilkins, W. A.

    Fletcher, Ted (Darlington)

    Milne, Edward (Blyth)

    Willey, Rt. Hn. Frederick

    Galpern, Sir Myer

    Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe)

    Willis, George (Edinburgh, E.)

    Garrett, W. E.

    Morris, Charles (Openshaw)

    Wilson, Rt. Hn. Harold (Huyton)

    Ginsburg, David

    Neal, Harold

    Wilson, William (Coventry, S.)

    Gourlay, Harry

    Noel-Baker, Francis (Swindon)

    Woodburn, Rt. Hn. A.

    Gregory, Arnold

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

    Woof, Robert

    Grey, Charles

    Norwood, Christopher

    Griffiths, Rt. Hn. James (Llanelly)

    Oakes, Gordon

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES:

    Griffiths, Will (M'chester, Exchange)

    Ogden, Eric

    Mr. George Lawson and

    Hamilton, James (Bothwell)

    O'Malley, Brian

    Mr. John McCann.

    Hamling, William (Woolwich, W.)

    Oswald, Thomas

    NOES

    Grimond, Rt. Hn. J.

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES:

    Mackenzie, Alasdair (Ross & Crom'ty)

    Mr. David Steel and

    Mr. Edward M. Taylor.

    interest in the subject and believing that, despite the arguments, she will do so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Is it your pleasure that the Amendment be withdrawn?
    Hon. Members: No.
    Question put, That "and to" stand part of the Bill:—
    The House divided: Ayes 137, Noes 2.
    8.30 p.m.
    Mr. Hannan: I beg to move Amendment No. 6, in page 3, line 19, to leave out "one month" and to insert "two months".
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: It will be in order to discuss with this Amendment, Amendments Nos. 7, 18, 20 and 22.
    Mr. Hannan: Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. These Amendments are proposed in respect of ordinances. We debated the matter in Committee, when it was pointed out that the General Councils of Glasgow University and Edinburgh University—and I understand that the General Council of Aberdeen University has no objection—think that one month for the consideration of an ordinance is insufficient time for it to be properly considered.
    The General Councils point out that their members in Glasgow number 23, that it could, and sometimes does, happen that just after having had a meeting they may be presented with an ordinance and that by the time the members meet again a good deal of the allotted time will have elapsed. They therefore strongly feel that the period should be two months.
    It is part of the purpose of the Bill to facilitate the universities in the work pertaining to ordinances. At one time—and it is only by this Bill that the procedure is being altered—if a university wanted to promote an ordinance it had to consult the other three universities in Scotland on the subject. Now the universities can proceed separately. At one time it took between six and 12 months to get an ordinance successfully through all its procedures, including the procedures in this House.
    In view of the length of time being cut to one month, as proposed in the Bill, it is considered that two months would be a reasonable compromise. While the General Councils do not wish to hinder the universities in their work, it is suggested that at least two months should be allowed for the consideration of an ordinance.
    Mr. N. R. Wylie: I support the Amendment for the reasons stated by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan). My information is that three out of the four
    1018
    General Councils in Scotland are actively seeking this and that the fourth has no objection to it. To that extent, my information coincides with that of the hon. Member for Maryhill.
    These ordinances are important matters, and perhaps I may refer to what the hon. Lady the Under-Secretary of State gave in Committee as reasons for not accepting the Amendment when initially proposed. Her first reason was that
    "…the ordinance procedure covers many important matters on which the university itself, the general council and the constituent bodies of the university have the right to comment and make their views clear."
    For that very reason, this two-month time factor should be permitted, because these are important matters which the constituent bodies of the university ought to have an opportunity to consider and upon which they should have a proper chance to make representations.
    The hon. Lady very fairly considered the matter at some length. I think that she was concerned that by substituting two months for one month the normal process of university administration would be retarded rather than accelerated, which is the purpose of the whole Bill. She said that there was a danger that the maximum period would be regarded as a minimum period and that the work of the university would be unnecessarily held up—
    "…for example, in advertising a new Chair on the death of a professor, and that kind of situation."
    I appreciate the force of those arguments. I appreciate that there may be some circumstances in which there is an element of urgency.
    That, I think, was the real reason for the hon. Lady's rejection of the Amendment in Committee, because she then said:
    "I think that on balance the most important consideration is to make it possible for decisions to be reached on matters of some urgency within a month."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Scottish Standing Committee, 14th December, 1965; c. 107.]
    I accept that view, and it is with that consideration in mind that the qualifying provisions in Amendment No. 7 have been inserted.
    The period of eight weeks was suggested at the instance of a principal of one of the universities. That is why

    1019
    Amendment No. 7 seeks to insert the words:
    "eight weeks (or such shorter period, being not less than one month, which is deemed appropriate by the University Court on the ground of urgency).".
    I think that this wording meets the objection made by the hon. Lady in Committee and, in the light of that modification, I know that all hon. Members on this side—and, I think, on the other side—would be glad to learn that she is now willing to accept the Amendment.
    Miss Harvie Anderson: I support the Amendment. We have recently had particularly good evidence in the City of Glasgow of the importance, the balance and the good sense of the general council. As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Pentlands (Mr. Wylie) has just said, the delays which this Bill seeks to reduce were caused by draft ordinances having to be sent round the universities. That necessity having been removed for the future, it seems to me that the procedure will not be unduly impeded if the hon. Lady is able to accept the Amendment.
    The hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) referred, perhaps in error, to the 23 members as the 23 members of the General Council. It should be put on record that they are the members of the business committee through which the General Council operates. As I understand it, that committee is itself subdivided into two committees of 11 members each, with a chairman operating between the two.
    We should also consider very seriously who these people are, because they are giving their services voluntarily. Each and every one of them is a distinguished member of a profession or business who, of necessity, cannot readily make himself available. I believe that practice has proved that it requires a fortnight effectively to call a meeting of this body which we are now discussing. If that be so, I urge the hon. Lady to consider that if it requires a fortnight to get the people together, and that then consideration has to be given to whatever matter comes before them, two things may still have to happen, both of which are, in my opinion, of the utmost importance. The first is
    1020
    that which has become so evident recently in Glasgow, the formation and dissemination of information and public opinion. This I do not think can be done in what in fact would be a week.
    The second is that there can be many circumstances in which the 23 persons most concerned may not collectively or individually have the specialist information which they require. Time should be available to them to seek that information if they so wish. Apart from what the hon. Lady said in Committee about the possibility of delay and the desirability of avoiding delay, I cannot think that there is any serious objection to the period of two months, or eight weeks. I urge the hon. Lady most strenuously, both because representations have been so strong from Glasgow University which has had such recent experience of the importance of this matter and also because it is supported by the other universities, to see her way to accept this Amendment.
    Mrs. Hart: One thing should be made quite clear at the outset. There is no suggestion of shortening a period which at the moment is long. Under the 1889 Act the period allowed for draft ordinance and new ordinance procedure is one month. This is also the period allowed for similar consultations in the charters of new universities. We should be quite clear that what we are discussing is not shortening a period but keeping it the same or lengthening it. It is of some relevance to get that into perspective.
    Miss Harvie Anderson: I think the hon. Lady will agree that in 1889 the universities were very much smaller. It is not fair to compare the total number of people concerned in 1889 with the vast body of people who are now concerned in a General Council and graduates of today.
    Mrs. Hart: I completely accept that, but the charters of the new universities also stipulate one month. I make the point to show that we are not making any devastating suggestion that we should shorten the period, but are keeping it the same or lengthening the period.
    I recognise the strength of the argument made by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) and of the hon. Lady the Member for

    1021
    Renfrew, East (Miss Harvie Anderson). There are some difficulties and I must put them clearly before the House. I address my remarks to the Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur) and say this to my hon. Friend the Member for Maryhill. Eight weeks is one week shorter than two months and therefore nearer to my point of view. One difficulty is that it would introduce an element of uncertainty into the relationship between the court on the one hand and the senate and the general council on the other, because the general council and the other bodies would not know in advance whether any particular ordinance was to be regarded as urgent.
    I take the point made by the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh, Pentlands (Mr. Wylie) in the Amendment by which he seeks to cover the kind of case of which I spoke in Committee. If we make a distinction between some matters which can take eight weeks to resolve and some which a university court wants to get through in a hurry—such as the appointment to a new chair which for some reason or another the court wants to do quickly and as a matter of urgency, it can be done in a period of not less than a month—only the court can decide what is urgent.
    Whatever becomes the statutory period, if something on these lines is accepted eight weeks would not be the maximum but would be assumed to be the minimum period. If the general council decided to have statutory meetings once in six weeks it could suddenly receive a notice from the court that a particular matter on which a draft ordinance or resolution was coming forward was regarded as a matter of urgency and it would be asked to consider it within a month. There is some difficulty about the uncertainty. The big difficulty in the drafting of the Amendment—I think that this will be accepted by the House—is that, as drafted, it makes no provision for any public announcement of the length of the period within which representations are to be received. This clearly would have to be written in, otherwise there would be a risk that interested bodies would fail to make their views known to the court in time on any ordinance which the court had decided to regard as urgent.
    1022
    8.45 p.m.
    Another difficulty is that no corresponding Amendment has been tabled in regard to the resolution procedure. This Amendment deals with the ordinance procedure. There would need to be a corresponding one on the resolution procedure. Perhaps the hon. and learned Member for Pentlands can explain to me whether the Opposition had in mind that
    "eight weeks (or such shorter period, being not less than one month…"
    would apply only under Clause 4 on the ordinance procedure and would not apply on the resolution procedure.
    Mr. Wylie: That certainly was the intention. I make no claim to being a Parliamentary draftsman. I dare say that the drafting could be improved. It was appreciated that under the resolution procedure there was Clause 6(2) to deal with emergencies. It seemed to us that a provision of this nature could deal with the legitimate problem which was raised by the hon. Lady on Clause 4.
    Mrs. Hart: This would mean, then, that in relation to the Clause 6 procedure the period that the hon. and learned Gentleman wished to have here would be again the eight weeks? Here there is a further difficulty, because the lengthy discussion we had on the emergency resolution procedure—
    Mr. Wylie: It would be one month under Clause 6, but because of the gravity of the subject matter of the ordinance we thought that it should be two months in Clause 4, unless there was some reason, at the discretion of the Court, for reducing it.
    Mrs. Hart: I am grateful to the hon. and learned Gentleman. This was my original understanding, but I was anxious to establish it quite clearly. I think that there would be much less objection to this, because one is drawing a distinction between the ordinance and the resolution procedure. This means that there are three possible points of view. There is the point of view of my hon. Friend the Member for Maryhill and my other hon. Friends, who would have liked to make the one month apply to the resolution procedure as well.
    Mr. Hannan: If it will facilitate matters and allow us to get on more expeditiously, and if you will allow me to make referance to Clause 6, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I

    1023
    would be content with what my hon. Friend proposes when we reach Clause 6 and confine myself at this moment to what is suggested in Clause 4.
    Mrs. Hart: I am grateful. Hon. Members will appreciate that it is a little difficult when one has three strands of opinion on two separate Clauses in three groups of Amendments. In that case, I think that the hon. and learned Member for Pentlands and my hon. Friend recognise the slight difficulties in the drafting. We still have a little more time in which we can do things to the Bill. I wonder if they would allow me to accept their suggestion in principle and look at it in another place. We will consider what would be the precise form of the Amendment which would be suitable here, taking the point that it would be
    "eight weeks (or such shorter period, being not less than one month…"
    We will look at the detailed drafting. The Bill will come back to the House for further consideration.
    Mr. MacArthur: My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Pentlands (Mr. Wylie) and I are most grateful to the hon. Lady for that undertaking. I wonder whether she is thinking in terms of two months or eight weeks, or does she wish to keep an open mind on that question?
    Mrs. Hart: I would prefer to think in terms of eight weeks. As the hon. Gentleman knows, my desire is for brevity in these matters, and eight weeks is one week shorter than two months.
    Sir M. Galpern: I am somewhat disturbed about the elasticity of the proposal in the Amendment. After all, there could be complaints from the general council that the matter which the university court deemed to be urgent was in fact not urgent. Complaints of this character which one would hope would not arise, could nevertheless still be made against the university court. I suggest that when my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary is looking at this matter she will bear in mind the advisability of having a fixed period so as to avoid any abuse or doubt as to whether the university court was correct in its view of a particular ordinance.
    Mrs. Hart: I said that I wanted to look at the drafting. I particularly want to consider the words:
    "deemed appropriate by the University Court on the ground of urgency".
    and I also want to consider the question of making a public announcement—whether it will be variable or fixed.
    Hon. Members will appreciate that I am accepting the substance of the Amendment and I trust that they will be prepared to give me some flexibility in the wording.
    Mr. Hannan: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Mrs. Hart: I beg to move Amendment No. 12, in page 3, line 28, to leave out "or".
    Amendments in almost exactly the same terms were tabled by hon. Members opposite in Committee and we agreed with the substance of those Amendments. The substance was that all relevant considerations should be brought before the court at an early stage, but we took the view that the reference to "body" was unnecessary on the ground that "person" included "body". The hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh, Pentlands (Mr. Wylie) rather disputed this. We have now agreed to adopt the formula "body or person" and we have suggested this form of words in the Amendment.
    Am I right, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in thinking that we are taking with this Amendment No. 15, in line 29, after "Council", insert
    "or any other body or person having an interest".
    and Amendment No. 59, in Clause 6, page 4, line 36, after "other", insert "body or"?
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: No, Amendment No. 12 is being taken on its own.
    Mrs. Hart: For the convenience of the House may we take Amendments Nos. 15 and 59 with Amendment No. 12 which I am moving? This would facilitate the discussion. I can already see that I am out of order if we are only to take Amendment No. 12.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: We can take Amendments Nos. 12, 15 and 59 if that

    1025
    meets the convenience of the House. So be it.
    Mrs. Hart: We are dealing with the "body or person" question which gave us cause for thought in Committee. We have agreed that this formula is best. I think that it meets the point of view of the whole of the Committee. The consequential Amendment No. 59 would keep the resolution procedure in this respect in line with the wording of the ordinance procedure.
    Mr. Wylie: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for what she has said and for accepting the substance of the Amendment which was tabled in Committee. I do not think it was a case of my disputing what the hon. Lady said, as is contained in the Interpretation Act, 1889. It was really a question whether people went through the whole of their lives with the provisions of the 1889 Act uppermost in their minds. It seemed to me desirable to put a provision of this sort into the Bill although, in view of the provisions of that Act perhaps strictly speaking it was not really necessary.
    Mr. MacArthur: I do not want to delay the House at this hour, when we are moving forward with these Amendments in such harmony. I join my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Pentlands (Mr. Wylie) in thanking the hon. Lady for accepting this Amendment in principle and for bringing it forward again today.
    It might be helpful if another word could be said about the effect of this change, the introduction of "body or person" into Clause 4(c). It is particularly appropriate to do that in view of the rather heavy weather that we encountered earlier in the debate.
    The effect of the Amendment which we proposed in Committee and which we are now considering again today is that when a draft ordinance is published within one of the old universities, any body or person having an interest concerning the ordinance will be enabled to make representations about that ordinance to the court. It is important to stress this, because earlier the significance of the Amendment was not fully understood outside.
    1026
    The memorandum from the students, which has been referred to, may well have been written without a full appreciation of what the Amendment sought to do. I understand that the position now is that if the Amendment is passed today a draft ordinance will have to be displayed publicly within the university. Notices will have to be displayed in public places in the university calling attention to the place where the draft ordinance can be seen and inspected. It follows, therefore, that if the draft ordinance concerns the interests of students or non-professorial staff or any other body or person within the university they will have an opportunity to make representations about their concern to the Court.
    It seems to me that this meets, if not fully then very nearly fully, the points put forward to many hon. Members by the students. They will now be in a position as well as other bodies and persons to see the ordinances and make their representations about them known to the university court. I hope that this may help to clear the air a little and reassure students and other bodies that as a result of the Amendment their position will be protected and improved. I repeat my thanks to the hon. Lady for moving the Amendment.
    Mrs. Hart: In his interpretation of the full significance of the Amendment the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur) is quite right. I made my argument on this in relation to a previous Amendment even at the risk of getting slightly out of order in talking about an Amendment which we have not reached. It means that the students' representative council, in my view, is fully brought into the picture at every point that it would feel it appropriate to be brought in. I hope that students will study the full reports of what has been said in the House, rather than just the summaries which they might see here and there. If they do, I hope that they will agree that the Amendment truly safeguards their interests.
    Mr. David Steel: I do not for a moment accept what the hon. Lady has just said, though I support the Amendment. It still leaves the question whether the S.R.C. has or has not an interest to the university court, and that is the difference between us.
    Amendment agreed to.
    9.0 p.m.
    Further Amendment made: In page 3, line 29, after "Council", insert:
    "or any other body or person having an interest".—[Mrs. Hart.]
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: The next Amendment to be taken is No. 16, and I suggest that it may be for the convenience of the House to discuss at the same time Amendments Nos. 17, 19 and 21.
    Mrs. Hart: Mr. Deputy Speaker, as a point of order, may I suggest that, although, as you suggest, it may well be for the convenience of the House to discuss these Amendments together—I confess that I am not quite sure how to put this—we may be in some difficulty in treating this as a group of Amendments because, although we are concerned with the same words, they cover different points. Amendment No. 17 is specifically on a different matter from one or two of the other Amendments. So long as we are clear that we must be careful in considering all these Amendments and moving some of them formally, all will be well. Perhaps you will agree that attention might be drawn to that point.
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: Yes.
    Mrs. Hart: I beg to move Amendment No. 16, in page 3, line 30, to leave out, "said period of one month", and to insert:
    "period mentioned in the last foregoing paragraph".
    This is a drafting Amendment. We had a good deal of discussion on this point in Committee, when, quite rightly, various hon. Members drew my attention to the fact that the phrasing in the Clause as it stood contained some unnecessary words and was unduly repetitive. I resisted the wording of the Amendments then proposed on the ground that the words as they stood in the Clause made for a certain clarity in the matter, but I undertook, when they were withdrawn, to look at the drafting of the Clause again. This Amendment is the outcome of my further look at the drafting.
    The words "said period of one month" are replaced by the new wording proposed in the Amendment, and then at subsequent points in the Bill we take out
    1028
    the words "of one month", and the expression "the said period" remains. This goes most of the way to meet the point made by hon. Members opposite.
    The resolution procedure will be kept in step with the ordinance procedure in this respect by Amendments Nos. 32 and 33, in similar terms.
    Mr. MacArthur: I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for having taken note of the very sensible arguments put from this side in Committee on this relatively small drafting point. As she said, her Amendment No. 16 meets the point which we had in mind at that time.
    The hon. Lady was right to call attention to the fact that the intention of Amendment No. 17, in the name of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Pentlands (Mr. Wylie) and myself is rather different from our original purpose in raising this matter. This is so, of course, because we now have another question to consider. This Amendment relates directly to the earlier Amendment No. 7 which we have discussed under which we proposed to introduce eight weeks instead of one month as the period for consideration under Clause 4. If eight weeks ultimately proves acceptable, the reference to one month would no longer make sense.
    However, by one of those happy chances, the hon. Lady, in so kindly meeting the point we raised in Committee, has accidentally met the consequential point which arises from our earlier Amendment today, and I hope that, for the sake of tidiness and contentment all round, this Amendment will be accepted.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Further Amendments made: In page 3, line 31, leave out "of one month".
    In line 37, leave out "of one month".—[Mrs. Hart.]

    Clause 6.—(PASSING OF RESOLUTIONS.)
    Amendments made: In page 4, line 36, after "other", insert "body or".
    In line 38, leave out "said period of one month" and insert:
    "period mentioned in the last foregoing paragraph".
    In line 39, leave out "of one month".—[Mrs. Hart.]
    Mrs. Hart: I beg to move Amendment No. 36, in page 5, line 5, to leave out subsection (2) and to insert:
    (2) In the case of a resolution relating to matters mentioned in paragraph 2 or paragraph 4 of Part II of Schedule 2 to this Act, the University Court may at a meeting by a majority of not less than three-fourths of the members of the University Court present and voting determine that on the ground of extreme urgency the procedure set out in paragraphs (a) to (e) of the foregoing subsection in relation to that resolution should be dispensed with, and where the University Court so determine the resolution may be passed forthwith.
    We now come to the question of emergency resolution procedure. The Amendment will ensure that this procedure shall apply only in the case of resolutions dealing with regulations for degrees and for the founding of new professorships and that emergency resolutions, once passed, shall be displayed publicly within the university like any other resolutions.
    In Committee, some of my hon. Friends tabled Amendments designed to remove the emergency procedure from the Bill entirely, or, failing that, to ensure that any resolution passed under the emergency procedure should be subject to the normal rules of publication once it was made. We discussed that very fully in Committee, and sensibly came to the view that it was unlikely that there would be need for emergency procedure except in one or two cases. I think that the Committee accepted fully—certainly I did—the argument that emergency resolutions, once made, should be subject to public display in the usual way.
    I gave an undertaking to reconsider the terms of subsection (2) with a view to framing an Amendment to meet the point. This we have now done.
    Mr. Hannan: I thank my hon. Friend for the attention she has given to the Amendment. She generously undertook to do so because of the concern about the procedures in Clauses 4 and 6. She recognised that there was an emergency procedure in Clause 6 and has now given effect to the points we tried to make in Committee.
    Amendment agreed to.

    Clause 7.—(CONSTITUTION OF SENATES.)
    Mrs. Hart: I beg to move Amendment No. 37, in page 5, line 16, to leave out from "1858" to "shall" in line 17 and to insert:
    1030
    (2) The readers and lecturers to be included on a Senatus Academicus to which this section applies.
    This Amendment will ensure that, whatever the precise nature of the procedures laid down by different universities, the non-professorial members of the Senate will be elected to that body by their fellow lecturers and readers in the university. Considerable concern—understandably and correctly—was expressed in the preliminary consultations which the Government had with the Association of University Teachers about this and also during the Standing Committee by hon. Members about the method by which readers and lecturers would be appointed to the Senate.
    The main purpose of Amendments moved in Committee was to ensure that the non-professorial members were appointed by all the lecturers and readers in the university. However, we found that the wording of the Amendments which have led to undue rigidity at the universities in arranging elections. I accepted the principle and indicated that I would like to consider more precise drafting on the Report stage.
    This Amendment gives effect to the substance of the Amendments moved in Committee, recognising the importance of the point that was in our minds at the time but leaving it to the universities to determine the detailed arrangements for election to suit local circumstances and giving them the kind of freedom that they should have in this kind of rather precise and detailed matter.
    Mr. Tam Dalyell: I welcome the form of this Amendment.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Further Amendment made: In line 20, at end insert:
    "but the only persons qualified to vote in the election of those readers and lecturers shall be the readers and lecturers of the University concerned".—[Mrs. Hart.]

    Clause 8.—(POWERS OF SENATES.)
    Mrs. Hart: I beg to move Amendment No. 39, in line 26, to leave out "regulate and superintend" and to insert "promote".
    Mr. Deputy Speaker: It would be convenient to consider, at the same time, the following Amendment, also standing in the name of the hon. Lady, in line 28,

    1031
    leave out from "if" to end of line 29 and insert:
    "at the end thereof there were inserted the words 'and to promote research'".
    and Amendments Nos. 41 and 42, standing in the name of the hon. Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur), in line 28, leave out "teaching" and insert "University".
    and in line 29, leave out "word 'research'" and insert:
    "words 'and to promote research'".
    Mrs. Hart: An Amendment to this effect was accepted in Committee in principle, subject to drafting adjustments. We felt that the words "regulate and superintend", inherited from the 1889 Act, were out of keeping with the word "research", which we desire to have in the Bill because research is now so much a function of universities.
    We sought to find a precise word best suited to the circumstances. I was not sure that there was no better word lurking about than "promote", but I failed to find one and I am certain that "promote" will cover the point. It is satisfactory. I am here talking about Amendments No. 41 and No. 42, because the Amendment by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Perth and East Perthshire (Mr. MacArthur) is the same as mine on the substantial point. On the consequential point, we feel that these are the right words to use to make the consequential amendment to the 1889 Act. I think that this would probably be satisfactory to the hon. Gentleman, too.
    9.15 p.m.
    Mr. MacArthur: It would be churlish not to thank the hon. Lady for meeting the point, which we raised in Committee. As she says, there were some doubts about the use of the word "promote" at that time. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Pentlands (Mr. Wylie) and I have been thinking hard since the Committee stage to find a better word. We thought that "encourage" would illustrate the thought in our minds. However, it happened that the hon. Lady, and my hon. and learned Friend and I, put down precisely the same Amendment on the same day. I am very grateful to the hon. Lady for accepting the point we made in Committee.
    1032
    On the consequential point, as she says, her Amendment and ours seek the same end. Whether hers is better than ours is, I suppose, a point which might be debated, but I do not propose to do so now.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Further Amendment made: In page 5, line 28, leave out from "if" to end of line 29 and insert:
    "at the end thereof there were inserted the words 'and to promote research'".—[Mrs. Hart.]
    Sir John Gilmour: I beg to move Amendment No. 43, in page 5, line 34, at the end to insert:
    Provided that any committee set up by the Senatus Academicus to consider matters directly affecting students shall include at least one member of the Students' Representative Council.
    My purpose is to try to keep the spirit of bringing the students into consultation in all those parts of the university in which it is right and just they should be consulted. While the rector and the rector's assessor may in certain circumstances be looking after the students' interests, they may not be available to do so in sub-committees of the Senate and the Court. It seems to me that there might be a time when it would be right that they should be represented. On the other hand, I have been advised that the words I am using,
    "matters directly affecting students",
    could refer also to examinations, which emphatically affect students, and so by my Amendment a senate sub-committee would have to admit a representative of the students even when the sub-committee would be considering the students' examinations. I can see that that would not be right. What I seek to do is to say that when the committees and sub-committees are dealing with things which definitely affect the welfare of the students, then it is right that the students should be represented on the committees and subcommittees.
    Mr. Speaker: We can also talk now about Amendment No. 55 in the name of the hon. Member for Fife, East (Sir J. Gilmour), in page 12, line 24, at end insert:
    Provided that any committee set up by the Court to consider matters directly affecting the students shall include at least one member of the Students' Representative Council.
    Mr. David Steel: The laudable aim which the hon. Member for Fife, East (Sir J. Gilmour) seeks is, as far as I know, already carried out at all the universities. Where matters affect students directly—I think of an occasion when we had a joint committee for the planning of new halls of residence—such joint committees are set up. At Edinburgh, at least, and, I think, in the other universities there is a standing S.R.C.—Senatus liaison committee. While the Amendment is superficially attractive, as the hon. Member has pointed out it is impossible to put into effect. I only wish that his enthusiasm had been demonstrated in the Lobby with us earlier tonight.
    Mrs. Hart: I am glad to find myself in agreement with the hon. Member for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles (Mr. David Steel). The difficulty, as I pointed out on an earlier Amendment, is that while it is desired to make sure that the students, are brought in at every possible point, it is nevertheless extremely difficult so to draft Amendments that they provide precisely what one wants in these matters. Where a matter arises which directly concerns the students, a university will, no doubt, think it proper that a member of the students' representative council should be brought on to the appropriate committee or, on other matters, that the S.R.C. should be directly consulted by the university.
    There is such a diversity of matters with which a university is concerned that there will be some instances when a university does everything in its power to bring the students into the centre of the picture and others when the university feels—on matters of the kind I specified earlier, affecting new degrees and new chairs, for example—that it would not be right to do so. On this understanding, I think that the hon. Member will appreciate that I could not accept his Amendment.
    Sir J. Gilmour: In view of what has been said, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Mr. Hannan: I beg to move Amendment No. 57, in page 5, line 34, at the end, to insert:
    (3) It shall be the duty of the Senatus Academicus to prescribe the extent and procedure of their disciplinary powers, a copy
    1034
    of which shall be laid before the Secretary of State for Scotland.
    Mr. Speaker: With this Amendment it is suggested that we take also Amendment No. 58, in Schedule 2, page 11, line 14, at end insert:
    7. On the recommendation of the Senatus Academicus, to prescribe to extent of, and the procedure by which the disciplinary powers of the Senatus Academicus shall be exercised.
    and Amendment No. 60, in line 31, at end insert:
    4. On the recommendation of the Senatus Academicus, to prescribe the procedure to be followed in the case of alleged breaches of discipline within the University where the alleged breach is one which might be punishable by expulsion or rustication.
    Mr. Hannan: It will, I think, be agreed that this is one of the most important Amendments. I am pleased to see that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has put down an Amendment on similar lines. Because of the announced change of business at the end of last week, there was a little confusion concerning the appearance of Amendments on the Notice Paper and I put down mine on Thursday in case nothing else appeared. Since then, my hon. Friend had the courtesy to inform me that an Amendment would be put down in her name. My two Amendments were to Clause 8, dealing with the powers of the Senate, and to Schedule 2.
    These Amendments have come as the result of a great turmoil in the recent case in Glasgow. Having said that, I do not propose to follow in great detail much of what is bound to be known to hon. Members who represent Scottish constituencies. Suffice it to say that sufficient emanated from that case to cause great anxiety not only to those immediately implicated, but to parents, relatives and friends of the students concerned, as well as to men inside the university who were worried about procedures.
    As hon. Members know, on Second Reading and earlier I used fairly strong terms in describing some of the results, not of the mismanagement or the misguided individuals concerned, but of the terms of the old Acts, the lack of clarity of which led inevitably to mismanagement. I have called them archaic and medieval, and many of the facts are not known to this day by the principals and

    1035
    the senate who are responsible for administering discipline within the universities.
    Many of my hon. Friends criticised me because it seemed that on occasions my language was incontinent and unjustified, but it took the language of my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell), who used four words, to blow the top off it and get the services of the Press and of Parliament to inquire into all the circumstances. The facts of the case became known on 6th January of this year, when this Bill was half way through its Committee stage. Without the aid of my hon. Friend and of the Press the procedures which were followed in trying this case would not have come to light.
    In Committee, I tried to get the Government to accept an Amendment which would allow universities to exercise their disciplinary powers in criminal or quasi-criminal cases only after the normal processes of the law courts had been followed. After a very good debate I was satisfied that the proposed wording did not precisely meet the peculiar circumstances, but I am pleased to see that in the proposed Government Amendment such a distinction is made because it proposes
    "to prescribe the procedure to be followed in the case of alleged breaches of discipline within the University where the alleged breach is one which might be punishable by expulsion or rustication."
    To my lay mind those words are not very different from what I was attempting to say in my Amendment, but my hon. Friend advises me that they cover the point that I was trying to make.
    I have no intention—and I am sure that my hon. Friends take the same view—of dividing the House on the precise wording of the Amendment. Its purpose is to establish the duty of the senate to lay down a code of discipline which will be recognised by those who may be implicated in the future, in the sense that they will know whether the procedures which have been laid down have been followed in all future cases of discipline, and particularly in cases of discipline where there may be criminal charges which could lead to expulsion.
    This is a most important feature, because I hope that everyone now recognises
    1036
    that even on the university's own statement, grievous mistakes were made, and that the procedures adopted ignored the precepts of natural justice. Indeed, they cast serious doubts on the methods that were followed. The Glasgow Herald, which acted responsibly in this matter all the way through, said that
    "the terms in which the reprimand"
    to one of the accused
    "have been announced were more openly generous, if not apologetic and less grudgingly legalistic."
    9.30 p.m.
    I have read my hon. Friend's speech in reply to the Amendment on this point in Committee. She was not able to give us an assurance that she would look into the matter again before Report. But on being pressed further on the Question, "That the Schedule stand part of the Bill", she generously undertook to see what could be done. She indicated that she could not believe that Glasgow University would be prepared to leave the position as it was.
    Several questions are left unanswered in the aftermath of the Glasgow University case, and I would like to know what objections there are to placing this duty on the senate. What is the objection to making it a duty in matters which are of so profound an importance for the future of students and perhaps their future health if they are implicated in cases of a criminal or semi-criminal character, where it is vitally important that justice should be seen to be done?
    There is a great deal of agreement about these Amendments. Whatever happens, we surely should provide that the procedural rules are prescribed by the universities themselves, but can they go far enough to distinguish between criminal cases and other cases? My hon. Friend touched on this question in Committee. She tended to think that what they should do was to provide procedural regulations. I accept that. But there are no express principles governing the sufficiency of the evidence required in such cases. The rôles of prosecutor and judge are not clearly defined. There is no necessity to notify accused persons of the offences with which they are charged, nor is there any obligation to hear the prosecution evidence and the reply of the defence.

    1037
    But the most serious defect is that there is no necessity for the Senate to publish the offences with which students are charged. It is possible for the Senate, through the principal and dean's committee, to declare certain conduct to be an academic offence, to charge a student with that offence, and then to adjudicate upon his guilt. This is a system of procedure and rules of evidence of its own devising. It means that the Senate is the legislator, prosecutor, and judge in its own case. The principal is the chairman of the Senate and dean's committee and he is also the chairman of the court to which appeals go.
    I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to assure us that directions will be afforded. I am sure that all hon. Members hope that, as a result, universities will try to forget what has happened and go on in the assurance that the House has tried to do something which they should have done long ago.
    Sir M. Galpern: The House ought to be reminded that if the Amendment is accepted it will not be directed solely against Glasgow University. It will affect the four older Scottish Universities.
    Throughout the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) we got the impression that the only body requiring such guidance and direction is the University of Glasgow, because of the recent happenings which have been highlighted in the Press. I wish to come to the defence of Glasgow University. I have already said, and I repeat, that I regard the most intemperate language used against the officers of the Senate and of the court as wholly unwarranted.
    This Amendment or that proposed by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State might lead, at the end of the day, to the same disciplinary procedures followed in the recent unfortunate incident being adopted as the future disciplinary code for dealing with students who may be punished by expulsion or rustication. I have not yet heard a single criticism of the conduct of the officers of the University of Glasgow on the basis of the procedure which they adopted in the recent case. It all revolves round the fact that, for some reason best known to themselves, they regarded it as more appropriate and honourable not to come into public and engage in a struggle in the
    1038
    Press in order to vindicate the procedures used during this investigation.
    I feel that the emotions aroused on behalf of the guilty in some hon. Members completely overlook the unfortunate victim, who has suffered so much during these proceedings. She seems to have been sunk without trace and one would think that there had been deliberate investigations by the university into something which did not occur. Yet every hon. Member, particularly those who have examined the Press on these matters, knows that the procedures laid down were not adopted because of the Press campaign, but had been carried out long before it ever became a matter of interest to the Press.
    What had actually happened was that, because one committee which heard the appeal made a recommendation, which, in the judgment of the court itself, should be overturned—after all, it has the right to overturn even the finding of a subcommittee—because it made that one mistake—in the eyes of certain hon. Members—it was subjected to the most violent and virulent abuse which any officer of a university has ever suffered during the four or five hundred years of its institution. I wish to impress on hon. Members that all the procedures which were open to the people who were alleged to be guilty of grave misdemeanours, and who were found guilty of them, were not challenged by any hon. Member or by anyone else.
    Of course, this was because the authorities employed them. They were not manufactured specially for this occasion. They were there, the university authorities were empowered to employ them and they did so. No one, I hope, can level the charge against the university authorities that they failed to conduct a reasonable and just inquiry. Their failure has been their reticence in this matter. I feel that, if any criticism is to be levelled against the university authorities, it is that they kept quiet for so long and made their belated statement so tardily.
    They should have come into the open and let the people know precisely what had happened and what machinery of investigation they had employed. If this had been done, an entirely different interpretation and understanding of the situation would have been instilled into the minds of the public.

    1039
    Unfortunately, great damage has been done to our university institutions for no justifiable reason. If it could have been said that the universities had refused to give any reason for their action, or if they had refused to accept the right of appeal once appeals had been requested by the miscreants, then they would have deserved all the criticism which they would have received. But that is not the case. My hon. Friends know full well that these procedures were carried out.
    I therefore hope that we shall accept Amendment No. 60, which will prescribe the procedure to be followed in the case of breaches of discipline. I hope that the student body will recognise that there must be a disciplinary body in a university and that we cannot permit students, who are there at the taxpayers' expense, to indulge in conduct which may not be criminal but which may be against the best interests of the university or their own future. In such circumstances, they ought to be brought under some form of discipline.
    I welcome the Amendment because the procedure will be there for everyone to see. Everyone can read what are the various steps to be taken when an allegation of breach of discipline is made against a student of any of the four universities in Scotland.
    I hope that with this Amendment the whole of this sorry incident will be closed for ever more. It has done great damage to great leaders of our university life, who have suffered a great deal because of the mud which has been thrown at them in a quite unwarranted manner.
    Mr. Edward M. Taylor: I am a Glasgow Member and a graduate of the university and I have a great deal of sympathy for what was said by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Shettleston (Sir M. Galpern). What he said should have been said a long time ago, and I am glad that it has been said now.
    Because of the incidents which have taken place, it has been accepted that there is a need for something new in place of the present procedure. The Secretary of State has brought forward Amendment No. 60, which suggests some new arrangement. But even though the need for a change has been accepted, I suggest that there is an obligation on the Joint Under-Secretary
    1040
    of State to explain precisely how it will work.
    One problem, in particular, comes to my mind. The new procedure in the case of an alleged breach of discipline is to be followed where the alleged breach
    "is one which might be punishable by expulsion or rustication."
    It is the experience of most senates that disciplinary problems usually arise from some complaint about behaviour, perhaps when some small incident has taken place, and until a full investigation has been undertaken through the normal procedures of the university, it is difficult to know the kind of facts which may be brought out and whether the breach of discipline which emerges will be one which is
    "punishable by expulsion or rustication."
    If, therefore, we are to specify a distinction in university crimes between those to be considered by the normal procedure and those to be considered by this new procedure, we must go even further back and decide how we can make this distinction in the earlier stages. Is it not possible that students' evidence may produce facts in the preliminary investigation which lead them to feel that natural justice has been overturned in the way in which the matter has been handled?
    The principal complaint which has been advanced in the past has been that university disciplinary procedures appear not to fit in with the normal judicial procedures. Surely it would be very dangerous if we tried to produce an inflexible and rigid system of carrying out discipline in the universities which conformed to what we might call the judicial procedure outside. The benefit which we have had from the normal university disciplinary procedure has arisen from its informal nature. It might be more wise, before proceeding with the Amendment, if there could be considerable and, perhaps, protracted discussions between the universities and the Home Office or any one else in a position to give good guidance.
    At present we are considering an Amendment when, following the unfortunate case which took place in Glasgow, we have had no indication of the real university view on the subject. The impression seems to have got around that because certain facts and arguments have been advanced in one direction and

    1041
    because the university senate or the principal have not replied to them fully, there is only one side to the argument.
    The university principal, being in the position he was, could not, as an individual, make a full senate statement. Until a substantial amount of discussion had taken place within the whole senate it would not have been possible for a senate view to be expressed on the matter. Thus, only one point of view has been put forward and I suggest that it would be dangerous to go forward with something as rigid as the Amendment.
    We should bear in mind that the old procedures were responsible for handling a substantial number of disciplinary complaints over the years and that, until this time, there has been no major complaint. I draw the attention of the House to something that happened when I was at the university. We had an election of a rector. The students wisely decided to choose a gentleman who is now Lord Butler and who sits in another place. It was a good decision, but unfortunately when the time came for the formal installation there was a great deal of rioting, with flour bombs being thrown and so on. As a consequence, about 70 students were involved in disciplinary procedures. Fortunately, those proceedings were informal; no names were published and there were, as far as I know, no complaints from the students.
    That is not an isolated example. It is one of many cases which have occurred over the years in which disciplinary matters have been handled in an informal way, in secret, with no complaints following them. That is why I say that it is dangerous, when we have had this history of justice being done in an informal way—a way that would seem appropriate to a university—that, because of the controversy which has arisen out of one case, we should now go forward with a suggestion which states that we should make a distinction between different grades of university crimes.
    Apart from that, it would be even worse if we tried to bring in the distinction mentioned by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan) on matters which might be regarded as criminal in the civic sphere and those which might be considered to be criminal only in the university context. I understand that cases have arisen in the past,
    1042
    certainly in the last few years where there might have been prosecutions in the civic sphere but where the procurator fiscal took the view that, for the sake of the university and its reputation, they could more appropriately be handled by the university itself.
    It would be dangerous if we brought in new arrangements which prevented that sort of thing from happening. While it is generally accepted that there is need for a change, I am not entirely convinced that the change proposed in Amendment No. 60 is the right one. The Under-Secretary has an obligation to explain precisely how the suggestion of her hon. Friend would work and the extent to which the matter has been discussed informally or formally with the people most concerned.
    9.45 p.m.
    Mrs. Hart: I am only too anxious to take the first opportunity I have to explain the purpose of the Amendment to the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor) and to answer the questions he asked. It might be for the convenience of the House if, since we are discussing a series of Amendments, I first of all explained exactly what is the aim of Amendment No. 60.
    I am rather sorry that the course of the discussion tonight has taken us back to the specific affair at Glasgow University. I had hoped that we might have left that behind us and have gone on to discuss this series of Amendments in relation to the Bill, without raking over so much of what has already been fully discussed both inside and outside the House; and I do not propose to add anything to what has been said earlier on this subject. It is not for the good of Glasgow University to do so now. I regret just as much the things that the hon. Member for Cathcart has said as anything that might have been said on this side of the Committee.
    The effect of Amendment No. 60 is to require the court and the senate between them—and we must remember that under the 1889 Act the senate exercises the disciplinary powers and the court comes in only as an appeal body—to put down on paper what the procedure for discipline is and to publish it within the university. It is then open to any interested party, whether students, members of staff or the general council, to suggest

    1043
    improvements and to offer criticism which may be taken into account before the resolution is finally made. Then if, in the light of experience, it seems desirable to make changes, the university can make these changes relatively easily, proceeding again by publishing a draft and considering any comment and criticism.
    I can assure the Committee that all four ancient universities will use this power and, indeed, will be glad to proceed in this way. Two of them—St. Andrews and Aberdeen—already have established procedures which have been working satisfactorily, and Edinburgh and Glasgow have already decided to revise their procedures. I should say, also, that all four principals have already been in correspondence with us on the subject, and have been most helpful.
    I recognise the desirability of an Amendment taking the form that this one takes, and perhaps I can say something about what the procedures are likely to cover. Before doing that, I should like to put the whole matter in perspective. As has already been said, we should remember that the vast majority of the offences against good order in a university are quite minor. They are dealt with, as they should be dealt with, informally. For example, a responsible member of the staff interviews the student. If need be, he reprimands him. In practice, there is very seldom any dispute about the facts. This is a point made to me by one principal. He said that in all the cases where he or his university had had to exercise discipline he had never known of a case where guilt was in dispute. That was his experience, though not quite shared by the others. Nevertheless, there is seldom any dispute about the facts. It would be quite wrong in such cases to suggest that the student should automatically appear before the committee of the senate, and so on.
    Again, we must remember that the need for suspension or rustication very often arises not because the student has offended against good order, but because he has failed to make good academic progress. There comes a point, as has been pointed out, in a comparatively few cases, where warnings have had no effect or where it is clear that the student has
    1044
    not the ability to make good, and may have to be sent down. This is serious for both the university and the student, and it must be dealt with seriously, but in terms of procedure it may require something quite different from what is required for an offence which has nothing to do with studies but is against good order. However that may be, the procedure should still be put on paper and made known. This is essentially the purpose of the Amendment.
    Because of recent events which have aroused in people the recognition that some things were not written down on paper that should have been so written down, it is with the last type of offence, that against good order, that all of us on both sides have been properly concerned, and it is on these cases that we are anxious to see the universities lay down a satisfactory procedure. That procedure will not cover serious offences against the law, which must obviously be reported to the police and may well be the subject of prosecution in the ordinary courts. The procedure must, however, cover cases involving such matters as cheating, impersonation in examinations, and other conduct which is intolerable in the university, as in any other body, but which may well not be an offence against the law of the land.
    Where the university authorities have any reason to suppose that a student has offended against good order in this way, the procedures which they will adopt should be made known to everyone in advance. It is for the universities themselves to frame their rules of procedure in the light of experience and on the ordinary principles of natural justice. I would expect, for example, the rules to provide that a student should be notified in advance what the charge against him was; that he would be entitled to be heard by whatever body is constituted to exercise discipline, to bring a friend to help and advise him and, if he wants, to lead evidence in his defence.
    If he is punished he should be advised of his rights of appeal, and when the appeal is heard by the court, or a committee of the court, the appeal body should include no one who has been directly concerned in the early stages. It should come fresh to the case. I should not like to leave the House with the impression that in matters of discipline and

    1045
    the procedures established within the universities the ancient Scottish universities have not a very good record. It is significant that: although the student's statutory right of appeal to the court has existed for many years, it has very seldom had to be exercised. I am certain that all four universities are now anxious to review their procedures as a matter of urgency. My right hon. Friend and I feel that there would be advantage in having further discussion on the subject with the universities.
    The House will recognise that there has been very little time to consider the precise terms of this Amendment before discussing the matter in the House tonight. We know that the principals are content with the form this proposal takes, but we should like further discussion with them. If following that it seems desirable to amend or extend the provision we are making in the Bill we should have the opportunity to put down any necessary Amendment in another place. We do not expect this to be the case, but it is only fair to say that I have not felt we have had as much time as I should have liked to have had before Report. We had the matter before us for three or four days and although we have had discussions and letters from the principals we should like the opportunity of further discussion.
    It will be clearly understood that in all this matter the students' representative council would be regarded as a body with an interest in the terms of Clause 6 and its views will be taken into consideration. I make clear that it is right only to give a power to the universities rather than to impose on them a duty because of our knowledge of their intentions. I am certain it is right to leave them free to frame their procedures in accordance with natural justice and, having done that, to write them down and make certain that they are known in the universities. In doing that rather than taking action as a result of the recent case in Glasgow, they will see it as a means of protection for the future. I would rather look at this Amendment in terms of safeguarding the future than in any way as an inquest on the past.
    Mr. Wylie: I wish to say briefly how much I and my hon. Friends agree with everything the hon. Lady has said. It is very wrong to try to write into public legislation of this nature a detailed code
    1046
    of procedure for disciplinary bodies of this kind. On the other hand, I think this a commendable attempt on the part of the hon. Lady to get something into the Bill dealing with these matters. I do not fully agree with the exact wording of the Amendment, but, as the hon. Lady said, it has been done quickly and will be subject to reconsideration. I think I can speak for my hon. Friends in saying that the proposal will receive our support.
    Mr. Buchan: As my hon. Friends will recognise, I have in some ways the most difficult task of all here and, as one most closely concerned, I should perhaps have had an opportunity—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member must not complain about the Chair's selection of those called to speak.
    Mr. Buchan: I am not complaining about the selection, but about the amount of time taken in which nothing was said by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Cathcart (Mr. Edward M. Taylor), which is another matter. I therefore propose to ignore the contribution which was made in that particular connection.
    Hon. Members will remember the attitude I took on this question before. It is therefore with great difficulty that I have to say that the situation has changed in a certain way. For this reason I regard the contribution made by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Shettleston (Sir M. Galpern) as unfortunate, and I think inaccurate. I think the kind of portmanteau support for the university's handling the evidence and rejection of the charges that have been made about the university's handling of it has done as much damage as some of the language to which he and I objected at the time, because we cannot rest content with the disciplinary methods which have applied.
    For this reason, I ask the Minister to look again at the Amendment suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Maryhill (Mr. Hannan). The key differences are that it should be a duty and go before the Secretary of State, I have little confidence about the nature of the recommendations which may come forward—
    It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.
    Debate to be resumed Tomorrow.

  SOLID FUEL (BULK DELIVERY)
  10.1 p.m.
  The Minister of State, Board of Trade (Mr. George Darling): I beg to move,
  That the Weights and Measures (Solid Fuel) (Carriage by Rail) Order 1966, a draft of which was laid before this House on 1st February, be approved.
  The House has before it tonight two Orders, which I understand must be taken separately. Although the Orders are as different as coal is from milk, both have the same purpose, which is to provide a commonsense solution to some trading difficulties without weakening in any way the protection against short weight and short measure which the Weights and Measures Act gives the domestic consumer.
  If I may explain the coal Order briefly, hon. Members who were involved with the Weights and Measures Bill will remember that the coal trade came in for considerable discussion, and the Act was written finally to give the customer full protection from the trader who might be tempted to sell less fuel than the customer had paid for.
  The rules for labelling solid fuel in sacks and containers with the proper weight, and so on, are very strict and tightly drawn, and, in general, the strict rules are carried back from the merchant to the source of supply—that is, in the case of coal, the National Coal Board. These rules, however, are unnecessarily onerous for certain types of bulk supply—for instance, to power stations and gas undertakings and to industrial concerns which regularly take in a whole train-load of coal wagons.
  The Act as it stands requires that each rail wagon is to be tare weighed at the loading place before a seller may load it with solid fuel for despatch to a buyer, and requires him to ticket the wagon with particulars of its load as soon as he has completed the loading and knows who the consignee is to be.
  The Coal Board has drawn our attention to certain cases where those requirements do not seem necessary for the protection of the customer and are, in fact, very difficult or inconvenient to comply with. In some collieries, for instance, special loading arrangements have been or are in the process of being introduced
  1048
  and these enable pre-weighed fuel to be loaded from overhead storage by automatic weighers which weigh the fuel net and automatically print the particulars for a complete train on one invoice. I am sure that the hon. Member for Reading (Mr. Peter Emery) will agree that this kind of development is to be encouraged. It cuts out the use of paper and of manpower.
  There are other cases where fuel is held at disused collieries or dumps where there is no weighing equipment, and where the fuel is to be loaded from collieries where there is at present no weighing equipment which does the job properly. There are cases where weighing at the point of loading is unnecessary because the Coal Board and the buyer have agreed that the weight of the fuel shall be determined at the wagon's destination. There are cases where the same wagons are repeatedly loaded with fuel for the same buyer and where the buyer would be prepared to accept the tare weighing at occasional intervals.
  We have accordingly discussed this matter very fully with other interested organisations, and have found general agreement that there is a case for relaxing the Act, as the Order does, in relation to whole trainloads of fuel going to one industrial user. Therefore, the Order has been presented in this way. I think that its terms, with that explanation, are quite clear. For other consignments, including, for instance, all deliveries of fuel to coal merchants for domestic consumers, the Act will continue to stand as it does now.
  As I have said, the Coal Board and its bulk industrial customers have asked us to relieve them of what are admittedly unnecessary administrative burdens, and I think this Order deals satisfactorily with the problem. I am sure that it will be generally acceptable to the House.
  10.5 p.m.
  Mr. Peter Emery: Obviously we want to assist in getting this Order through the House because, as the Minister of State has pointed out, it certainly goes some way in reducing a fairly tedious amount of weighing of material which, with modern mechanised methods, need not and should not be necessary today.

  1049
  There are about three questions that I should like to ask the Minister about this Order. First, he will see that there are three classifications in paragraph 1(ii) where it is possible for the tare weight not to be required. One of these is in sub-paragraph (ii, b), where the parties have agreed
  "that the weight of the load shall be ascertained at the vehicle's destination."
  I accept that this Order applies only to the extent of a full train load departure, from one pit or one area of a pit to one consumer. However, will the Minister consider carrying the application of this Order a little further?
  I cannot see any reason why this Order cannot be applied so that a customer—the consignee—agrees the tare weights once every quarter, or, as in this paragraph from which I have quoted, when the load reaches the consignee. In other words, it seems to me that the only thing wrong with this Order is that it has not been carried further. This is particularly true when one appreciates how little coal is moved by liner train or by the full train load and how much of the load in an ordinary goods train is made up of a multifarious amount of traffic.
  Secondly, returning to the purpose of the Order, let us suppose that the National Coal Board wishes to move six or eight wagons from a pit which does not have this weighing equipment and marshal them at a certain point with another 30 wagons, or bring in three lots of 10 wagons, to marshal into a train load of 30 wagons. I am not sure whether one could then have a train bill for all three trains which, when they are marshalled together, could become a single train bill. It would seem to me that there might be times when it would be convenient to the Coal Board to draw on dumps or on other pits in order to make up a full train. If the purpose of the Order is to save manpower I am sure that there could be no particular objection to interpreting the wording of this Statutory Instrument as I have suggested. Perhaps I may have some clarification on those specific points.
  10.9 p.m.
  Mr. Darling: The hon. Member for Reading (Mr. Peter Emery) has put forward a very pertinent point. He will appreciate that we have been very reluctant
  1050
  to depart from the strict rules of the Weights and Measures Act except where it is absolutely necessary, and I think the answer is that we have been very cautious and have considered that the best thing to do is to apply relief from the strict terms of the Act to full, complete, train loads. However, I give the assurance that we will look at this matter again. It has not been brought to our attention by the Coal Board or its industrial customers. They have been asking for relief to be given to full train-loads, but not to split train-loads, but I think that there is a pertinent point here and we will certainly look at it.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That the Weights and Measures (Solid Fuel) (Carriage by Rail) Order, 1966, a draft of which was laid before this House on 1st February, be approved.

  MILK (PREPACKING)
  10.11 p.m.
  Mr. Darling: I beg to move,
  That the Weights and Measures (Exemption) (Milk) Order 1966, a draft of which was laid before this House on 26th January, be approved.
  Hon. Members may recall that under Part V of Schedule 4 of the Weights and Measures Act, 1963, upon which, if I remember rightly, we spent weeks and weeks of discussion, milk, to quote the Act
  "…shall be prepacked only if—(a) it is made up in a quantity of one-third of a pint, half a pint, or a multiple of half a pint; and (b) if the container is marked with an indication of quantity by capacity measurement."
  The way in which the marking is to be carried out is laid down under the 1964 regulations which are applicable not only to milk but to all the various kinds of goods which have to be marked under the Act. Regulation 4, that is the 1964 Regulation, will require that after 31st July next year the quantity indication of containers must be in colour in distinct and conspicuous contrast to a plain background.
  I have been informed that on that date there will still be immense numbers of half-pint and one-pint milk bottles in existence which will fail to comply with the marking requirements. As the law stands these bottles will have to be

  1051
  scrapped and new ones provided. In addition, the silk screens now used for colouring the labels on milk bottles will need to be redesigned. When representations were made, we decided that something must be done to meet the problem, because if bottles had to be scrapped and screens redesigned, in the end the customer would have to pay for the unnecessary expense.
  One possibility to get out of the difficulty would have been to make special provision for milk bottles in the marking regulations, but it would have created an undesirable precedent for giving special exemption from marking regulations to goods of other kinds for which a case might be brought forward, but not with the same force. This would have landed us in difficulties because, subject to certain transitional exemptions for descriptions of food, these regulations apply uniformly to all descriptions of prepacked foods that require descriptions of quantity, and we did not want to get away from that general provision.
  The proposed Order provides a sensible solution to the problem. It deals with the milk problem alone and in a different manner. It exempts half-pint and one-pint bottles of milk from the requirement in the Act that they must have a quantity marking. The requirement for quantity marking in the case of pints and half-pints seems to us quite unnecessary because there is no danger at all of these sizes being confused. It is like saying to the housewife, who knows precisely what a pint bottle of milk is, that a pint bottle of milk is a pint bottle of milk. There is no need to write it on the bottle. She knows also that a half-pint bottle is about half the size of a pint bottle of milk, and she does not require to be told that.
  It seemed to us, therefore, that the requirement to show the quantity marking in these two cases was quite unnecessary. When one-third pints are sold, on the other hand, they will have to carry the indication of quantity because there would be a possibility of confusion.
  What we are doing is to preserve the requirement in the Act that prepacked milk—I am sorry to speak of "prepacked" milk, but it is a convenient shorthand expression covering all the
  1052
  rules in the Statute—must be sold only in one of the specified quantities, one-third of a pint, half a pint and multiples of a half a pint. Buyers will be able to distinguish what they are, however, because the one-third bottle will still carry the marking that it is one-third, and the half-pints and pints will not be required to carry a quantity marking.
  It seems to us that this is a sensible solution to the problem. It will save dairymen and distributors unnecessary expense, and it will achieve the purpose intended.
  10.16 p.m.
  Mr. James Scott-Hopkins: In principle, I think that the Minister is taking the right decision here. The amount of waste which would have arisen if the regulations had been brought in in full would have been very great, and it is right in this particular case that an exemption should be made. Nevertheless, the hon. Gentleman is stretching the point a little when he says that there is no question of the principle being infringed here. In fact, it is, and, if the hon. Gentleman is honest—I know that he always is—he will admit that a special exemption for a particular type of product is being made and a precedent is thereby being set.
  How long does the hon. Gentleman intend that this exemption in respect of pint and half-pint bottles of milk should last? The main argument is that a vast number of pint and half-pint bottles would have to be destroyed if the regulations came into specific effect at 31st July, 1967. The hon. Gentleman will concede that the original weights and measures marking legislation is right in principle, and he argues merely that this Order is necessary because of the waste which would otherwise occur. But for how long does he envisage that it will be necessary to continue the Order in force? Will there be a period of grace of one year, two years, or four years? I should much prefer a definite date to be laid down so that the trade would know that, by a certain time, the regulations would come into full effect and there would be a requirement to mark all containers.
  I can well imagine the very same argument being put forward by whichever hon. Gentleman might be standing at this Box in four, five, six, seven, eight or

  1053
  nine years' time. I should regret it, and I am certain that the Minister himself would regret it. Will he consider bringing in a final date and announcing either tonight or by some suitable method the time by which he would expect and wish the Order to expire?
  There is a difficulty as regards vending machines. The exemption from marking is not to apply to vending machines. As I understand, most vending machines supply milk in cartons, not in glass bottles, and in that case the Order would not apply. But it will be difficult for the dairyman to know into which type of sales outlet particular bottles of milk he is distributing are likely ultimately to go. I can imagine a great deal of confusion arising at this stage.
  I should like to know how the hon. Gentleman thinks he will be able to apportion blame if a dairy has a man who is unable to say that a certain bottle is going to a machine and another is not. This is a point of some substance. I do not know how the blame will be apportioned. How does the hon. Gentleman see it happening? Presumably, there will be prosecutions under the original Acts if there are in vending machines glass bottles which are not marked. If an unmarked bottle which the dairyman thinks is covered by this exemption order gets into a vending machine and he has to be prosecuted, what will be his defence? We ought to know the answer to this, and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will tell us.
  My last point concerns the confusion which may arise in respect of the one-third pint bottles. The Minister was right when he said that there will be no difficulty at all in the consumer distinguishing between pint and half-pint bottles. But the difficulty may arise in distinguishing between half-pint and one-third pint bottles. The one-third pint bottle is not excluded by the Order and has to be marked, but confusion on the part of the consumer could well arise. No doubt the Minister will look at this point again. As the one-third pint bottle is not exempted, but the half-pint bottle is, I feel that there could be some difficulty in that the consumer could be buying the wrong measure.
  In principle, however, I welcome the fact that the Minister has brought the
  1054
  Order before the House. I am certain that he is right. However, I should like him to put a definite date on the length of time to be given to the dairying industry, for it wants to know how long it has got. There is a high percentage of wastage of glass bottles—30 per cent. or so—every year, and we should, therefore, like to know the definite period. We should also like to have answers to all the other points which I have mentioned. I trust that the Minister will reply to our remarks about details which will cause difficulty, but, basically, I think he is right to bring the Order forward.
  10.22 p.m.
  Mr. Peter Emery: I want to draw the attention of the House to one or two other aspects of the Order and elaborate somewhat more fully points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Scott-Hopkins).
  Perhaps we may clear up one thing at the start. I think the Minister can do this without difficulty. There is obviously some confusion over one point. As I read paragraph 1, the Statutory Instrument will give exemption only to pint and half-pint bottles but not to one-third pint bottles.
  Mr. Darling indicated assent.
  Mr. Emery: The Minister nods, and so that appears to be the answer. I think that meets the point made by my hon. Friend. If a one-third pint bottle is being marketed—I do not know about the term "one-third of a pint", the gill seems to be much more applicable—it is not exempted by the Order, and so the regulations would apply to it.
  I also want to follow the argument by my hon. Friend the Member for Cornwall, North about exemption. In this attempt to protect the consumer—the consumer is the ordinary individual, the ordinary shopper; not a company or a manufacturing combine—we do not want to see exemptions to what I regard as a fairly good Bill. It took a long time to get through Committee. We do not want to see the general principles being broken. However, there is one thing which makes a difference, and that is the number of bottles which have a form of printing externally for it can be argued that when the regulations come into operation these bottles will be void.

  1055
  There are two considerations. First, the industry orders 30 million bottles every six weeks. That is a vast number of transparent glass bottles. If the silk screening on certain retailers' bottles is to be continued, the cost over such a vast turnover is negligible. It is not something that must be taken into account.
  Most transparent bottles are in any case embossed with their measurements. If a firm wishes to put on the words "Buy our butter" or "Our creamery's cream is better",—not very original advertising but it often appears on bottles and there is no reason why it should not—I cannot see why, as with any other retailer or wholesaler or manufacturer, the measurement to be shown should not be applied in the new silk screening.
  I support the suggestion of my hon. Friend the Member for Cornwall, North that perhaps we should urge the industry to follow the general line of this regulation from which exemption is being given, so that, in a matter of two or three years, exemptions of this sort will automatically not be necessary. Surely this is something that could easily be complied with.
  It is all very well for the Minister of State to say that anyone can tell the difference between a pint and a half-pint bottle. I wonder how he felt the first time he went to Europe and had to buy a half litre of milk.
  Mr. Darling: I have never bought milk on the Continent.
  Mr. Emery: This is exactly the point I am trying to make.
  Mr. Darling: I have bought wine.
  Mr. Emery: I am not talking about wine, although I know the hon. Gentleman is a great expert on that side of agriculture and we hope to see certain exemptions concerning wine. But if I continue on that line, I shall be out of order.
  To anyone coming here who is used to the metric system, it is not clear what a pint or a half-pint may or may not be. There is there a reason for a small exemption. This reinforces the general argument that the principle of the regulation
  1056
  was right and that, as long as we do not have wastage, it will be worth while to return to the principle in two or three years time.
  The worry of my hon. Friend the Member for Cornwall, North, about vending machines can be and probably is being overcome, but nevertheless I want to question the Minister about it. I understand that regulations for sale by vending machines are entirely different from regulations under the Weights and Measures Act. In other words, an intending purchaser has to know what the machine is offering. But if a vending machine clearly states on the outside the weight or measurement that is being disposed, is it necessary that the measurement be on the bottle itself?
  On the window of a vending machine the item for sale is clearly marked. In the case of a milk vending machine, there is a sign in the window stating the amount of milk to be supplied on the insertion of the appropriate sum of money.
  Therefore, I would ask the Minister, is it not the case that the problem envisaged by my hon. Friend can be overcome so long as the vending machine clearly states to the intending purchaser the amount of milk he will be purchasing through the machine? If that is not the case, then the point made by my hon. Friend is very pertinent and I would ask the Minister whether he would look at the Orders and regulations affecting vending machines and whether he would clarify this point.
  It would be a nonsense if a dairyman could use half-pints when using bottles in a vending machine, but could not use other half-pints. My hon. Friend suggested that much of the milk is sold not in bottles, but in cartons, but there are vending machines, as everybody knows, which use bottles.
  I come to one other point, and this, again, affects the future. With the wastage of transparent glass bottles, which cost approximately 4d. each, there must be a great urge in industry to find some other packaging in order to cut the cost—perhaps by use of once-for-all, disposable units. I think that it is quite within the realms of possibility that there may be a transparent plastic container, similar perhaps to a bottle, though perhaps of a

  1057
  different shape; a container whose colour can be injected into its mould, and without anything like the complication involved if this were done with the ordinary glass bottle.
  Would it not be in the interests of this legislation that we should immediately revert to the requirements of the 1963 Act? I realise this would apply to wax paper containers, or something like that, but the words in the Order are "transparent bottle" and it may be possible to have transparent plastic bottles. This is a factor which may arise in the future.
  We on this side are prepared to meet the objection of the Dairymen's Association, and some of the farming community, and we are delighted to see what is here being done, but there are problems which we can see arising in the future, and if without harm to the dairymen and the people marketing milk we can return to the principles of the regulations, we on this side would want to do so.
  Mr. Darling: To take the last two points first. I think the hon. Member for Reading (Mr. Peter Emery) was under some slight confusion. The rules for vending machines are laid down in the Act.
  On the last point, we know very well that a great deal of research is going on into new forms of packaging. From many points of view the glass bottle is archaic. It is heavy, and the milk roundsman has to make many journeys because of the weight, not of the milk, but of the containers
  We hope that research will eventually provide a suitable container, much lighter in weight, but which can be used as far as possible with existing machinery. This is where most of the containers other than glass have failed. If other forms of container are devised, they will be covered by the Act. We might need—I do not say that we shall—new regulations to deal with them. This is a matter which we will look into, and if we have to provide new rules, we will come to the House and discuss them.
  The hon. Member for Cornwall, North (Mr. Scott-Hopkins) asked how long the Order will apply. It will apply as long as the dairymen sell milk in pint and half-pint bottles and as long as their customers are satisfied with the terms of the Order.
  I made it clear that the Act specifies that it is illegal to sell milk, leaving out
  1058
  for the moment thirds of a pint, except in multiples of half-pints. Therefore, it would be illegal to put anything but a pint of milk in a pint bottle. The housewife is, therefore, unlikely to be confused. Neither is the foreign visitor when he has found that we sell things in pints instead of litres. That is clear.
  Mr. Scott-Hopkins: The hon. Gentleman is saying, therefore, that he will not specify a time limit. Is he saying that he does not want the weights and measures marking provisions to be applied to pint and half-pint bottles?
  Mr. Darling: I thought I had proved that marking is quite unnecessary. One cannot legally put anything but a pint in a pint bottle. It would be illegal to put anything but a half-pint in a half-pint bottle. Therefore, because a pint is a pint and a half-pint is a half-pint, there is no need to go to all the expense of marking the bottles.
  A different point arises with thirds of a pint because there is a chance of confusion. The position, however, is clear. If the smaller bottle is unmarked, it will be a half-pint. If it is marked, it will be one-third of a pint, and it must be marked as one-third of a pint. That applies whether the one-third of a pint comes out of a vending machine or not.
  The hon. Member for Cornwall, North said, and the hon. Member for Reading repeated, that if the exemption were not applied to vending machines the dairyman would get into difficulties because some of his half-pints go into vending machines and must, therefore, be marked, whereas others go to domestic consumers and do not need to be marked. If hon. Members can find me any vending machines dispensing half-pint bottles of milk, or if there is any likelihood of this occurring, we will consider the matter again. The dairymen assure us, however, that this is a remote possibility.
  In any event, we have accepted the view of the dairymen that to exclude the one-third of a pint measure will not cause confusion. They are in favour of it. They think that it is absolutely right that the one-third-pint containers should be marked. There will be no confusion because, I repeat, if the smaller bottle has no mark on it, it will be a half-pint, and if it is one-third of a pint it must be marked.

  1059
  I agree with the hon. Member for Reading that we do not want to break the basic principles of the Act. That is why we have narrowed the Order to milk rather than apply it to a wide range of products. For all the reasons I have given, I do not think that the Order breaks the basic principles of the Act. From the viewpoint of practical trading, it enforces it.
  As for the silk screen argument, where we are dealing with advertisements on the bottle or the name which is to be printed in colour, there is a technical difficulty here. It was explained to me at great length, and I shall not weary the House with the explanation, but as long as we say that the quantity marking—assuming that we had stuck to the original regulations—has to stand out, it has to be in a different colour. The complexities of marking two colours on one milk bottle are so great that the operation would not be worth it. In any case, I am sure that I have proved to the satisfaction of the House that one pint and half-pint bottles do not need to be marked with the quantity.
  Mr. Peter Emery: I hope that I may have the leave of the House to ask for
  1060
  clarification on one point. It concerns the undertaking given by the hon. Gentleman at the beginning of his opening speech. I want to have it clearly understood that if people who are experimenting on new packaging for milk, especially with transparent containers, make a reasonable case for their use, the hon. Gentleman will be willing to introduce new regulations, or indeed a new Statutory Instrument, to help them.
  These people are trying to find a replacement for the present archaic form of packaging, and I hope that they will not be limited in their endeavours by having to look at the law and say that they must comply with it. If they put forward suggestions which abide by the principles of the Weights and Measures Act, will the hon. Gentleman be willing to bring forward a new Statutory Instrument to cover the new form of packaging?
  Mr. Darling: Certainly.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That the Weights and Measures (Exemption) (Milk) Order 1966, a draft of which was laid before this House on 26th January, be approved.

  DOUBLE TAXATION RELIEF (AGREEMENT WITH CANADA)
  10.42 p.m.
  The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Niall MacDermot): I beg to move,
  That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Double Taxation Relief (Taxes on Income) (Canada) Order 1966 be made in the form of the Draft laid before this House on 25th January.
  I fear that after the last debate the subject matter of this Order may seem a little dry. It seeks approval of a double taxation agreement which has recently been concluded with the Canadian Government. The occasion for concluding this agreement is that the previous comprehensive agreement, which dates from 1946, was terminated by the Canadian Government and ceased to have effect as regards United Kingdom Income Tax from April, 1965. The new agreement is to take effect from the date on which the old one ceased to operate, so that continuity will be preserved.
  This agreement is of an interim nature pending consideration by Canada of the report of its Royal Commission on Taxation, and also the weighing up of the consequences of the major tax changes contained in last year's Finance Act in this country. Accordingly, the agreement is of strictly limited scope. It covers only certain subjects—industrial and commercial profits, shipping and air transport profits, copyright royalties and pensions.
  Certain trading profits not arising through a permanent establishment and also shipping and air transport profits and copyright royalties derived from one country by a recipient of the other country, subject to certain conditions, will be taxed only in the country of the recipient's residence.
  These provisions are substantially similar to those which appeared in the old agreement. The main difference which is effected by the new agreement relates to the treatment of Government pensions. The old agreement distinguished between Government and non-Government pensions. The general rule was that Government pensions were taxed only by the paying Government, while non-Government pensions were taxed only by the country of residence of the recipient.
  1062
  This distinction is removed in the new Agreement, which provides that both types of pension are normally to be taxed in the country of residence of the recipient. There are provisions to see that existing Government pensioners are not placed in a worse position than they have been in up to now, and so they and their surviving spouses are to continue to be treated on the former basis unless the new basis is more favourable to them.
  The rest of the provisions are in common form, such as is found in most double taxation relief agreements.
  10.45 p.m.
  Mr. William Clark: I am sure that the House will agree that this is an extremely important agreement. The hon. and learned Gentleman more or less read out the Explanatory Note, but the House is entitled to more information. This is an agreement with North America, where we have an important dollar trade, and with sterling's present position our dollar trade is that much more important.
  I want to make a general point concerning the circumstances surrounding all double taxation agreements. It will be agreed that far too often these agreements come before the House without any indication of the surrounding circumstances concerning the countries involved. How does this agreement compare with the one which, I presume, has almost been signed with the United States? The agreement with the United States has been referred to in our financial journals, but up to now the House has no idea what is contained in it. This is a matter which the House should take extremely seriously.
  How is it that financial journals in this country can obtain details of agreements which, presumably, have not yet been signed, while Members of Parliament are not in a position to know what is in them? Will the hon. and learned Gentleman say something about the United States agreement? Does he not think that it would be a good idea that all double taxation agreements should be accompanied with more of the surrounding circumstances, so that we could know details of the trade between the two countries?
  It would have been interesting if the House could have known how many Canadian enterprises exist in the United

  1063
  Kingdom, and how many United Kingdom enterprises there are in Canada. Only in this way can we judge whether a double taxation agreement is favourable to us. We should also like to know how much capital is involved between the two countries. Will this country lose taxation revenue because of the disparity between the capital in this country and the capital in Canada?
  It will be within the knowledge of the House that Canada is an extremely important market to us. In 1964, Canada had a favourable balance of payments of about £259 million with this country. This is a relevant fact to take into account. Further, there is the question of interest on profits. How much is repatriated from Canada to the United Kingdom and vice versa? The Treasury must have this information.
  My second general point concerns the fact that this is only an interim Measure, dependent on the findings of the Commission set up by the Canadian Government. Has the Financial Secretary any idea of when this Commission will report and when we can expect a final double taxation agreement between the United Kingdom and Canada?
  In Article I, the Order gives the various taxes which are affected by the agreement in this country and Canada. It mentions taxes on profits in this country, but is silent on one notable point. There is no specific mention of the Capital Gains Tax. Why is it that there is mention of Income Tax, Surtax, Corporation Tax, and so on, but no mention of Capital Gains Tax? The Financial Secretary said that this agreement was necessitated by the fact that the old agreement had expired on 31st March, 1965. It will be remembered that, in 1965, there was a reform of our own taxation system. Why is there no mention in the new agreement of Capital Gains Tax?
  What is one to assume from that? Surely a Canadian subsidiary or a Canadian enterprise in this country will make capital gains. What is the position? Will they be taxed or will they not?
  I am sure that the Financial Secretary with his legal knowledge, will appreciate that Article II is a very important
  1064
  one. It makes new definitions of individuals having residence in both countries. Three examples are
  "…a permanent home available to him…,
  "…his personal and economic relations…"
  and
  "…his habitual abode…".
  These three expressions have not occurred before in our tax law. It would be helpful if the Treasury could give some guidance on the principles which they will follow in interpreting them.
  The Financial Secretary will appreciate that, in our Income Tax law, there are various expressions whose interpretation has been accepted in the courts of law, but this Order introduces three new expressions. Of course, no matter what the Treasury in this country says about interpretation of these expressions, Canada might interpret them differently. What then? I should like the Financial Secretary to answer these points.
  It will be noted that it is only where an individual is a national of both countries or of neither that Canada and this country can agree on the interpretation. But we in this country are in an extremely nice position. What about other Commonwealth citizens? Are they nationals under the Order? What about a Rhodesian? Is he a national under the Order? This is something which the Financial Secretary should explain.
  Article II (g, iii) has another definition of effective management. This tries to determine where the operation of the business is, whether in Canada or in this country. The expression "effective management" is used. Usually, the expression in tax law is "central control and management". The new expression displaces case law. This will bedevil case law in this country.
  There is an extraordinary situation in paragraph (j)(iii)(ee). It appears that if one maintains an advertising office in either territory it is not regarded as a permanent establishment and is exempt from the taxation of the country in which it is situated. Is this what the Government mean? Why do they exempt advertising offices? Surely the Government are fully conscious of the value of advertising and public relations officers. International advertising, to say nothing of national advertising, is large business. Yet

  1065
  according to this paragraph an advertising office is not considered to be a permanent establishment.
  Similarly, scientific research establishments are not considered to be permanent establishments. If any profits are made by the advertising office or the scientific research office they are exempt from taxation in the country where they are established. Presumably the reference to the exemption of "collecting information" lets out foreign newspapers.
  Article III(4) deals with the computation of profits. The paragraph is novel in double-taxation agreements because it reads:
  "In determining the industrial or commercial profits…there shall be allowed as deduction all expenses…including executive and general administrative expenses…"
  This is extremely difficult to interpret. Does it include service contracts for the giving of technical information? Does it include the salaries of overseas directors? Surely this must be a loophole in charging to profits. What about the entertainment done by the main company? Surely this must be a general administrative expense. Would the Financial Secretary give us his views on this subject and also tell us about the position of close companies in this country? If it is right under the Order—as presumably it is—to allow for executive and general administrative expenses in the computation of profits, how does this affect close companies and such provisions as directors' salaries, loan charges and distributions by close companies? Are Canadian subsidiaries in this country to be exempt?
  There is a further anomaly in Article III(6), which states that
  "the term ' industrial or commercial profits' does not include income in the form of…personal services."
  Does this exempt entertainers in this country? The earning of dollars by Canadian entertainers in this country is an extremely important matter. This may be a loophole in the Order.
  As the Financial Secretary said, there is a change in Article VII in regard to pensions paid by the Canadian Government to United Kingdom residents or pensions paid by Her Majesty's Government to Canadian residents. Has the Treasury worked out how much this will cost the British Exchequer? Previously, Canada taxed all Canadian pensions paid to
  1066
  United Kingdom residents. I am sure that the Financial Secretary will agree that anybody who was in the position of receiving a pension from the Canadian Government, subject to Canadian taxation was enjoying a lower rate of taxation than a person receiving a pension from Her Majesty's Government and receiving it in Canada.
  I do not know whether this is deliberate, but there is no mention of Government employees in embassies. Perhaps I have misread the Order, but it would seem that such employees have been forgotten in the pension provision.
  It has always been a facet of our tax law that residents in this country have 183 days or more in the year when they are regarded as being resident here. There is no mention of this in the Order. Neither is there any mention of a reduced withholding rate on dividends. While from the point of view of the United Kingdom it will be a withholding rate of only 15 per cent., what will the withholding rate be the other way round? There is no mention of teachers, professors and others who may come to this country or who may go from this country to Canada. What will be their taxation position?
  If a Canadian company grants a licence to a United Kingdom company—I am not now referring to a permanent establishment here—for the manufacture of goods, what will happen to the royalties on that licence? Will they or will they not be subject to Income Tax, Corporation Tax, and so on?
  To sum up, the Order is only an interim measure. When will it be finalised? The new definitions will need to be coaxed into our taxation case law. I cannot understand the coyness of Her Majesty's Government about the Capital Gains Tax. There appear to be loopholes in the arrangements from the point of view of advertising companies and entertainers and insufficient thought seems to have been given to the Corporation Tax aspect. I hope that the Financial Secretary will answer these questions either now or as soon as possible, because they are of extreme importance to the professional men who must see that the Order is complied with.
  11.4 p.m.
  Mr. MacDermot: With leave of the House, I will answer some of the plethora

  1067
  of questions which the hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. William Clark) directed towards me.
  The hon. Member will, of course, appreciate that many of them were of a highly technical nature, so that if I do not answer some of them—and I will not be able to answer them all—I will, if he will let me know which further questions he wants answered, give him all the assistance I can later. He will be aware that, in matters of this kind, it is difficult for one to answer some of the more highly technical questions immediately, from this Box, without prior notice having been given that they would be asked.
  The hon. Gentleman wanted to know, by way of background, how this agreement compares with what he called the double taxation relief agreement with the United States. He complained that he did not have more knowledge about what that contained. I take it that he was referring to the recent protocol initialled between the Government of the United States and Her Majesty's Government with a view to maintaining the existing comprehensive double taxation agreement with the United States. This agreement has not been signed, but as soon as that is done an Order will, of course, be laid before the House in the ordinary way, and there will then be an opportunity to debate it.
  Meanwhile, the hon. Gentleman himself referred to reports in the Press which are based on hand-out information given in the normal way by the Inland Revenue, and if it will assist him to have further particulars I will gladly see that he is supplied with a copy. In the meantime, this summarises in general the terms of the provisional agreement that has been reached, and a full Order will be laid before the House as soon as the final agreement is signed—
  Mr. William Clark: Surely it is not now the practice of the Inland Revenue to start negotiating agreements and, as it gets agreement on one particular point, to give a hand-out to the Press? Would it not be much better if the House of Commons were informed?
  Mr. MacDermot: The House of Commons cannot be informed until the Order is laid before it in the ordinary way, and, as there was interest in this agreement,
  1068
  no doubt announcements had been made in America in the ordinary way and particulars were issued to the Press. I shall be glad to give the hon. Gentleman any further information he may like to have, but I think that he will find it very accurately set out in the financial Press.
  As to how this agreement compares with the American one, the answer is that it does not compare at all, because one is an amendment of the comprehensive agreement covering all forms of double taxation relief, whereas this is only an interim agreement covering certain limited and specific items. For that reason, I suggest, with respect, that it is not very relevant in this context to seek to go into the whole surrounding circumstances of what our trade is with Canada, how much capital is concerned, and so on, as this is only a limited agreement covering the period until the new comprehensive agreement is concluded.
  The hon. Gentleman asked when the Canadian Royal Commission is expected to report. It is not for me to answer that question, but I understand that it is not likely to be before the summer, and it is not expected before the next Budget of the Canadian Government. He asked why this agreement does not extend to Capital Gains Tax. It is for the same reason, that this is a limited agreement confined to certain specific fields, and it covers the field of Income Tax. For this purpose, the Corporation Tax is embraced within the scope of Income Tax, it being, in effect, Income Tax paid by the companies—
  Mr. William Clark: But the hon. and learned Gentleman will agree that Capital Gains Tax is Income Tax, provided it is a short one, and there is no reason why Corporation Tax should be included if Capital Gains Tax is not.
  Mr. MacDermot: If it is a short one, it is Income Tax, and, therefore, it is regarded as Income Tax, but the reason why the Capital Gains Tax generally is not dealt with is that this is not, and does not purport to be, the new comprehensive agreement which will be negotiated as soon as the Canadian Government are in a position to start negotiations.
  The hon. Member asked a great many questions about various items in this

  1069
  agreement. As I am sure he is aware, there is keen interest in the matter, but a great deal of the form of this agreement, and many of the terms themselves are based on the recommendations of the Advisory Committee of the O.E.C.D., as have been other double taxation agreements which we have presented to the House in the last year or so.
  As to what the meanings of those terms are, in so far as they may not be already generally accepted and understood, as I think most of them will be, we will, of course, if any difficulty arises, consult the Canadian Government, but I think that the legal position is covered in the agreement itself by Article II(2), which provides:
  In the application of the provisions of this Agreement by one of the Contracting Governments any term not otherwise defined shall, unless the context otherwise requires, have the meaning which it has under the laws of that Contracting Government relating to the taxes which are the subject of this Agreement.
  Therefore, ultimately, in so far as it dealt with our taxes, it would be a matter which would fall to be determined, if need be, by the judicial interpretation of our courts.
  The hon. Gentleman then asked me a question specifically in relation to expenses of advertising offices. The point about this part of the definition of a permanent establishment is that profits have to be attributed to it before tax can be charged, and one cannot attribute profits to an office which in effect does nothing but advertise.
  The hon. Gentleman asked what would be the cost of these provisions, and he also asked what would be the rates of withholding taxation. Again, pending the conclusion of a comprehensive agreement, what happens is that each country will deduct taxes at its own internal rate. The effect, therefore, for the time being will be, as long as this interim agreement continues, that the Canadian Government will in general deduct withholding tax at the rate of 15 per cent., and in some cases I think it is reduced to 10 per cent.—in cases where there is a substantial Canadian
  1070
  shareholding in the business—and we will deduct our withholding tax at the standard rate of Income Tax which is 41¼per cent.
  On balance, we think that as far as the financial effect of the agreement on the United Kingdom is concerned, we should at the very least break even as a result of this agreement. Canada is not only giving up tax on Government pensions but on industrial and commercial profits, including shipping profits earned outside permanent establishments.
  The hon. Gentleman asked a question about executive expenses. I think it was in relation to Article III (4). He asked what was the meaning of these terms. I am not going to seek to give any definitive interpretation of the phrase in the Article, but the point here is that the expenses have to be those which would be deductible if the permanent establishment was an independent enterprise, which, I think, is a reasonable enough provision.
  Then the hon. Gentleman asked, in relation to paragraph (6) of this Article, whether the phrase "remuneration for…personal services" would include entertainment. I would only comment that I should have thought it unlikely, but that is a matter on which he is capable of bringing a different though probably a more expert professional judgment to bear than I am.
  As I said, if there are any specific questions to which I have not been able to reply and to which he would particularly like an answer, if he will let me know I shall be glad to do what I can to assist him. I hope that otherwise I have replied sufficiently to his more general questions.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Resolved,
  That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Double Taxation Relief (Taxes on Income) (Canada) Order 1966 be made in the form of the Draft laid before this House on 25th January.
  To be presented by Privy Councillors or Members of Her Majesty's Household.

  CRIMINAL LAW BILL
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question put pursuant to Order [27th October, 1965], That the Bill be now read a Second time.
  Question agreed to.
  Bill accordingly read a Second time.
  Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

  ROAD SAFETY [MONEY]
  Resolution reported,
  That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make further provision with respect to persons driving or being in charge of motor vehicles after consuming alcohol and with respect to goods vehicles, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of any expenses incurred by the Minister of Transport under the provisions of that Act relating to goods vehicles.
  Resolution agreed to.

  WAYS AND MEANS [10th February]
  Resolution reported,
  WAYS AND MEANS [10th February]

    ROAD SAFETY
    That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make further provision with respect to persons driving or being in charge of motor vehicles after consuming alcohol and with respect to goods vehicles, it is expedient to authorise the payment into the Exchequer of sums required to be so paid by virtue of the provisions of that Act relating to goods vehicles.
    Resolution agreed to.

  MAINTENANCE ORDERS (ENFORCEMENT)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. If or Davies.]
  11.15 p.m.
  Miss J. M. Quennell: I should like to draw the attention of the House to the non-payment of a maintenance order by a husband in New Zealand to his wife in this country, and, in doing so, draw attention, also, to the very unsatisfactory state of the arrangements existing between the United Kingdom and New Zealand for the enforcement of maintenance orders.
  1072
  There are probably many cases, because since I have been interesting myself in this constituency case my hon. Friend the Member for Wanstead and Woodford (Mr. Patrick Jenkin) and my hon. Friend the Member for Chigwell (Mr. Biggs-Davison) have had similar constituency cases and both wish to be associated with this Adjournment debate.
  I cannot but feel that there is something rather suitable for this very tail-end of St. Valentine's Day that a spinster and, in the person of the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, a bachelor, should be discussing the non-payment of maintenance orders between husbands and wives.
  The case to which I draw attention is very unsatisfactory. It has drifted on for 2½ years, during which time the unfortunate wife has never succeeded in obtaining the moneys due to her under an order made in a court in this country. I can best deal with it in strict chronological order as the events which affected the respective Government Departments and courts came up, without raising the various issues between the parties concerned.
  On 4th October, 1963, a complaint was made by a wife on the grounds of desertion and wilful neglect to maintain. It is probably the wish of the House that I do not refer to the wife by name. On 6th November, 1963, an order for £3 10s. a week was made on both grounds. The husband, though absent, was represented by a solicitor who admitted the desertion and wilful neglect. On 27th November, 1963, the purser of the S. S. "Northern Star" served an order on the husband in Fremantle and in February, 1964, the husband made an allotment from his pay to the wife. In April, 1964, the husband left his employers, the Shaw Saville line, and in September, 1964, he left for Australia, the maintenance order having been paid up to 16th September, 1964. That was the last of it that his wife ever saw.
  On 18th November, 1964, the wife appeared before Petersfield Magistrates' Court and applied for the order to be registered in Australia, the husband having fallen into arrears of payment. On 19th November, 1964, all the necessary papers were sent to the Home Office. On 2nd December, 1964, the Home Office acknowledged receipt of the papers, the

  1073
  acknowledgment being marked MOR/102/131/1, saying that the file had been forwarded to the Commonwealth Relations Office for transmission to Australia.
  Six days later the clerk to the court informed the Home Office that he had information that the husband had flown on to New Zealand from Australia, which intelligence the Home Office duly acknowledged. On 15th January, 1965, the husband's solicitor in New Zealand wrote to the wife inquiring whether she had taken steps to enforce in New Zealand. Here, the respective solicitors for both parties began to communicate, but with no progress made and no money received the wife approached me.
  On 10th March, 1965, I approached the Commonwealth Relations Office. This was acknowledged on 11th March, and on l8th March, 1965, the C.R.O. replied more fully saying that it had recovered the papers from Australia on 22nd January and forwarded the file to the Home Office, which, unfortunately, did not send them on to New Zealand until 16th March, 1965. There appears to have been a delay in the transmission of those papers, while they were in the hands of the Home Office, of just over seven weeks. I should be most obliged to the Under-Secretary if he could explain why this was so, because it occurred in face of requests for information from the clerk and my own inquiries earlier in the month via the C.R.O.
  At this point in time, the Home Office advised the clerk that the Maintenance Orders (Facilities for Enforcement) Act, 1920, did not apply because it was no longer operative in New Zealand, other legislation having superseded it. This is rather important. On 5th April, 1965, the order was registered in the magistrates' court in Christchurch, and on 18th May, 1965, the Home Office notified the Petersfield magistrates' clerk of the registration.
  On 1st June, I ascertained that the Home Office had suggested that the two courts might now communicate directly, a most sensible suggestion, but on 1st July, 1965, the wife's solicitor was advised that the husband had filed a complaint for variations in the order.
  Here I must mention an important piece of legislation on the New Zealand
  1074
  Statute Book which markedly affects the enforcement of maintenance orders made in this country. I refer to the Destitute Persons (Amendment) Act, 1963. Under this Act, a court in New Zealand has power to cancel, vary or suspend the operation of a maintenance order for the purposes of New Zealand law or for the purposes of New Zealand law to remit wholly or in part any arrears due under a maintenance order.
  I cannot quote the Act in full, but it effectively undermines the reciprocal arrangements which formerly had been thought to exist between this country and other Commonwealth countries. It would not be putting it too strongly to say that, if this Act becomes widely known, New Zealand will rapidly become a haven for absconding husbands elsewhere in the Commonwealth.
  All this time, the unfortunate wife had still not received a penny of the maintenance money due to her. The case is made a little more poignant by the fact that she is a tubercular woman and she also has a duodenal ulcer. She cannot carry on in normal full-time employment as an ordinary person can, and, were it not for the kindness of a friend, she would be in dire straits. And, as I have said, hers is not the only case of this kind.
  So the sorry story proceeds. On 10th September, 1965, the Home Office informed me that there had been a hearing before the Christchurch magistrates on 2nd August, which had been adjourned till 16th August. The Home Office did not know the outcome of the second hearing. This raises another point as regards communications between our two countries. They are appallingly slow. A month after the hearing, the Home Office was still ignorant of the outcome. This is another matter which must be looked into.
  I prodded the Home Office on 23rd September, 1965. I received an answer on 18th October. Perhaps I was optimistic in expecting an earlier reply. Now, the husband was demanding a divorce from his wife, but she was told by her solicitors, she says, that
  "right or wrong, I would quite likely be landed with the costs of divorce, with the onus on me to recover them from my husband afterwards".

  1075
  In this the Home Office concurred, saying in a letter to me on 19th October that
  "An order for costs in her favour presents the same difficulties that the maintenance order has already revealed".
  The sorry plight of a wife in this country is that she can neither get her money from her husband nor get herself detached from the brute.
  Meanwhile, no maintenance has been received by the wife, and neither had any communication whatever been received by the Petersfield court arising from the proceedings in the Christchurch court on 16th August previously. Nevertheless, the Christchurch court had, in fact, remitted the case on that date for the taking of further evidence from a court in this country. The Christchurch magistrates having remitted the case, the papers were returned to the Secretary of Justice at Wellington on or after 16th August.
  On 13th December, I again approached the Home Office, pointing out that no communication of any kind had been received by the Petersfield court or by the wife and that, unless someone knew what further evidence was required by the Christchurch court, it could not be provided in this country.
  On 10th February I received a letter from the Home Office. I would be most grateful to the Under-Secretary if he could explain some phrases in it. In it he refers to the Department of Justice in New Zealand's not sending on the documents after they had been received from the Christchurch Magistrates' Court. He states:
  "The Department's reason for not doing so was that it had been, assumed from comments in Home Office correspondence dealing with other cases that in the present instance the Petersfield court would be unable to cooperate."
  I do not understand how the Home Office could have suggested to any other country's Government that the British courts would not or could not cooperate. It seems a very unfortunate phrase.
  But today, this evening, nearly two and a half years after the wife first brought her complaint, she has received no maintenance from her husband since he left
  1076
  the Shaw Saville line, nor has she been able to obtain relief from the unsatisfactory matrimonial incubus to which she seems to be eternally attached. Nor do I think that the failures in the arrangements for communication between the two courts can be described as satisfactory in any way, shape or form. I should be most grateful if the hon. Gentleman would at some future time direct his Department's attention to this deplorable state of affairs with a view to reviewing the legislation, and perhaps now answer the few questions that I have put to him.
  11.27 p.m.
  The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. George Thomas): I am most obliged to the hon. Lady the Member for Petersfield (Miss Quennell) both for her courtesy in notifying me of the matters which she wished to raise and for the restraint with which she has dealt with what is undoubtedly a distressing case. I do not quarrel at all with her dates and her chronological recital of events. She obviously keeps a good file. I congratulate her on being able to quote the dates on which she wrote to me. It being St. Valentine's Day, I much appreciate that she has kept the interest. But this is a very serious case, and I hope to do justice in the time left to me to the serious issues that have been raised.
  To explain the sequence of events, it is necessary to say something about the legislative background, which is somewhat complex. The Maintenance Order (Facilities for Enforcement) Act, 1920, gives courts here power to send maintenance orders abroad for enforcement and power to enforce orders sent here from overseas. The Act provides in either case for the order to be transmitted by the Secretary of State. Different procedures apply according to whether the defendant left the country before or after the order was made. If the order was made while both parties were in the same country it is sent to the overseas court, where it is registered and then enforced in accordance with the ordinary local machinery.
  If, however, the parties were in different countries when the order was made, the procedure is somewhat more complex. In that situation the Act gives the court where the wife is power to make a provisional order only, which is of no effect unless and until it is confirmed by a

  1077
  court where the husband is. The confirming procedure involves the hearing of the defendant's evidence, and, in the light of that evidence, the confirming court has power to confirm the order as originally made, to confirm it with modification, to refuse to confirm it or to remit the case to the original court for further evidence to be taken from the complainant.
  The 1920 Act was passed after consultations with overseas Governments who, in turn, proceeded to pass similar legislation giving their own courts the necessary powers to transmit orders for enforcement overseas and to enforce orders sent to them from abroad. The bulk of the overseas Commonwealth legislation is very closely modelled on the 1920 Act, but there has, as the hon. Lady said, been amending legislation in New Zealand which has a direct bearing on the unfortunate case to which she has drawn our attention.
  It may be helpful if, before I turn to the effect of that legislation on the case, I briefly recount the events. The maintenance order was made in the wife's favour on 6th November, 1963, at Petersfield Magistrates' Court. The husband was then in England and the order was made under the ordinary domestic law. He later left for Australia and on 19th November, 1964, the Petersfield court forwarded a copy of the order, together with other documents, for registration and enforcement in Australia. On 8th December, 1964, however, after the documents had left the Home Office, the Petersfield court again wrote to the Home Office with the information that the husband had now gone to New Zealand.
  Unfortunately, the statutory arrangements do not allow orders for enforcement in one country to be sent on from that country to another and we had to communicate with Australia in order to have the documents sent back here to be sent from us again to New Zealand. They were eventually sent to New Zealand on 16th March. The hon. Lady asked me about the delay of seven weeks. In the meantime, I understand, the Petersfield court had sought further advice from the Home Office on some technical details which involved much consideration with other Departments than our own. That accounts for the delay.
  1078
  In May, 1965, we were informed by the New Zealand authorities that the order had been registered at Christchurch Magistrates' Court on 5th April, 1965. There appeared to be some confusion as to the exact date of registration of the order. After further inquiries, this date was confirmed. It was also established that enforcement proceedings were being taken in August.
  The next that we in the Home Office heard about enforcement of the order was on 13th January, when the hon. Lady, with considerable diligence, told me that the complainant's solicitor had been informed that the Christchurch court had remitted the case for the taking of further evidence in connection with the variation and enforcement proceedings in New Zealand but that nothing had been heard of this step by the court in England.
  The Home Office, it is true, was not then aware that the New Zealand court had attempted to remit the case for the taking of further evidence and we started to make inquiries of the New Zealand authorities. On 20th January last, we received a despatch from New Zealand stating that the Christchurch court's request for the taking of further evidence had not been sent on to the United Kingdom because the Home Office in the past had expressed the view that no provision existed for English courts to take further evidence in connection with proceedings in a New Zealand court to vary a registered order.
  That accounts for the part of the letter I sent the hon. Lady, and which puzzled her. The Petersfield court had no power to compel witnesses to come forward and to give evidence. We felt, therefore, that we could not ask the court to undertake this task. However, there was a misunderstanding. Further consideration was given to the matter. It has since been reviewed, and the conclusion has been reached that there is no objection to following the practice long adopted in the case of provisional orders, and inviting the court to take further evidence as requested by the overseas court, even although the court in this country has no power to compel witnesses to give evidence.
  Miss Quennell: Who would issue the invitation to the court to take further evidence?
  Mr. Thomas: I presume we would—the Home Office. I see I presume aright.
  The New Zealand authorities have been asked to send here the request for further evidence in this case, and their reply is now awaited. I ought to emphasise that this order was registered for enforcement on 5th April, 1965. From that date until 30th August the ordinary enforcement machinery in New Zealand applied. After that, it was complicated by the application for variation. The position is, of course, that the enforcing court retains the ultimate discretion. If, in its view, it would be unjust to enforce to the full, or at all, this must be accepted.
  The two main factors which have made these proceedings so unfortunately protracted—and I am deeply sorry for this woman: I know that sympathy does not meet her needs, but I am sorry, none the less—were the initial misdirection of the documents to Australia, rather than to New Zealand, and the decision by the New Zealand authorities, taken in the light of earlier Home Office advice, not to remit the Christchurch court's request for the taking of further evidence.
  I should like to express to the hon. Member and her constituent my regret that, for a variety of reasons, the procedure has not operated as quickly as it should have done. At the outset, of course, the movement of the husband from Australia to New Zealand inevitably led to delay, and in the latter half of last year the Home Office had no reason to think that the two courts in New Zealand and in England were not satisfactorily in touch with each other. Nevertheless, I accept that, despite the complications of the law, and the long lines of communication between us and New Zealand, some part of this delay could have been avoided. I can well
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  understand that the hon. Member and her constituent are impatient with this sort of proceedings. I only hope that there are not other women in the same position, waiting and waiting for an order to be enforced.
  The fact is that two systems of law are involved, as well as two administrative machines. There are inevitably longer postal delays than there would be if the matter were entirely local. The need to ascertain the appropriate court and to transfer the proceedings if the defendant has moved imposes further delay. We are very conscious of the delay and we in the Home Office are re-examining the routine procedures to see whether, by one means or another, they cannot be accelerated.
  I would, perhaps, not be out of order in saying that we have had under review the deficiencies in the Maintenance Order (Facilities for Enforcement) Act, 1920, and that the matter, I am pleased to tell the hon. Lady, has been noted for discussion when convenient at a conference of Commonwealth Law Ministers. I cannot make any commitment about when it may be possible to introduce new provisions, but until the law is changed those of us who are part of the administrative machine must do the best we can to improve our procedures.
  The hon. Lady has rendered a public service by drawing attention to the suffering that can be caused through nobody's fault in particular, but through an involved process of law. I assure her that we will do our outmost to speed up a routine procedure that must be followed, since we ourselves are servants of the law.
  Question put and agreed to.
  Adjourned accordingly at nineteen minutes to Twelve o'clock.

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